Each year the holiday season brings SiliconANGLE a deluge of inquiries from vendors and their agencies about publishing their predictions for the coming year. I’ll be blunt: Most of these predictions articles are dull and, well, predictable. And since everyone does them, they’re no longer very distinctive.

If you want your predictions post to be memorable, you need to be provocative, offbeat and even funny. Here are some tips for getting your predictions list noticed by SiliconANGLE, other media outlets and the customers you’re trying to reach.

Be provocative, even outrageous. With so much competition vying for attention, you can’t afford to play it safe. Go out on a limb and challenge conventional wisdom. One organization that does this particularly well is Gartner, Inc. Its analysts are encouraged to make bold predictions, even if they aren’t all that confident in them. That’s why Gartner assigns a probability score to its forecasts. Even then, the specifics are less important than the trend being addressed. When Gartner says chief marketing officers will outspend chief information officers on IT by 2017, it doesn’t matter whether the prediction comes true. What matters is the discussion it provokes.

Be specific. Simply forecasting that a growth market will continue to grow isn’t very interesting, but predicting that a market that’s expected to grow 20 percent will actually grow 50 percent or five percent is something worth noting. Use facts and figures, dates, locations, product and company names whenever possible to make your message more distinctive and memorable.

Challenge conventional wisdom. This is a favorite tactic of columnists. Check the forecasts coming out of the big analyst firms and popular pundits and see if you can concoct an argument for why they are totally off the mark. At the very least, you’ll get their attention.

Use quotes and stories. Did you listen to a speech that got your mind churning? Did a customer say something that crystallized the point you want to make? These little anecdotes are gold for making your message stick.

Vary the format.  Try crafting your essay in the style of “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Make it a song. Write it as a Christmas letter to your friends or a memo to your boss. Draft it as a speech. Create a PowerPoint. Most predictions articles follow the same basic format. Change it up to enhance the likelihood of getting noticed.

Use different voices. Ask your employees and customers for their predictions. Choose one topic and get 10 different perspectives. Feature predictions from people you admire. There’s no reason you should be the only one having fun. Bonus: You’ll get likes and shares from the people you quote.

One note on accuracy. Many people stress over whether they’ll be held accountable for predictions that don’t come true. Don’t worry so much. Most people have better things to do with their time. If you can get people thinking, talking and debating, then you’ve done your job. Leave precision to the economists and have some fun.

For some more tips check out this article – How to get Press – and its interview with SiliconANGLE’s own Kristen Nicole

Creative Commons photo by Kelly Hunter via Flickr