I’ve Been a Bad Blogger
- Image via Wikipedia
I’ve never really considered myself to be a blogger, I’m truly am a micro-blogger. I love the social interaction and I’m always at my best in conversation. A blog is a lot different than micro-blogging. With a micro-blog, the conversation is bi-directional. I make a micro-post, people respond, and then the conversation takes off. With a blog, I’m broadcasting a message.
Sure, there’s a response when people comment, but it’s not in real time. I’m not really engaging people. However, in order for me to walk-the-walk and actually do what I advise my clients to do, I’ve decided that I need a blog. Plus, it’s a good way for me to expand upon what interests me and provide valuable information to people.
It’s important to have a centralized hub outside of our social networking and social conversational sites. It’s also important for my business that people know more about me and what my expertise is. For current and future clients, I believe it’s much easier for them, if I can lead by example and illustrate a lot of the principles and strategies that I teach.
Even now as I write this, without the responses, questions, and interaction that I would receive from Twitter, I miss the social interaction. I miss the instant feedback. I miss the stimulation, challenge, and fun of responding on the fly. That’s really where I’m at my personal best. I love exchanging ideas with people. I love being challenged. I love fielding questions, interacting, and engaging with people.
However, I also understand the importance of having and maintaining a blog. It allows people a better opportunity to see what I’m about. My blog also allows me to provide information that just can’t be parsed into 140 character chunks.
Here’s what I predict is going to happen as I start blogging again for the first time since December. My best guess is that my initial posts will be stiff. I won’t be focused. I’ll over think what I want my blog to be. I’m also going to guess that initially, my blog posts will be longer because I won’t really know what I want to express or exactly how I want to express it. It will take me a little while to regain my voice.
I usually suggest to my clients that for their first ten blog posts, they shouldn’t worry about what they are writing or how they are writing; they should just start writing. After about ten blog posts, they’ll find their voice, their focus, and their direction. The most important thing about blogging is that we get started and write.
After about ten blog posts, I will have found my focus and voice. I’ll know what key-words I want to use for SEO. I’ll know what my tagline is going to be. The most important thing is to just start writing. Sure, blogging isn’t as fun as Twitter, but blogging is important… even for a micro-blogger like me.
Okay, so here are some tips:
This blog isn’t perfect. It’s good enough to get started. I think a mental barrier for a lot of people is because of self-created expectations. Many of the people whom I’ve worked with, want for their blogs to be perfect before getting started. Building a high-quality blog is a process that takes time. However, the clock doesn’t start ticking on that process until we get started.
I also wrote this post in one draft without doing any self-editing. Otherwise, I could get hung up on what I want to write, rather than to just write. The most important thing is to keep hitting the keys on my keyboard without worrying about the results. I trust that if I type, the words will come to me. The more blog posts I write, the better the quality will become, and the shorter my blog posts will be. The key take-away here is that I didn’t over think what I was going to write. I know from experience that even if this isn’t the best blog post I’ll ever write, I’ll get an unlimited amount of do-overs. Practice makes perfect.
This blog is far from done. As I post, I’ll make adjustments to the CSS to give my blog the look and feel that I want. I’ll add widgets, play with the ad placement, create a header image, and make constant and ongoing improvements. This blog is far from perfect but it’s good enough to get started and make adjustments as I go. The important thing is that I’m posting.
If you leave me a comment, I will respond. Thank you for reading my blog, it’s appreciated. Always feel free to bounce ideas off of me and to ask me questions. I think most people want to know about driving traffic, creating community, and generating interest. I’ll be blogging a lot about those topics in future posts. Thanks.
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Glad to see you writing again… in more than 140 character chunks!
Alexa’s last blog post..Be the Change
I really like what you say here Mark; some of the best responses I’ve gotten from readers were on blogs that I didn’t think out, didn’t have a plan, but just sat down and wrote. Yet somtimes I still find myself bogged down by trying to perfect something that doesn’t necessarily need to be perfect. Blogging is real-world; that’s it’s beauty. Sometimes I forget that.
Jake’s last blog post..We Can’t all be Susan Boyle: The Power of an Effective Opening
@Alexa Thanks! You know me, I feel that if I’m going to talk the talk, I should also walk the walk. I figured that I should apply what I tell my clients to do, for myself.
At first I couldn’t think of what I wanted to write about. It seemed really strange to be blogging again. Now, I don’t know what I want to write about first.
@Jake Thanks! That’s the thing about writing a blog. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be real. I think our best work comes out when we don’t over-analyze our copy and allow our passion and creative-self to take over. It stirs people’s emotions and imagination and I think, it’s those types of blog posts that allow people to feel a sense of connection with us.
Just one word:
Welcome back!
Okay those were two.
Looking forward to seeing what you share!
Barbara
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach’s last blog post..Big Dog SHOCKING Secret – Money doesn’t HAVE to be made TODAY Part 3
@Barbara Thanks! I already have a few draft posts and I’m looking forward to publishing them soon. I added some new Pages with off-site redirects, a Home button to the navigation bar, and I completed my post footers.
As you know, at the end of every blog post, we should have some kind of a call to action. Whether it’s to subscribe to our RSS feed, join our mailing list, re-tweet our post, or to join us on our social networking sites, we want to direct our readers to take some kind of action… Which you do very excellently on your blog.
Next up is the header. The header image now is a background image that’s 2px wide that repeats x. Changing the header will be fun. (And character building.) lol. Also, I think I’m going to customize my 404 page a bit more. Perhaps add some of my recent posts?
I hope you enjoy my blog as much as I enjoy yours!
Hmmm. I think I need to add some white space below the time and date stamp too… Done!
Totally agree.
It’s like the old saying, “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there does it make a sound?”
Blogging versus twitter is very stiff and not truly edifying. But it appears to be a necessary evil as I strive to brand myself on the internet.
Our micro-blogging is like a passing billboard and our blog is “the rest of the story”.
Keep blogging…
Tony
Tony Logue’s last blog post..Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-26
@Mark: It’s not easy to write big posts for people who think in ‘points’
But if you put together these points, you will be surprised that you can produce some really good posts.
BTW, I visit forums and social bookmarking sites to find topic of my next post. There are so many questions asked by new webmasters and bloggers on forums that they automatically become a blog topic.
Jeet’s last blog post..Free Directory List
Great to see you’re writing again! I enjoy reading your tweets of course & totally get why you enjoy being there more than in the (IMO) restrictive realm of blogging. The fluidty of conversation & the interaction with other people, all over the world, in real time… To me, it’s what is MOST appealing & addictinf about twitter. Building relationships there is SO much easier than building a blog audience. At least for me.
Cheers! Looking fwd to reading you in long & short format.
I just subscribed to your blog and I’m looking forward to reading your future posts.
I’m not consistent with my own blogging, but I’m working on it! One way for us to have more content is to have our authors contribute as they have things to share, about their writing, appearances, and new projects.
Linda Houle’s last blog post..Nerves
Thanks for the interesting post. I also have not keep up with my blog as well as I could. My goal is to always write at least one post each each but I sometimes get busy with other things. I look forward to reading more from you in the future.
melvin @ make money blogging´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at
Are you coming back to play? It’s quiet around here without you…
Hey everyone just wanna say hello and introduce myself!