Blogging Anxiety: You Don’t Have To Be Famous
A colleague of mine confided to me that she was awestruck by sheer mass of blog posts on the web, especially on some of the well-known sites. “I’ll never catch up,” she said, mournfully. I suspect that many of us are sometimes a bit cowed when we surf around and see people who post brilliantly every day. Here’s the thing, though: those guys do that for a living. I mean, that’s a full-time job and they’ve become personalities through their blogging. Unless your goal is to become nationally renown, don’t worry about trying to be like John Gruber, Seth Godin, or Bob Parsons. (You’ll get no links here–I want to decrease the anxiety!)
A new author who compares himself to Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code), for instance, is highly unlikely to get any words on the page. The bar is just set too damn high. Nobody ever writes well when they’re pressuring themself for results. Luckily, you don’t need to be famous in order to be successful.
If you are writing for your business, most likely you’re doing it to demonstrate your credibility to potential customers. That’s all you need to worry about. You’re writing for a much smaller audience, which makes your job a lot easier. Also, your primary job, unlike the bigwig bloggers, is to do what you do best–acupuncture, real estate, coach, etc. Remember that, for you, writing is just a means to an end (ie getting more customers for what you actually love doing). You don’t need to be a Writer or Blogger; just be yourself. Be a person who is passionate about your business and let the writing flow from there.
Rachel Whalley is a Seattle business and writing coach, who helps her clients Write with Meaning.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
One of the tips Rachel gave during a recent class is to try a practice blog. You can set up a free blog on blogger.com, and even keep it private. Then you can try the whole blogging thing without committing yourself in public. I’m doing this right now, and I’ll be ready to go public soon.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Thanks Rachel. As always that’s some excellent advice.
December 7th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
I help a lot of real estate professionals learn how to blog correctly, and its all bout the typos and the bad grammar sometimes. For every personality out there, a very fine niche of potential clients is waiting for you in the blogosphere.
There are two vital parts of blogging, your idea… and your personality. Together that makes you a “real person”. Having one without the other leaves you in the dead zone of blogging.
John Gruber, Seth Godin, or Bob Parsons… are great idea men. I could argue about whether they are great writers or not, since they have a team of people who are helping them succeed as writers. Editors, publicists, and support-staff can greatly aid people when writing anything.
Don’t hold yourself to a non-existent writing standard. Hold yourself to your creativity, your passion, and your ethics… and you will succeed in become a “good” blogger.
December 7th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Wow - just what I needed to hear. This is great encouragement, since I just started blogging a couple of weeks ago and have been finding my voice and discovering how this activity will integrate into my business identity. Thanks, all.
December 8th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Yeah, nice timely topic… since I’ve been blog-challenged lately. Seems it isn’t really something I like - more time at the keyboard. And I have been limping along with an impotent blog waiting to get some help making it more effective. That help manifested at the Everett Biznik Happy Hour meeting on Wednesday night in the form of Israel Rothman - (talking with him for five minutes was when I knew why I was at that meeting - other than to be the host:-)
DD
December 10th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Blogging certainly isn’t for everyone. It works for me, especially because my business is all about writing. But I largely prefer working with *people* over slaving at the keyboard, so I try to keep my writing time down to the minimum (a couple hours a week).
I’m curious, Dennis, to hear more about what got moved for you by Israel. Sounds profound.