It can be hard to find the right balance between an informative and an interesting story.
Sometimes, however, you hit the jackpot.
For example: last week, everyone’s favourite Sir/Lord/Businessman/Reality TV Character/Walking Catchphrase managed to offend the very people he’s supposed to be “championing” in government.
That’s right folks, Lord Alan Sugar, Enterprise Champion for the Government, told small businesses they were “moaners”.
Putting aside the genius of his comments for a moment, as a news item this story is fantastically attractive because it combines the interests of a particular audience (small business owners), with the interest of a huge number of people (anyone who takes an interest in The Apprentice, or Suralan himself).
This gives you both a wide exposure, but still keeps the high level of relevance to your audience.
Having someone famous in your headline is always going to get you more exposure, but be careful not to be disingenuous. If your headline states “Britney sniffs our socks”, and it turns out that Britney is an 8 year-old Basset hound from Wiltshire, you’re going to lose most of your visitors as soon as they arrive.
With your news, you should never sacrifice relevance for wider exposure (search engines will punish you for this even more than your visitors) – but you should sure as hell make the most of it if you can combine the two!
Of course, if you do want to write silly stories about Basset hounds and kittens and high heels in the workplace, I suggest you start writing a blog instead!
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