How to Create Eye-catching Content Within an Affinity Framework

Getting your content actually seen is hard. And with the additional noise of AI, it's even harder to break through and stand out.

If you're a content marketer, you know the challenges of producing attention-grabbing content for your brand.

Survey data from MarketSplash found that content creators have nearly cut their content development process in half with AI, but relying on it as a single source to tell your brand's story will only add your content to all the other noise.

Stand out by evoking emotion

Fortunately, there are proven, tactical steps, that have helped industry experts and even ourselves. It starts with creating real, personable, and engaging content through affinity—without having to be "louder" or frantically increasing output.

Hitting the right emotional notes in your content will truly resonate with your audience, which is not necessarily a new idea. Data has already shown that emotionally-driven content increases visibility and shareability and is also likely to convert at a better rate.

However, what's new for you in this playbook is using the "experience-realization-behavior" framework that you can walk away with to start creating affinity-building content everywhere that will run on innovation—not red tape.

Share the playbook TL;DR with your team. Click here to download the image below! 🎁

Insightful content will always tell a better story because it more trustworthy when customers can realize the outcome. That's why your content must show customers that you understand their needs—whether you're addressing specific problems or providing educational or truly informative content.

Concentrate on your experience to drive your credibility.

For example, our own social content thrives off showing our audience we've experienced the same things. But we know visibility and shareability increase when there's a solid story that only shows our experience, but gives our audience the confidence that we are their solution.

Every product, every brand, every idea—they all come alive when wrapped in the cloak of a compelling narrative. Devin Reed, content strategy expert and Head of Content at Clari shared how to stand out by framing insights in relatable stories and evoking emotion—not just choosing popular topics.

For your topic, it comes down to they way you talk about it that can set you apart from your competitors. Otherwise, you're all going after the same insights through the same topics, and nobody stands out.

Relatability is what draws people to your content or your specific topics. Start by sharing a situation or event that anchors the insight in a real-world context the reader can relate to.

The realization phase should describe the "a-ha" moment or new perspective you gained as a result of that experience. Your content needs to turn on the light bulb in your readers' heads, which will only make them stop, contextualize, and better remember your content.

Explain the specific actions you took based on that realization. Is your content engaging enough? Put it through the Eyebrow Test. Read your draft and notice your facial expression.

One of the biggest challenges is simply repeating and sharing what you already know. More likely than not, your audience would prefer to understand how you specifically got to that behavior-changing notion and want the same experience themselves.

If you're struggling to come up with something new, try running your ideas, topics, and content through this pre-publish audit. Doing this first will help you uncover any issues you have in the entire experience-realization-behavior framework.

Here's the icing on the cake—can you make your content be entertaining? Listen, we understand you might be producing content in a not-so-thrilling industry, but that shouldn't steer you away from trying to be entertaining.

Try to add style points to your content—which simply refers to how you package information beyond the facts. This includes the humor, passion, visuals, -isms, or other distinctive qualities that resonate with your audience.

Style points should feel natural and effortless, not forced. To create entertaining content, you don't have to be funny, clever, or outrageous if it's not authentic to you or your brand. Play to your strengths.

When you try to be something you're not, your audience can sense the inauthenticity. Instead, use this framework to build trust and generate interest so your content goes much further.

If you need help getting to that stage, we're here to help. You can avoid the awkward sales calls and join one of our weekly group demo sessions for free!

The ClickUp Showcase uses an AMA format to answer all your pressing questions in the group setting without having to worry about a one-on-one demo first. Register today for this week's session and see how ClickUp can help transform your content strategy.

Whether it's connecting teams to increase collaboration, streamlining communication, or providing more knowledge-sharing opportunities, our team can help.