associationFOCUS | Volume 8, Issue 1

W hen it comes to providing your members with read- ership — worthy content, the goal is to be interesting. Your content needs to be useful and there needs to be a certain newness to it — newsworthiness would be the term — and it also needs to be relevant to your membership. Here’s a litmus test of sorts for creating good content as provided by Stuart Howie in his book, the D.I.Y. Newsroom. Your content should be: 1. Interesting, or (better still) compelling 2. Relevant to the audience or a significant number of people 3. Useful to your audience in making a decision or informing them on a subject 4. Beneficial to public discourse on a subject 5. Unique 6. Entertaining 7. Current 8. Likely to be shared 9. Different or surprising 10. Intellectually or emotionally worthy of connection 11. About people (animals sometimes work as well) Writing Interesting Content 11 RULES TO FOLLOW By focusing on members and potential members, and reaching out to both through more than one platform, you can tailor your message and make sure all audiences know about your association’s strengths. CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 association FOCUS | 5