Make your readers the center of the political debate

The longest election ever?

From start to finish, the US presidential campaign lasts nearly two whole years (going from initial committees to presidential inauguration) and costs millions if not billions of dollars. According to estimates, Hillary’s campaign may be as costly as 2 billion dollars, while Trump has reportedly pledged to spend 2 million dollars per week. Overall, this may be the most expensive election to date with experts predicting a total cost of up to 5 billion dollars. And unlike other countries, there is no legislation regarding the length of official campaigns, which makes America’s presidential campaign one of the world’s absolute longest campaigns ever. But as we near the end of October, November 8^th no longer seems so far away. And if you’ve been blogging about this election, then it’s been quite a marathon, but we are now just about ready for the final sprint.

Source: www.graphics.wsj.com

How to stand out in a presidential avalanche

It’s been a dramatic battle between Trump and Clinton, and the latest polls show Clinton holds an 11-point lead over Trump, quite likely as a result of Trump’s leaked tape and the sexual assault allegations against him. The media has been writing, posting, videoing and generally sharing non-stop content about these allegations, about Trump and about Clinton so that it almost feels there is nothing else going on in the world except these elections. And in terms of the content itself, as with all content, it ranges from shockingly low quality to Pulitzer prize worthy journalism. But with events such as this one, the big question for bloggers and content owners is how to make content stand out in an avalanche of presidential material.

Make your readers the center of the political debate

While there is no easy answer to make your content shine amongst the millions of other Hillary vs. Trump articles and blogs, there are a couple of things that can help increase your reach. For starters, your focus should be on generated a user debate and not just on generating your own content. Your content is the jumping off point, but the real action is in the talkbacks and comments from your users. And if that alone isn’t persuasive enough, research has shown that user generated-content is an extremely influential form of media that has more views, a higher click through rate and lower costs.

Give your users a voice (literally)

In the world of user-generated content (or UGC), there is tough competition. Pretty much every blog or website has a vibrant comments section, and social media allows for even more interaction. And according to some (quite scary) studies, 70% of readers don’t even bother reading anymore, they just read the title and skip straight to the comments. With such a strong focus on UGC, a great way to draw more attention to what you do is to improve the way your readers interact and comment on your content. And while comment platforms have been exclusively built for text and image based communication, there is now a new trend in voice comments. Giving your users a voice (quite literally) might just be the best way to make your election blog stand out.

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