How to Write a FanPost and Get It Promoted

As more readers come to this site daily and more want to have a voice, our FanPost section has exploded. That's a good thing and we love seeing all of the contributions, but it's time that I try to explain what you, the reader, can do to get your FanPost promoted.

1. Spell and grammar check. The less basic editing we have to do, the more inclined we'll be to both read your post all the way through and promote it.

2. Use multimedia content. Use pictures, video, audio clips, hyperlinks, whatever. Do something to improve the content. Anyone can just riff for 1,000 words. That's not what we're interested in.

3. Try to make them shorter, not longer. Long posts will be promoted on occasion, but it's always with reservation. The truth is good posts do not have to be long. The Internet writing forum actually encourages shorter form writing. Have a coherent thought first and make it succinct second.

4. Be exceptional. And you don't need to be long-winded to do this: have a key point that's well-thought out or researched, make it quickly and get out. That's the key. So many FanPosts are long winded set ups that are too long too read. And when you do read them, people aren't trying to think beyond stage one. Don't do that. Have a point that others haven't already made a dozen times, find a captivating way to say it and be done.

5. Always source. If you break news in the FanPosts but don't provide a link to the source, we're not promoting. Period.

6. Make it pretty. I cannot tell you how huge this is. There is no bigger waste than a writer who can put together a few thoughts well, but leaves weird spaces throughout a post or just cuts and pastes links instead of hyperlinking them. Or writers who improperly use punctuation marks throughout a post. You don't have to be anal to have enough standards to make sure your post looks clean and polished. And the more shine you put on a post, the more likely I'll notice.

7. Search Engine Optimization. Again, another must. The title of your post should include search terms. That means terms like "Chuck Liddell" instead of "Liddell" or "Randy Couture" instead of just "Randy" is a must. In addition, you need to fill out the space for "Tags" when you're writing the post with the biggest search terms in your post. So if your post is about Dana White and The Ultimate Fighter, those two terms should be tags you list.

You should also ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS click "Submit for Distribution". Once you do that, fill out the box that asks you to provide a summary of your post (hint: often the title will do the trick). And if your event is about something or someone related to a specific event - e.g. predictions for UFC 92 - click the "Attach Event" button in the creation window. Then pick which event you're talking about.

8. Don't be a prick. If the entire point of your post is to articulate your disgust for a referee because he didn't make a call you like, your post is not getting promoted. If, on the other hand, your post articulates precisely why the call the referee made was incorrect and that the referee has a history of making equally suspect calls (with documentation provided), you're likely get promoted.

9. Capitalize the titles of your posts correctly. We at BE use the AP style: ANY word more than four letters is capitalized (from, with, this, that, etc.); prepositions are not capitalized, and all other verbs and nouns are. There's a little more to the story, but that will get you pretty far.

If there are any more I think of, I'll add them to the list. This should get you started.

UPDATE: Here's another:

10. Be timely. Leave the history posts to Nate. You guys should stick to really timely content like breaking news, fresh analysis or a combination of the two.