Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase through our links.
Writing a Pop Culture Review
Review writing can be the foundation of your Pop Culture Blog. Writing a review can set the blueprint of how your Pop Culture Blog looks and feels. It’s also a great way to set the tone of your blog. That said, there are millions of blogs out there and thousands of Pop Culture blogs filled with even more Pop Culture Reviews.
So where do you start?
Writing a Pop Culture Review can inform your readers more about you as a writer, what to expect from your blog with future posts and is a fantastic way to get your point-of-view across to a mass audience. After writing over 200 reviews for I’ve come up with some helpful tips to help someone on their way when writing their very first Pop Culture Review.
1. Write what you know
Writing a Pop Culture Review can seem very daunting for the first time. I mean, where do you start? What do you write about? In a world where there’s websites and blogs on almost every topic – where do you, a brand new blogger, start from?
The answer is ‘Write what you know.’ While there may seem to be blogs on almost any topic what those blogs are lacking is you. So write what you know. Write what you’re into. Decide early on what your blog is going to be about and let that inform what your very first review is going to be about. Whether that’s Reality TV episode recaps or feedback on Wrestling commentary. There are no wrong or right answers.
2. Find your Voice
This tip runs the risk of feeding back into my first tip. Regardless, try to find your voice early on. What I mean here is find the tone or style of your writing early on. Establish if your blog and it’s pop culture reviews are going to fbe ormal and factual or if they’re going to be casual.
You may want to inform your readers of your review by adding a bit of comedic element. Or, better still, you may want to add a bit of satire in the mix. Take “The Onion” for example. One of the world’s largest Cultural Websites that flirts with satire on a regular basis. Although they might not write reviews per se, they have certainly established their voice very early on.
So above all else – Find your Voice.
3. Do your Research
Research the content of what your blog is going to be about. Whether you’re writing a review about a band’s album or a tv show you need to do your research.
Now what do I mean by research? Well, quite simply, don’t just watch or listen or read a thing and think your opinion will be the best opinion in the room. Dig a little deeper and do some more research.
Research can be on many different levels. If you’re reviewing a band’s album then you can look into the influences of the bands style. On the other hand, if you’re writing a review about a tv show and the show has already been on the air for 5 years then you may want to familiarise yourself with the previous episodes. Dig deeper and do your research.
4. Write your Review
Now that you’ve decided what you’re going to writing about, know what writing style you’ve settled on and have done your research it’s time to get stuck into your review.
There are many different ways to approach writing a pop culture review. There’s the free form where you talk about the entire work of art in a way that feels most natural to you. On the other hand, I prefer to break down my pop culture reviews into subheadings that help direct the look of my reviews or the topics I want to cover.
If it’s a comic book then the “story” and “art” will be two main subheadings whereas if it’s a review about a 20 year old album by a band then I might break it down into subheadings like “Recording Sessions,” “Style” and “Legacy.” It’s all up to you. Do what feels natural. However, once you’ve decided on a template for how your will reviews look, make sure you stick to it.
Finally, when it comes to Editing, Grammarly can help you edit your blog in the style you want. There are free and paid versions of grammarly that can suit your needs. I personally use a paid version of grammarly. I highly recommend it as it’s a great alternative to hiring an Editor.
Resource: Grammarly
5. Review Scores
Review scores can be a touchy subject for some. One one hand it’s great to add a review score plug-in to your blog to use with your pop culture reviews. It helps back up your opinions when contextualising your review, it looks great and it can help with google rankings.
However, review scores can also hurt you if you give a bad review to a film or band or something similar. While it may pull in some additional readers because, hey let’s face it, we all love drama. It may also burn bridges if you’ve given a low score to the client of a PR contact.
To this I would say be smart about how you score your reviews. Make sure your review scores match up with the review itself. For example, you’re not going to score a review with 60% or 3 out of 5 stars if you’ve made comments like “Exceptional,” “Outstanding” or “Definitely Must Check Out.”
On the plus side, Review Score plugins can definitely help your Pop Culture Reviews POP!
Resource: 10 Best Review Plugins for your Website
That’s it for now. Did any of these tips help you out? I’d really like to know and hear about your latest Pop Culture Review. Post in a comment below.
Want more ?
RELATED ARTICLES:
How to start a Pop Culture Blog – 9 Simple Steps
