As previously noted, it’s practically impossible to break actual breaking news at a blog. Still, if you can find breaking news, and it fits your blog topic, you can still post it. You’ll just need a slant that makes it your own. Before you slant with your own lovely style though you should consider if it’s worth slanting at all.
Should you waste time slanting?
Slanting, in the most general of descriptions means making the news your own. Giving your own opinion on it. Hopefully an opinion that will make the news interesting to your community EVEN though they may have already seen the news elsewhere.
Real slanting that draws traffic takes more time. Real slanting that’s actually interesting to read takes more time. If you don’t want to take the time to slant in a meaningful way then a simple link to news is better in many cases than rehashing the news.
Re-posting news sans slant can work for some blogs: Here’s how some people re-post breaking news… “So and so news source says, “Owners of dogs with diabetes may gain useful health benefit from caring for their pets!” Then these folks proceed to cut and paste the article they just mentioned.
BTW yes, that was a real headline yesterday – and no I didn’t post on it. The example above is not your slant, it’s just re-posting news. Which CAN be useful but not in a traffic draw kind of way. Slanting in a meaningful way takes more time and that means some news isn’t worth your time to slant. It may however still be worth posting. For example at one of my blogs I post recalls on baby products a few times a week. Sometimes there’s even really big recall news but I don’t waste my time slanting it. I share said news but other than, “Wow, lame” I don’t really give my opinion. Recalls happen all the time and it’s rare that me posting one gets me tons of excess traffic. I post the news because I want my all-the-time readers to stay safe.
Your slant won’t matter as much if the news is too old: I don’t try to slant if the news is too old because old news doesn’t usually result in traffic perks for my blog. The best way to make sure breaking news gets you more traffic is to re-break it early and with your own slant but you have to be on top of it. Last year, when it turned out that SIGG bottles had BPA, I happened to be awake when the news broke (late at night) and since I saw it right away I did post it with a slant and that post did get me a lot of traffic because other blogger in my niche didn’t happen to be awake at 3am stalking the news. This year when the news about BPA in canned food first broke, I had other stuff on my plate. By the time I had time to post about it, all my green blogging pals and their dogs had posted it. While it’s interesting news, it was unlikely, at that point, to bring me much traffic. Instead of wasting time posting about it, I just linked to a friend who managed to post on it early.
Before you take the time to slant: Before you re-break breaking news make sure it’ll benefit you and your readers. Consider that if your readers like your blog they also like other blogs in your topic niche and they probably aren’t interested in seeing the same news over and over. It’s a sure bet that other bloggers in your niche are talking about the same issues you are.
For my last post in this breaking news series we’ll look at how to really slant breaking news to make it your own.
How do you decide which breaking news is worth sharing with your readers?
PS Did you hear that Kommein is back in business? If you’re interested in social media and community building I’d check it out stat.
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