inauguration speech Tag

If You Want to be as Successful as Obama

With the world watching Obama on inauguration day, it was inevitable that people would carefully analyze his speech from a variety of different angles. But I’m sure not even his young, hotshot speechwriter Jon Favreau (sorry, not Mikey of Swingers fame) foresaw that Obama’s speech would offer some helpful insight into all of our future online content.

With it well known that politicians are the kings and queens of rhetoric, what techniques of theirs can we implement into our own work?

The Hook

It’s no mystery that any good piece of writing has to hook the audience right away. For Obama, this meant utilizing language that kept us hanging on his every sentence. If-then clauses kept us asking a collective, “If what?” (See a shameless example in this article’s headline.)

In terms of online writing, pose a question in your headline. With all the numerous blog posts and articles out there, there has to be something to set your article apart. And if the headline can already get your audience thinking and asking questions, you have a significant leg up on your competition.
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