Create a Top 10 List – Day 11 of 30 days of blog post ideas

Welcome to day 11 of my 30 days of blog post ideas series. Today we focus on giving an opinion…

I love Top 10 lists. A friend created a small web site where people could upload top 10 lists and their friends could then rearrange the list as they thought it should go and somewhere find the middle ground – or have fun arguingdebating it. It sadly, no longer exists, but it looks like something similar exists at Listverse

What is it about top 10 lists? I think it gets people thinking and ranking. We all love to do research. I think it’s actually a problem for some – i.e. me. I am definitely a maximizer and not a satisficer. Creating a top 10 list forces us to put our thoughts, desires or likes in order which is good for our decision-making process.

The other thing it does is force us to express an opinion – in a nice way. An opinion is great, because once you have one person taking a position and expressing an opinion it gives others a reference to contrast their own opinion against, and we ALL have our own opinions and love expressing them. Now, if you do a Top 10 list blog post, you might not have a ton of comments but be assured, people are expressing their own opinion in their own head, or to their friends offline (‘She said X is best, and she’s quite blatantly wrong! Z is much better.)’

Pick your topic and write down potential items for your list. Start to order your list. Put it down and come back to it a while later and keep tweaking it till you’re happy. Give some reasoning about why each entry has the position it does. People want to understand your though process.

• Don’t be afraid to express an opinion. That’s the whole point.
• It doesn’t have to be serious. The list or the reasons for ranking can be humorous or silly (E.g. top 10 pieces of software that will help you waste time. Top 10 cars based on the shade of red paint they offer)
• Don’t feel you have to do a Top 10 list. You can do a Top 5, Top 3, Top 7. It all works.