The Secret Words to Elevate a Simple Diary into a 'Shareable Diary'

I believe that what works best with note is a "diary," where you write about what is happening around you and how you feel.

In fact, many of the notes that friends ask me to edit, saying "Could you read this once?", are personal diaries.

Among them, there were many times when I thought, "If they just paid attention to this, the share rate would go up significantly." So, today I will talk about that.

"I was sad because something happened today."
"I was sad because something happened today, so you should be careful too."

If you line up these two sentences, I think you can see that the reader's perception changes a little.

There is only one thing I added to this text.

"Making it personal."

When I unravel the desire to share, I think it comes down to "empathy"—the feeling of "I was like that too, I understand"—and "learning"—the feeling of "this is educational." Either way, the key is to make it "personal."

"It's like it's about me," "This is being said to me," "This is necessary information for me."

If you can get them to think that, the text will naturally be shared.

For example, if I line up the titles of my diaries...

While I write my diaries about what I learned through daily events, I think the titles make it feel like there is some "learning" involved, and they are also written as if speaking to someone.

Looking at the content, even though it takes the form of a diary, it is written in a way that can be "made personal."

Here is how to write text that gets people to "make it personal."

1. Write about the base event.
2. Write about your "learning" or "change" resulting from that event.
3. Try addressing the reader ("Don't you think...?", "You feel that way, right?").
4. Try changing the subject to "we."
5. Finally, leave room for discussion by asking, "So, what do you think?"

A common issue is text that ends after just "writing about the base event."

That's fine for a personal diary, but text that leaves the reader thinking "Hmm, I see" is hard to share.

If you are going to write anyway, try aiming for a 'Diary 2.0' that makes readers think, 'Hmm, I see. If it were me...' and encourages them to relate to it as their own.