Like many amazing and delicious things (Reese’s cups and smores come to mind), sometimes combining a few different things can make for a truly amazing blog post. If you have two passions, what better way to bring them together than in a blog post that all of your readers can benefit from?
Mind Your Manners When Mashing Topics Together
Sadly, not all topics will mash-up well together. There are just some things that don’t jive – this is not to say that you shouldn’t mash things up in a post because someone might not like them (together or apart) but rather some things just don’t make sense together and can wind up confusing your readers.
When deciding which topics to combine, consider adding one from each of these two categories:
- Something they are familiar with
- Something they want to know more about
People love to read interesting things, and if there is a certain level of comfort and familiarity that they can enjoy while doing so, that’s all the better!
Popular subjects to combine with your interesting information include pop culture references, celebrities, movies, books, super heroes, and so on. Anything that is fairly well-known and would be familiar to your audience is good, and depending on your personal preferences you might even stray into potentially controversial topics like politics.
This infographic courtesy of Copyblogger. Click here to see their original post! Click on the graphic itself to see the whole thing.
Minimize Mash-up Mishaps With These Tips
If you are intrigued by the thought of making a few mash-up posts of your own, here are a few tips to help you get started!
- Limit the number of topics you’re mashing up to 3 at the most – The general rule of thumb is 2 topics tops per mash-up, but if you can squeeze a third in there without being confusing, go for it. Nothing turns readers off faster than a complete mess of a post (often complete with a title like, “What Scuba-diving and Hot Dogs Taught Me About Internet Marketing on a Mobile Device in September”) so it is important to make every effort to make sense!
- Resist the urge to get too wordy – When writing a mash-up post you might be tempted to get long-winded…it’s just so much fun combining things to make something new! Take care with the length of your post however, and make sure it is in keeping with what your audience expects of you.
- Make sure you can keep things relevant and on track – Remember how we said that some thing just don’t jive? It can be difficult to mash topics together if they really have nothing in common to draw them together. Don’t worry about something being diverse and maybe a little strange, because that strangeness might just be the pull that draws your readers in! That being said, make sure that you can tie your topics together in a fairly logical way and that they will support one another in your writing.
Video: What’s the Best Way to Write a Forum or Blog Post?
This video is simply amazing. While it is not specific to mash-up blog posts it contains some pearls of wisdom that will help you write better posts overall, and when tackling a tricky business like a mash-up post you can always use some extra assistance!
Comments:
What do you think of mash-up posts?
Have you ever written one?
