Fairytales are effective because they teach important concepts in fun and memorable ways.
They often employ techniques like the “rule of threes”, which leverages the human brain’s propensity for ingesting, enjoying, and recalling things presented in groups of three.
Here is a light-hearted reworking of one such tale, with a marketing slant.
Once upon a time, a technology scout for a mid-cap corporation named Georgia Goldisocks was wandering around the internet.
She searched and she surfed, clicking on links that interested her, straying far from her original search intent.
Just as she was tiring of her endeavor, she came upon a category that seemed relevant to a challenge voiced by the Vice President of Operations.
Directing her cursor to the link, she ventured inside…
On the next page, Goldisocks found links to three blogposts.
“I wonder which of these might be helpful and trustworthy?” she thought.
Inspecting the first, she found it had a short, uninspiring headline.
“That’s too concise and uninformative,” she declared.
Opening the second, she stumbled her way through a twenty-word title. It made her head spin.
“Oh my,” she cried, “that’s far too long and very confusing.”
The third post had a title nine words long that was clearly related to the problem she wanted to solve. It promised to give her seven helpful tips.
“Delightful,” she smiled. “Not too long, not too short. Just right. And very enticing.”
Scrolling down to the next page, Goldisocks skim-read several paragraphs of content.
The first post was wordy and dense. There was almost no white space and only one image, seemingly inserted at random.
“Oof, this is hard to process,” Goldisocks grimaced. “I can’t be bothered to decipher it.”
Tabbing to the second post, she saw it was broken into many small pieces. Images and click ads popped up all around her screen.
“Egad,” she flinched. “This is hard on my tired eyes. I can hardly tell where the content begins and ends, for there are no subheadings to guide me.”
Returning to the third post, she breathed a sigh of relief. It was broken into distinct sections, each with a clear title. Images alongside the text made it obvious what each section sought to explain.
“They’ve made it just how I like it,” she said, skimming and reading the most interesting parts. “This seems to have just the sort of information I need.”
Not wanting to miss anything important, Goldisocks gave the three posts one more look.
“Perhaps there are examples and links that I can learn from,” she counseled herself.
But the first post still gave her the shivers. It was written in a cold, lecturing style and cited “obvious” results without sources or even proper explanation.
“What an impenetrable piece,” she scowled. “Perhaps the author knows what they are doing, but I certainly wouldn’t want to work with them.”
Closing that tab, she hurried on to the next.
It was full of fluffy words and humor, some of it rather slapstick. The jokes made her giggle.
“What a funny person this author must be!” she exclaimed. “But I’m not sure if they take anything seriously, and some of their phrases sound a lot like Uncle G Petie.”
Ex-ing the second tab as well, Goldisocks was left with the third post.
She gobbled it up, reading it from beginning to end without stopping.
“What a captivating story,” she thought. “I want to know more! This person clearly understands what they’re writing about—and their examples are so helpful. They even gave me some links to other people’s work on the subject.”
Pleased with her discovery, Goldisocks bookmarked the page and sent the link to herself via Slack as a reminder to share it with her team the next morning.
Sometime later, the three bloggers sat down at their computers, eager to see how their posts were performing.
“Who’s been looking at my post?” the first blogger asked.
“Hardly anyone,” he continued, with a sigh. “My bounce rate is off the charts and the average time on page is only a few seconds. I wish I knew who these people were, so I could give them a piece of my mind.”
“Who’s been looking at my post?” asked the second blogger.
“Well, I’ve had quite a few visitors,” she murmured, “but they’re not reading all the way to the end. They’re bouncing after only a few paragraphs. That’s a real downer for my on-page ads.”
“And who’s been looking at my post?” asked the third blogger.
“Woohoo!” they cried. “It’s blowing up! I’ve got two dozen comments, all of them grateful and positive, and my post has been cited by one of the sector’s hottest influencers. This is bound to improve my domain authority and EEAT score!”
Unlike Goldilocks, Ms. Goldisocks wasn’t trespassing or stealing anyone’s porridge.
However, she was scouring the internet, consuming information in stealth mode, without revealing her identity to the bloggers whose content she tasted.
As with porridge, chairs, and beds, there are different extremes to be avoided if you want to attract a reader’s attention and keep them engaged.
Goldisocks was drawn in by a clear and enticing headline. She found organized and well-formatted content easy to navigate and understand. And she appreciated both the style and substance of the helpful blog that guided her to other learning opportunities.
The first and second bloggers were disappointed by their posts’ performance, but it sounds like their objectives were misaligned. One was trying to show off their knowledge while the other was focused on clicks and revenue.
The third blogger had things just right. They were hoping to demonstrate their experience, expertise, trustworthiness, and authoritativeness by writing a post that people found helpful and wanted to share.
We should all learn our lesson and strive to do likewise.
I have no idea whether they lived happily ever after, but let’s hope so.
The end.
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Feature image created for MessageUp using DALL-E by ChatGPT
