14 Oct

Emotion and truth: clear winners

This post may involve a little bit of work on the part of the reader, and they may need to dedicate a little bit of time to it. To give you the gist though: the best received, most shared writing (or speech) – whether for commercial or personal purposes – will always be based on one of two things (or both);

1. Emotion
2. Truth

(there isn’t a correct order to these two)

It’s very simple: we’re human. We’re emotional beings. We respond to things that resonate with us – that strike a chord. In fact, very often the reason we don’t respond to marketing and advertising messages is because they sound phoney, disingenuous, alien to our ears. They certainly lack truth.

I read three blog posts, this week, that had me absolutely gripped (and have been shared, ‘liked’, and praised many times over, by various people), because they are based on raw emotion and truth.

Here they are. You may well be pushed for time and think ‘I can’t be bothered reading these’, but I highly recommend that you do:

First up, a beautiful post by someone who I consider to be a friend – despite only having met a handful of times – and have the utmost time and respect for (both as a professional and an individual).
Sadly, his Mum passed away recently – quite suddenly. This post is a wonderful tribute to her and a reflection on how we live our lives in general.

Another cracking post, written by a friend and prolific blogger who consistently writes good stuff. It’s an oh-so-true commentary on the fact that we don’t laugh or have fun anywhere near enough, particularly when there are so many serious things going on around us (Ebola, strikes, war, terror, famine … open any newspaper). Also, does ‘professional’ have to mean ‘serious’?

Another post by a friend (I either have too many bloggers who are friends or too many friends who are bloggers… can’t work out which), which I mentioned only yesterday. This falls under both ’emotion’ and ‘truth’. In fact, it’s about as emotionally raw and truthful a post as you’ll read for quite some time. It’s actually based on her personal life over the last few years, and the things that she’s overcome, but it plays into her current business successes and what she’s learnt. Well worth a read.

And so, to me. I write another blog. Generally, what I write on there falls into the category ‘fun and frivolous’ – rants about things that aren’t of any great significance. Sometimes I write about something ‘real’ though. Here are two posts that got likes, shares, and pulled in over 1,000 views, which – for a hobby blog – isn’t too bad:

This one isn’t so much emotional, but it ticked the ‘true’ box about how – in reality – men and women go about modern day dating.

This is by far and away my most successful post on ‘Grrr’ in recent months. It pulled in 600 views on the first day it was up. It got a few ‘likes’, shares, and comments. Why? Because it’s ‘true’ and it’s based on emotion – it’s about feelings. I was also really into it as I was writing it. I wasn’t just writing something to be read.

Again, you don’t have to view all of these posts, but if you want to write stuff that resonates, stuff that gets people talking, and stuff that gets shared, then write from emotion and truth: guaranteed winners, every time.

 

 

 

 

 

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