Eight Tips For Contributing To A Sponsored Website

In my work at Federated Media, I spend a lot of time helping bloggers understand how they can best contribute to a conversational marketing website. The authors are always in control of the content that they create, but many of them ask for additional guidance. Here are a few of the tips that I end up giving most often.

1. Make numbered lists. Case studies have shown that posts made from numbered lists tend to be among the most popular and most commented-upon, and that’s not just because of Guy Kawasaki. Lists also provide an easy-to-follow structure for the writing of your post.
2. Use simple formatting. If you’re uploading the content yourself, then the site might use a CMS that you’re not used to, and inserting all your formatting could be a pain. And if someone else is uploading the content for you, then inserting the formatting is a pain for them, which means you’re taking a risk that they won’t do it correctly.
3. Make it personal. You don’t have to reveal your innermost secrets, but you do need to include some element that makes the piece uniquely yours. Don’t make it hard for the publisher who hired you to justify why you in particular are worth the money you’re getting paid. Sell yourself as a contributor within your contribution.
4. Direct it at your own audience. Part of the reason you were asked to participate is because the publisher is hoping that your usual audience will read whatever you write… even if it doesn’t appear under the usual URL. If you write a fishing blog, and then you agree to contribute to a conversational hub about cooking dinner, then you are obviously expected to write about cooking fish for dinner. Pasting your grandmother’s recipe for macaroni and cheese into the post probably defeats the purpose of getting you involved in the project.
5. Direct it at the sponsor’s target audience. In the example above, even writing about cooking fish for dinner is taking the easy way out of the assignment. Think about what kind of conversation the publisher is trying to create. If the sponsor makes cast-iron cookware, and the posts and comments on the site so far have generated a conversation around how to organize one’s kitchen, then obviously the opportunity is for you to write about how you organize your kitchen to cook the fish that you catch. Contribute to the growing community just as you would to a fascinating conversation that started before you got there, and that you are trying to politely enter.
6. Make a sincere effort to inform and/or entertain the reader. Don’t phone it in. No matter how famous you are, no publisher worth their salt, online or offline, pays you just for the privilege of displaying your byline.
7. Make it original. Don’t recycle something you wrote a long time ago for some other purpose. The readers, the publisher, and the other contributors can all tell when you do that. It’s embarrassing for everyone.
8. Include an image. Posts with visuals grab the user’s attention right away, and they also come across as easier to read. If you can’t create an original image, get one that is licensed for use with attribution in the Flickr Creative Commons. Then give the attribution. Then go to the Flickr page of that photo, and leave a comment with a link to where you used it on the social media site.

car image by philcampbell