Top tips for creating content :Youth Ambassadors

During your time with Youth Employment UK we’ll be asking you to regularly produce content for our website, and this can take the form of blogs,  topical articles, Top 5/10 tips, or more detailed case studies and research reports.

To help you create these we have come up with some top tips for when you are writing content.

Ask yourself, is this?:

1.  Relevant to Youth Employment – We want you to share about the areas that are personal to you. However, there should always be a link to Youth Employment issues within the topical context.
2. Your Voice – We all have our own ideas about what would make the Youth Employment scene better, but Youth Employment UK is about hearing your (young peoples’) perspective. We want to hear your ideas, so while we can support you with making your point, we want it to be just that – yours!
3. Facts vs. Opinions – While we want to hear your thoughts and opinions, it helps to back your thinking up with evidence (unless you’re expressing a purely personal experience, which is factual in itself). Ultimately, if there’s no evidence to support your opinion, people won’t take it seriously.
4. Give it a catchy title – We’re not talking “clickbait”, but make the title of your content interesting so people want to check it out. Don’t leave it to anyone else to give your work a title. CoSchedule provide a free Headline Analyzer tool at http://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer.
5. Share your/our content – We use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and the more places your content is shared, the more exposure both you and Youth Employment UK receive. This strengthens our voice and reputation in the public sphere. We will share your content, but if you share it (and other content) too, the audience is widened.
6. Respond to comments – Check out what people are saying about your (and other Ambassadors’) content and engage with them. Whether on the Youth Employment UK website, or on other social media, if the topics trend more people will hear the message and keep it in the limelight. This will both generate discussion on the topic and encourage participants to return to look out for future content from both you and Youth Employment UK as a whole.
7. Proofread – While we will read your articles before posting them, it can take a lot of time if we have to make lots of changes, clarifying what you mean, etc. It is always good practice to proofread anything before sharing it. (In fact, this is a relevant tip for all areas of life, not just producing internet content.) We are here to support and double check, but it helps if you can meet us half way.
8. Finish with your strongest point – Equally as important, if not more so than the title. If your content ends on a weak note or a throwaway line, people are likely to forget the best bits. Finishing strongly with a clear point or conclusion will make it memorable and inspire people to support and share.