Welcome back from the weekend!
Poor, rainy, chilly weather in Boston has got me aching for summer. With June closing in rapidly, the entertainment industry is also trying to hype up the summer with blockbuster movie trailers. Teens will flock to the latest Twilight installment, comic book fans to X-Men: First Class, and seemingly everyone to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two. But wait—these all sound familiar. 2011 is the year of the sequels, making up one-fifth of the entire currently scheduled nationwide releases. And people fall all over themselves for this stuff. Characters they know. Plots they want to unfold. (Where am I going with this?)
Blogs! Why can’t we take the same serial, expected, anticipated theory of the blockbuster sequel and bring it to blogs? For Bloggers, By Bloggers says that we should be learning from Hollywood in jumping on the power of a hot, hot blog post. Aim to be The Godfather Part II not Breakin’ 2: Electric Bugaloo.
Once you have gained traction with a serial blog post, you should publicize. ProBlogger has some tips on helping make a blog post go as viral as the latest Andy Samberg digital short. This is not the first time that the power and influence of headlines has been touted (not to mention their SEO power!). Titles and headlines should compel readers to read; practically dare them not to.
When your blogging community does start reading and following your killer (Scream 4-style) serialized content, don’t forget to give them a big thank you. Follow suit and comment on other great blogs you have enjoyed reading. Grammar girl has some tips on how to perfect that seemingly-simple blog comment.
What about you? If you stumble across any interesting links about content creation, please leave them in the comments section and maybe I’ll feature them on next week’s Round-up.
