5 content creation lessons from journalists

This requires a whole lot more than just writing nice turns of phrase. It requires doing research, reading widely, and interacting with others. With that in mind, we’ve outlined five things that content marketers can learn from journalists:

1. Engage the reader from the start

In journalism, the first sentence of a story is called the “lede.” Journalists are taught to work on their ledes, then go back and work on them some more. This is because they need their stories to hook the reader right away, instead of trying to engage them once they’re halfway through the story (assuming they made it that far).

In content creation, the same principle applies, but instead of the first sentence, the thing you need to focus on is the title/headline. In a sense, this makes writing a blog article much more challenging. You have to constantly ask yourself, “How do I make an article seem engaging and useful within the span of 70 characters? If I saw this on Facebook or Twitter, would I click on the link?” Just as journalists tweak and fine-tune their ledes, you should do so with your titles.

2. Do your research