racoma.netI love to write. I write to live. I live to love.

Every weekday, my wife and I watch the evening news while having dinner. If you’re familiar with how the six o’ clock news usually goes, it’s often full of sex, violence, and sensationalized accounts of otherwise mundane news.

This is especially true if you’re watching mass-oriented television networks. In my city, for instance, it’s either ABS-CBN’s TV Patrol or GMA’s 24 Oras. One would understand that they target a mass audience. And their advertisers pay their premium prices to reach this kind of wide audience.

Switch to other channels on cable or UHF and you get boring news programs with not so exciting news anchors. But undoubtedly, their reportage is more intelligent, well-written, and level-headed. They have a niche audience. These types of shows don’t necessarily have to cater to the masses. Rather, they address a narrower audience. A news program that features stock prices, business news and international events would probably have an audience consisting of folks who have higher purchasing power than, say, someone who enjoys watching local brawls and loudmouthed starlets on the mass-oriented news.

This is the same case with online content. Where traffic is king, unfortunately, a lot of people also resort to sensationalism in the aim of getting more readers. Sometimes it’s a simple as smart copywriting. Sometimes, it’s with linkbait. Sometimes, it’s a headline that shouts out loud. Sometimes, it’s with snarky writing. Sometimes, it’s with photos of scantily-clad women in compromising poses.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to attract an audience. I’m all for smart headlines. And I have written a handful of linkbait material in my life. But sometimes, trying to attract an audience might border on impropriety or even obscenity.

I’m of the opinion that the kind of promotional and marketing tactic you employ on your website has a bearing on the kind of people that you attract. In the end, it becomes a question of quantity vs. quality. Which would you prefer? Granted, we all want a big audience made up of great quality readership. In most cases, however, you can only have either a thousand zombies reading your blog, or just two or three really smart people reading your masterpieces.

I think I would rather build up my audience slowly, focusing on quality material, quality discussion and building up good rapport with readers. Would I resort to sensationalism? No, thank you.

image credit: flickr/floridapfe