Hello again and welcome to part two of how to begin your blog. Now that we've gone over some classic opening strategies, let's look at some less conventional openings for those of you who want to be a little more creative. So let's get into part two of how to actually start writing your post. This lesson will focus more on less conventional openings, instead of the more proven safe tactics in the first lesson in this part. By the end of this lesson you are going to be ready to choose from for more creative ways to start your blog post. These will help you win the attention of your ideal audience right away by engaging their emotions and their imagination.

So, these less conventional openings are Let me tell you a story. Use a surprise metaphor begin at the end and unexpected humor so let me tell A story is a really proven way to go about this that has all kinds of forms because there are all kinds of stories. For example, one that I used once was two minutes into a presentation on gamification and marketing. The speaker used earning extra airline peanuts as an example of gaming rewards. Oh no, I thought he literally said customers are working for peanuts. Now with that story, I was able to begin a post about gamification, how you encourage your customers to earn loyalty points by spending more time on your digital properties, and a smarter way to go about it than just handing out extra airline peanuts for what you did.

The nice thing about these kinds of stories are they engage your readers curiosity and their emotions. It makes it easier to remember your blog to because you we are hardwired as humans to remember stories and anecdotes rather than just numbers and facts. Now, thinking about telling a good story to begin is you have to make The opening really strong, it has to be engaging, it has to have some drama in it. And it needs to tie into the blog post that you're going to write. If you're struggling to figure out how to tell a story to begin the blog post that you're actually trying to start, this might not be the opening for you. If you are creative storyteller, dive right in.

So number two, use a surprise metaphor. I use this one once in the past, face cream and digital advertising. They both target areas in need of an uplift. So the key here is subverting the readers expectations by presenting insightful information in a way they didn't expect. If you challenge the readers thinking with inventive or funny comparison, you can grab their interest and get them to read the rest of your post. You're seizing their attention with surprise, truth.

Again, this requires creativity. If you're more of a no nonsense kind of writer, this might not be the opening for you. begin at the In an example I've used in the past, her mouse hovered over the Confirm purchase button, did we reach the right customer at the right time. So instead of building suspense, like a normal story would you're skipping to the most important part of the narrative, beginning with the end is a nice way of telling a results oriented reader that getting through this story is actually going to be worth it. Because you're starting at the climax, you're throwing your reader right into the middle of the drama, and you're enticing the reader to find out more about how they got there. It shows them what to expect.

And again, the tensions in your telling not the plot. This is another story driven type of posts. So I strongly recommend it for writers that are creative and want to tell a story to begin the blog, but they're writing. And the last one of the unconventional openings is unexpected humor. So here's one of my favorite quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the beginning, the universe was created.

This has made a lot of people very angry. And has been widely regarded as a bad move, Douglas Adams. So, the way that unexpected humor works is you're beginning with a surprise joke. You're subverting the readers expectations, you're showing them that there's a different way of looking at this subject than the serious fact driven no nonsense approach. Now, using unexpected humor suggests to the reader that what you wrote isn't the same old tired discussion of a familiar topic. This blog is new, it's exciting.

It's got a new perspective to share. It's a way of earning the readers trust by showing them that you know what has come before and you're offering them something entirely new. So with that you have for less conventional ways to begin a blog. In the next lesson I will talk about four more ways to begin a blog and surprise your reader.