How to Engage your Readers through Effective Communication

Kim - Writer

5 years ago

How is your relationship? I want to hear all about it.

Creepy, right?

Today, I would like to discuss your relationship – with your readers. Relationships are all about communication and the reader-writer relationship is no different. Bloggers and writers, I’d love to know how you feel about the people who read your stuff. Readers, tell me if you form a picture in your mind of an author while you read their books.

For me as a blogger, it can feel one-sided and pretty lonely, at times. For writers, it is even worse. We craft a piece for months or years, poring over each word and sentence, examining each character’s tics and foibles, putting some of our deepest thoughts into the book. Perhaps, in return, we will be offered a few reviews (generally only from the lovers and the haters). If we are really lucky, we will get a few words from a reader at a book signing.

We all want to know how to get engaged readers, who hang on our every word. In this article, I’m looking at how the science of communication can help us do this.

Communication (n) The imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing or using some other medium.

Effective communication involves the sender giving a clear message, the receiver understanding the message and the feedback from the receiver to the sender. As it applies to writers, communication and marketing involves the writer, the content and the readers.

Everything we send out into the world is communication – not just our articles or short stories but every holiday snap, tweet or opinion we share with the other parents at school pick-up. Writers seem to instinctively run from marketing and self-promotion, citing the art will speak for itself. But even though we may not like it, these days we are our own personal brand.

The Writer’s Promise

A brand is a consistent message about your company (your blog or your author identity). It is a promise of what your content will offer to the market. It is the personality or the essence of your blog.

Aim: A writer or blogger should aim to give a consistent, clear message to their readers.

The market is, of course, your readers. Readers need to know what to expect with your blog or written works. Every article and social media account should project a consistent message, of course. But what about the other messages readers might pick up? For example, your attitudes to the environment, political leanings and even website design, grammar mistakes and personal appearance all give cues to the reader about what sort of person you are.

Research Your Readers

It is important to know who is reading your content. Some simple ways to do this:

Look at your blog statistics – most importantly, the referrer channels. I get most of my traffic from Search Engines. Also check out which blog page they are searching for (entry point). This will tell you the main problem they are trying to solve.
Check out your Pinterest analytics – Pinterest is my second largest source of traffic (check out my tips for turning written content into Visual pins here). Analytics gives information such as the sex, country, age and likes of people viewing your pins.
Twitter for business and Facebook Pages Manager also have analytics. Have a look at them periodically. Perhaps, you thought you were writing for twenty year olds but your audience is mostly 45 – 54. I write snippets of my historical fiction on Twitter, so the people who are engaging with those tweets are my target audience.

Then, knowing your prime audience, you can tailor your content. For example, if my readers are mainly married mothers, there is no point writing articles about dating.

Readers Receive the Message

Communication takes two parties: the sender and the receiver. Once the author or blogger gives a consistent, clear message, it is the reader’s turn. The reader must understand the content and also give it meaning.

An oft-touted figure is fifteen seconds: the time it takes for a reader to decide if a website is useful to them. So the blog post headlines had better be clickable. The first paragraph needs to have a hook for the reader. A cluttered design is also off-putting.

Readers do not simply see the words in their mind. McKee, in this article, reviews the research that shows readers construct meaning from text in a very complex process, involving comprehension, memory and the reader’s own background knowledge. A reader is constantly inferring, linking words to their own experience. The gaps in the text are filled by the reader’s thoughts, fears and dreams. Two people might read the same novel; one might find it supremely uplifting but the other may find it a depressing story. It depends on the experiences and attitudes of the reader.

Feedback

Writers love feedback from their readers. One way to get audience feedback during the writing process is to send your manuscript out to beta readers. This way, you can get opinions on whether the plot makes sense, readers are sympathetic to the main character and sections where the reader loses attention. Whether the author makes changes following this feedback is up to them. I have just started beta reading for some writer friends and, as well as helping the author, it helps me know what to look for in my own writing.

Readers and Writers Need Each Other

The reader/writer relationship is mutually beneficial. Anyone who writes would benefit from knowing how to get engaged readers. Writers, you better believe you need those readers – otherwise you might as well be writing a journal, alone in your room. Readers, you need writers too, or we’ll all be reading recycled content. So, effective communication is key between both parties, whether it involves maintaining a consistent brand or giving reviews on books.

I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.

-John Cheever

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How’s your relationship? What promise are you making to your readers?