This is a golden age for sports we-media.
In the past, the main modes of media were paper media and television media. With the development of various platforms like Facebook, the media became “personalized”. Nowadays, it is a golden age where hundreds of We-media have been raised. We-media is a sunrise industry with rapid development, it gives media personalities and professional fans a circle of co-prosperity, where they can share all kinds of ideas. Because of the holding of more and more competitions and the popularization of the internet, the scale of sports We-media is becoming bigger.
The difference between being professional and nonprofessional is about whether the report of a hot topic, a piece of news, a piece of information, or a figure person written by the writer is flesh and blood. However, with the fast growth of We-media, there are more and more new We-media writers in every platform, the unbalance of qualified We-media writers reduced the overall high-quality rate to a certain extent. In this respect, we can see that UC News has been working hard to improve the quality of the original authors.
In my opinion, you must master the following 5 skills if you want to be a good sports We-media writer.
First of all, you need to be sensitive to hot topics. If your articles are not about the current hot topics, then you would only get half the result with twice the effort. Some people like to repeat the same old stuff and publish some outdated articles, you can imagine that the result of doing them is not getting much page views. In fact, readers are tired of old things, but if you mix the old things with the current hot topics in your articles, they still can be popular with a transverse comparison and relations. Therefore, you need to learn how to combine, compare and connect hot topics and news, so you will create articles of high quality.
Secondly, you need to have your own unique perspective. Everyone is writing about some hot topic, so there should be something new and unique in your article to get attention. Thus, what you need to think about is that how to dig something unconventional and different to make your article full of creativity. In my opinion, innovation is the core direction of development of various media. Because of innovation, the media becomes the way it is now, it also brings different impacts and generates a market. It is an age of We-media because of innovation.
Thirdly, you need to have a lateral thinking, that is to say, you need to have the ability to draw inferences. We cannot be stuck in a viewpoint, instead, we should diverge our thinking in order to clarify the issue from all the aspects. It is similar to cooking. There are many ways to cook a piece of meat and you can use many ingredients to match it. You cannot be restricted by the surface of the point and you should explore it from other aspects. In an article, you can not only show your professional attitude but also a life attitude, it is allowed to blend them together. Once you get used to this kind of thinking pattern, you can write 3 to 5 articles in different angles about the same event.
Fourthly, you need to have a certain aesthetic standard. Many writers may not notice this point or they think the pictures they add in their articles don’t really matter. However, as a matter of fact, the pictures you use and the way you organize the contents would determine the level and grade of your articles. For me, sometimes the time I spent on choosing pictures was even longer than the time I spent on writing the article. It may be related to my own aesthetic habit, but in fact, a picture is to an article what a cover to a magazine. Some people would buy a magazine just because of its gorgeous cover, therefore, there will be readers who want to read your articles because of the suitable and profound pictures.
Lastly, you need to have a professional attitude. Do not make false news or reports. You need to write your articles based on the well-founded information. Even if your articles are plain, you still can interact with readers through your professional attitude. No one wants to read fake news or fake information, it is also forbidden by every platform clearly. Some writers would do everything even to make up stories just for getting more attention. It not only makes the threshold of We-media industry seem so low, but also would ruin their own reputations.
Currently, there are four common writing types for sports we-media as follow:
The first one, the record of actual events. In simple terms, there will be a large number of articles about an event, for example, the competition of Rockets vs. Warriors, what was Paul's performance like, what did Curry and Harden do, all of these things can be written in articles. Also, what was his marvelous move, the wonderful shots in the end of the event, these are the cores of articles, you can capture these important moments and write about them. The whole event is a hot topic, the more detailed and vivid you describe about it, the more successful your articles can be.
The second one, comments mode. You can analyze the final score, performance, the major direction, advantages and disadvantages in some event, for example, compare the strategies of two teams, what advantages they had, how did the team win, and what lesson should the teams learn and how do they improve themselves in the future and so on. In a word, write the article from the angle of analysis.
The third one, analysis mode. This mode might include a variety of professional and accurate data, such as the salary of a team, transaction amount and so on. Unlike the reports of the event or the analysis after the event, this kind of articles are different and many readers like to read them. It is a process that requires carefulness and patience since the data should be accurate and the analysis should be comprehensive. You will find that there are many articles about the reports of events or comments, while there are only a few articles that involve professional data and rules of salary. It is always hard to write professional articles.
The fourth one, character biography. I usually choose marginal men as the objects in my articles. There are somethings beautiful in them and they have inspirational stories to tell. Most of the ordinary readers are more willing to accept plain but positive things, you can try to write them in a lively way.
So how to form your own style and characteristics in We-media writing? Writing articles is similar to living in this society, the positioning is the most important thing for both of them. You need to find and create the suitable style and characteristics gradually. If you want to create your own style, then you cannot be controlled by group psychology. For example, if there’s someone who says the team didn’t play well, you can reverse the point of the problem, analyze it from another aspect. You don’t need to agree with something just because everyone else thinks it is right, instead, you need to cultivate the ability to think independently, then your own and unique style would be generated. The habit of thinking won’t be formed overnight, it requires you to keep thinking like that every day.
How to make your sports articles more eye-catching?
When it comes to the question that how to write hot style sports articles, from where I stand, titles are very important. A good title determines half of the success of an article. In addition to the reasonable and logical content of an article, a popular sports article should be unconventional and offbeat, but it cannot play to the gallery. It might be a bit difficult to many We-media writers since they didn’t receive professional training, some of them might exaggerate something in their titles and even on the verge of breaking the rules. A good title can also be the most direct expression to depict the performance of a star, for example, He Made Three Defenses in X Seconds and It Changed the Trend of the Event, you can find that there is a sense of urgency, a tendency of sustainable development and a result in this title. A title should include the essential part of an article and display it in a distinctive way. Besides, even if an article is not of hot style, as long as it talks about some hot topics and with a good title (hot topic + good title + substantial content), it still will gain a large reading market.