One way to add depth to the posts that you write on your blog is to include the opinions of others on the topics that you’re exploring. The way that I see it is that when I write a post with just my own thoughts in it it can end up being a little one dimensional – but when I draw upon the experience of others also posts have the potential to become 2… or even 3 dimensional.
How do I do it?
Here are five ways that I’ve used lately to include the opinion of others in my posts:
1. Twitter – one of the things that I love about Twitter is that it has the ability to create instant conversations around virtually any topic. Next time you’re writing a post ask a question or two of your ‘followers’ on Twitter. Ask them for examples, get their opinion or survey them on their behavior on the topic you’re exploring.
Example: in my post with 9 benefits of Twitter I showed an example of this when I was writing a post about RSS and asked my ‘followers’ how many feeds they read each day. Within minutes I had over 30 answers.
2. LinkedIn Q&A – yesterday I decided to test the Questions and Answer feature on LinkedIn for the first time. I asked 200 of my connections about what social media services they use. 24 hours later 70 of those that I asked have given their opinion. What surprised me the most was the depth that some of the answers had in them with people really putting some effort into their responses.
3. Ask Your Readers – the last method is perhaps the most obvious, ask your blog readers for their opinions. Posts that are simply questions are great ways of getting comments on your blog but their real potential is to learn what your readers think. For example in the last week I asked readers about how they’d promote a new blog – I had just under 40 responses so far, some of which I featured in a followup post.
4. Google Your Topic – I’m surprised that I don’t see this done more but perhaps one of the most obvious ways to get a quote for a post you’re writing is to Google the topic and see what others have written on it previously. Rarely a topic goes by that some blogger hasn’t already covered in some way so it’d make sense to research it. Perhaps it’s our obsession with ‘fresh content’ that makes a little snobby towards what others have written previously – but I think it’s something well worth doing.
5. Target Specific Bloggers/Readers – the last method is where you ask a question of specific people. I’ve noticed more and more bloggers doing this lately – they write a post and then send an email out to 4-5 other bloggers in their niche to ask them for a quote or to do a ‘one question interview’. They then include these short quotes in their post – giving it more depth and also can add some expertise to your post (if you choose the right people to feature).
