How to Make Your Readers Happy?

And yourself at the same time

A happy reader by Anna Shvets

I must say I’m biased as I particularly like to read humor or satire oriented articles. They make me smile or laugh depending on how good they are; they make me happy.

But you don’t necessarily need to be funny to make your readers happy (and coming back for more).

The Harvard Business Review explained it all in an article titled “The Science Behind the Smile.” The authors identify 8 behaviors as the sources of happiness.

Here are how you can apply them to your writings and make your readers happier.

Challenge the readers.

In the earlier days of online writing, you could have directly challenged the readers. As in “I dare you to read this post till the end.” It’s too late for that. It’s not working anymore. We all learned our lessons.

For modern readers like us, riddles taken from a Stanford course on Human Behavioral Biology can do the trick:

Which number completes this series: 14, 23, 28, 33, 42, 51, (.)?

Many riddles are out there; keep in mind to reveal the answer only at the end of your article (in the sequence above, it’s 59).

Invite your readers to develop their networks.