Long form alpha

Long form posts are the single best way to build credibility, authority, and trust online…

But there’s also nothing worse than a huge block of text that has no character or visual elements.

That’s enough to get a “not reading that essay” from me.

I have been writing long forms online for the last year.

I’ve learned what to do, and what not to do (which is probably even more important).

And I want to share it with you.

So without further ado, here is the definitive guide to writing long form content for X, LinkedIn, and email.

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Ideation

The hardest part is coming up with the idea.

That's why I use a second brain, Logseq or Kortex. I also have a stash of Apple Notes that I use to jot ideas down. You can also take old short form posts and repurpose them long form ideas, or even as a copy-paste hook.

For long forms, there is usually 2 key building blocks: a hook/headline, story from your life and a big concept or lesson.

I’ll typically start each post or email by listing these 3 things. The main 2 is story and idea. You can fill in the headline later.

Example:

• Headline: Werewolves and guitar festivals

• Story: Traveling to MO to sell guitars

• Idea: There are no silver bullets to mastery; you have to do the work.

Once you start writing down little stories and ideas throughout the day, this part gets easier because there’ll be a bank of ideas and stories just waiting for you to write about.

Make writing the hard part, not the ideation.

Framework

Once you have the building block, it’s basically plug and play into a framework.

I use a frame work for basically every long-form post I do: BLAST-OFF

• B - Begin with a Hook

• L - Launch your Big idea or Story

• A - Articulate the lesson

• S - Share Tactical advice

• T - Tie it all together

• O - Offer a Call-To-Action

• F - Finish with a P.S. (Post Script)

Here's a step-by-step:

Capture attention from the start. Use a short attention-grabbing line. You can attack a common idea that everybody believes, hit on a pain point, or promise a dream outcome by reading the rest of the post.

I like to then move on to a quick story. Ideally you’ll have ideated this from the last step.

Then, after some teasing with open loops (“What is [idea] that has [big impact]?”) I’ll tie the story into the idea or concept. I give a small HINT at the big reveal. I also like to handle objections to the idea in this part. You should be able to think of at least ONE objection people are thinking about your idea. Handle it within 5-10 seconds after stating the idea.

Provide practical, actionable steps for your readers. I like to tell people how to apply your idea. My favorite authors and writers do this: Tim Ferriss, Tim Denning, all the other Tims.

Summarize and reinforce the main points with social proof or evidence. Just like you saw in the last paragraph, adding in public figures or celebrities that people know gives you just a bit more authority by creating a link to you in your readers minds.

Encourage your readers to take a specific action. This can be as simple as entreating them to try out the tactical steps you outlined. Or, it can be a link to a product or service you are trying to sell that’s related to the main message from your post.

Add a final thought, bonus tip, or personal note. Give an inspiring perspective. Tell people you are forging a new path and that you will lead the way. Ask people to join you.

Now that we have the content and ideation locked in, let’s jump into some tactical tips on how to make your posts look world class!

Style points

Break text up. Use whitespace. Nothing makes people skip around more than large blocks of text. Use that Enter key.

Add in strategic elipsis (“…”).You want to create pauses and interjections that match your speaking voice as much as possible. Elipses are a great way to create anticipation and a vocal pause.

Use bullet points and numbered lists. This is another form of breaking text up. Looks very satisfying and is easier to read. I like to use different looking bullet points. Stuff like ■ and > stand out.

Lean into rule of 3. Groups of three are scientifically shown to be:

• effective

• memorable

• satisfying

See what I did there?

Weaponize the “Show more” button. Write a hook that forces them to click this. A quick way to do it is to use the space bar to create more characters and force the Show more button into the place you want it.

Use bolding and italics. I like to bold important ideas, and italicize stuff like quotes and interjections about something I just wrote.

❌ Don’t use emojis. Looks like AI. This is generally the case. 1-2 throughout the body of piece won’t hurt anything. But keep out of your hooks. Especially on story posts. But can be used to nice effect for lists (as mentioned above).

Use images. Pictures and images that match your post topic are awesome. They are a great way to grab attention and illustrate points. I use 3 different types: screenshots, pictures from my life, and illustrations made specifically for the post.

Keep it relatively short. Shoot for 200-400 words. This is a loose rule of thumb. But placing a limit often helps you get to the point a little faster.

Finally, use content breaks like this: ━━━━━━━━━ ᨒ↟ ━━━━━━━━━

I really like to create something specific to my brand and use it to separate sections and ideas. This is another form of visual breaks that act as an interrupt to your readers.

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And that’s it!

Hope this was helpful.

Try it out for yourself next time you’re writing a long form post and let me know how it goes.

Swanagan

P.S., if you liked this, shoot me a reply, I’d love to hear from you.