Traditional journalists have full-time editors to catch errors and massage prose. Bloggers on the other hand have me, myself, and I. How many of you have spent an hour editing a finished post only to publish and maddeningly find more errors? It happens all the time because after the third revision, our mind’s eye turns blind.
Although bloggers are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to quality control, we have a tremendous resource unmatched by any traditional journalist. We have an interactive audience that constantly provides us feedback. Even if you only have a handful of commenters on each post, five minds are enough to change the world. Through audience interactions we are able to then go back to our original post and make it that much better.
Some might wonder why traditional journalists don’t have an even bigger advantage over bloggers given they are publishing on much larger platforms. Given they go through a rigorous editing process before publication, they spend little-to-no time on their posts post publication. When was the last time you saw a journalist respond to comments online? NEVER! I disagree with this approach because ideas are fluid. No piece is ever perfect. Given bloggers are the content creators AND platform owners, it’s very easy to go back to our dashboard and edit our posts.
HOW TO HARNESS YOUR AUDIENCE TO CREATE YOUR BEST WORK
Even after spending almost 20 years in America, good grammar and punctuation does not exactly come easy to me. I often find myself questioning sentence structure in my head. Grammar between eastern and western language is sometimes in reverse, causing pause to those who grew up speaking both.
In English we say, “Where are you going?” In Mandarin, we say, “You go where? (Ni qu nar?)” At least in Japanese it’s the same with “Doko Ikuno.” However, if you want to master formal Japanese, then good luck Chuck! Imagine how confused your mind can become if you attempt to communicate on more complex topics such as personal finance. What we think we’re saying is often different from what we are actually saying. As a result, it is imperative to utilize your audience to improve your work.
Three Things To Do
1) Tell your story. The reason why The New York Times is one of the best organizations because of its cadre of full-time professional writers and an infrastructure that promotes quality. Unfortunately, we have nowhere near the resources of The Times. What we do have is our own personal story. It’s important to state upfront in your About page or at the end of each post who you are. By telling your story, you should be able to create a more intimate connection with your readers. Once you’ve created a connection you’re then able to propel them to share their stories and insights to make your work better.
2) Ask your audience for help. When you ask your audience for editorial help, you invite them further into your world. By admitting your flaws in your About page or during the course of conversation in the comments section, your audience will be more eager to help. Feel free to specifically ask your readers to help catch factual, grammatical, punctuation, and omission errors.
3) Consider your publication a new first draft. Given we know we are not perfect, it’s time to soak up all the feedback from our audience once our article is published. Listen to the comments and re-read your article several more times. With each punctuation and grammatical error you find, immediately go back and fix. Comments generally provide keys to miscommunication or misintention. What you thought might be innocuous, might be offensive to others for example. Work with your commenters to see if you can make your article more clear.
4) Set aside time to rework older articles. Whenever you receive a pingback take a moment to re-read your article and make improvements. Our writing quality generally improves over time. I spend around one hour every week going through older posts and buttressing them with information and new insights. It’s also a good idea to interlink relevant new articles into old articles. We often simply do the reverse.
EXAMPLES WHERE THE AUDIENCE MAKES A POST BETTER
Example #1: Recommended Net Worth Allocation By Age
This post attempts to help readers better allocate their wealth so they can fully participate in an upturn, and lose less in a downturn. After over 40 revisions and 10 hours, I was burnt out and could no longer stand writing the post.
One of the unique attributes of the post are three proprietary charts to help visually explain the net worth allocation mix by age. One of the column titles is “Stocks,” which I thought the audience would realize is the generic term for “equities” (stocks, index funds, mutual funds, ETFs, equity derivatives). I was wrong. After reading comments on Financial Samurai as well as comments on other sites which highlighted the post, I realized many readers took the term “Stocks” in the absolute literal sense of only investing in individual stocks. One reader for example said, “I would never invest individually in stocks. I’ve got all my money in index funds.”
Thanks to feedback from readers, I changed the column to “Stocks (Equities)” and included the following bullet point in the assumptions section: “Stocks include individual stocks, index funds, mutual funds, ETFs, equity structured notes. Bonds include government treasuries, corporate bonds, municipal bonds, high yield bonds, and TIPs.”
Example #2: Are There Really People Who Work 40 Hours A Week Or Less?
After listening to some annoying conversations filled with complaints about work on my bus ride home, I finally snapped and penned this post as a way to vent. The post highlights four data points which show people complaining about work and why they don’t get rewarded more for their efforts. My simple conclusion for success is to either 1) work harder and smarter than everybody else or 2) make everybody else work less or look dumber.
Within days of publishing the post, I was blitzed with over 100 comments defending why it’s OK to only work 40 hours a week. “Work to live” became the common mantra as everybody piled on saying people who work too much are basically losers, even though I used President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg as examples of people who clearly work way more than 40 hours a week.
I began to tire about arguing my point about having a strong work ethic, so I decided to do one thing to emphasize the real point of the article. I changed the title to, “Are There Really People 40 Hours A Week Or Less And COMPLAIN Why They Can’t Get Ahead?” I left out the second part of the title because I like titles that fit on one line. Besides, I spent 850 words explaining why people shouldn’t complain why they can’t get ahead if they aren’t working more. Now the message is crystal clear thanks to my readers complains.
Example #3 Build Robust Online Traffic By Speaking From Left To Right
The post’s original title was, “Build Robust Online Traffic By Speaking To The Lowest Common Denominator.” Before publishing, I asked several trusty readers what they thought, and one of them highlighted someone might be offended. I had an inkling someone would react this way because nobody wants to be labeled, “the lowest denominator.” The tone on Yakezie.com has always been noncontroversial and more matter-of-fact. As a result, I changed the title to “Left to Right” to acurately describe the normal distribution chart while leaving “lowest denominator” in the content for more perspective.
The deeper meaning in the post is that boring, regurgitated, generic content sells in personal finance. It doesn’t seem to pay as much to be unique or introduce fresher concepts such as an Expense Coverage Ratio for retirement. But, as one reader pointed out quite aptly, “People need basic help with money, and I don’t see that ever changing. Not that you always have to write about simple topics, but you may need to start there and then lead them to more and more advanced topics.” Perhaps we all need to have some the boring basics down and gradually move towards more unique posts.
OUR AUDIENCE MAKES US BETTER
Effective communication through writing is difficult. It’s hard to hear a writer’s tone and intention sometimes. We must reach out to our respective audiences and ask them to join along for the ride. We’re all trying to improve ourselves. If we can grow together, our community will be that much tighter.
Readers, do you utilize your audience to help improve your articles? What are some of the ways you go about improving your content? Please point out errors in this post if you see them!
Photo: Buddy The Dog Posing In Front Of Lake Tahoe, 2012, SD.
Regards,
Sam
I have never asked openly for help, a few readers have tiptoed around, almost apologizing for pointing out errors, which I have gratefully accepted. Like you English is not my first language so I guess it makes it easier to accept help, a native may be offended when you point out mistakes. As a foreigner I wouldn’t dare correct a native, even though I cringe at the bad typos sometimes.
We all improve with practice, and I often revisit old posts to amend them.
I often find those who speak English as a second language have even BETTER English, at least written since they were taught more formally.
PS your URL is how to have an editor for fre not free
Corrected! Thanks. I’ve found WordPress 3.5 CUT OFF the last letter of URLs in many posts. It’s maddeningly weird. Heads up folks!
Thanks for this intriguing post Sam. As I have read your blog, and a few others, over the past month I have been drawn to the comments. I think the interactivity of blogging is one of my favorite things. I have struggled to understand how to get that sort of conversation started on my blog and this post is very helpful. Here’s to making more of an effort to encourage “audience participation”!
Good luck! It’s definitely a skill that can be honed over time. You figure out where the trigger pullers are. Or, you can just do those blog giveaways to get folks out of the woodwork. But that’s not as fun :)
I have never asked for help but I know how it feels to edit and edit and then find a typo – you want to scream and hide in a corner; well, I do anyway. Co-production is a powerful approach in any area and this includes blogging. However, how much discussion there is on a blog depends on many things not least of which is what kind of blog it is (information, story or diary type) and one’s writing style. But could you say that ‘good’ content gets comments and ‘bad’ content doesn’t? How does one involve their audience?
Just straight out an ask is the best way in the article at the bottom or in the comments.
I’ve had plenty of examples where I thought my message was pretty clear, but it seemed everyone was missing the point. My post on emergency funds is a great example. I was trying to talk about Dave Ramsey’s recommendation in his book of starting with $1000 while paying off debt and my finding that $1000 just wasn’t enough. I thought I did a good job of explaining myself, but half the comments were along the lines of “of course, $1000 isn’t enough, you should have 3, 6, 200 months worth of savings!”
But then again, there are always going to be people who feel the need to comment without actually reading the content. Yesterday, I was reviewing a post by a plugin developer about why he made a very specific decision to limit a certain feature. And one of the comments was asking if the developer could expand that feature!
Funny how we think one thing and our readers end up thinking another right? The problem with longer beefy articles is we tend to lose the reader. Hence, it’s important to break up our articles into segments and use bold sometimes.
Sam, thanks for another great article. I often take my readers comments to heart and rework posts for clarity or to add additional information. I’m intrigued that you spend one hour every week going through old articles and tweaking them. Is this primarily for seeking linking opportunities, or to improve quality, or both?
I dedicate an hour a week reworking old posts because I want to constantly improve on the quality of the articles. A lot of times, there is new legislation and new info that passes that I need to add for relevancy.
Also, I get pingbacks at times of old articles I’ve written. If I do, I’ll spend the time to re-read the old articles and see whether I can make them better.
I spend a lot of time to create something different, interesting and something that will get attention . Sometimes I read something in a comment and use it for another article. I reread my article a minimum of 3 times to catch errors.
You are a commenting machine, which I’m very impressed with. Even after my article is published, I probably end up re-reading the article 3-5X to make sure I’m not missing something.
I love the idea of interlinking newer articles into old, I never thought of that!!! I occasionally rework an older article and republish, otherwise, lots of great material just gets buried.
Or just as importantly, older articles linking to new!
As a licensed financial professional, I find myself picking apart technical articles a little more than I should. I probably commented on your use of stocks as a blanket term for equities (not really). I let the grammatical errors slide because I’m guilty of many in my posts. Its amazing what the brain perceives as correct when you’re proof reading.
I can see how one would want to pick apart articles written in their own field. The issue is not everyone wants to get picked apart, but I do. I want to be thoroughly raked over the coals by my users so I can make my articles better!
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Love these insights, I actually have to go back and rework 12 of my original posts because they were written when I first started the blog.