Sharing Your Expertise Without Being ‘The Expert’

Here’s the transcript from tonight’s #Blogchat.

If you think about it, there’s a lot of seemingly contradictory advice being passed around about how to improve your blog.  On the one hand, one of the best arguments for blogging is that a blog allows you to share your expertise.  This is completely true and one of the best arguments in favor of blogging.

However, one of the problems that many bloggers of all stripes encounter is a lack of interaction and participation on their blog.  They create this place where they can share their expertise, and then no one wants to talk to them.

Often, there’s a reason why.  Because experts are scary people.  When you encounter an expert, the assumption is that they know more than you do.  And for many people it’s very intimidating to discuss a topic with someone that you believe knows far more about said topic than you do.

This is exactly why #Blogchat has a ‘No experts allowed’ rule.  Because when people are identified as the expert, what that really signals to everyone else is that you’re not the expert here.  And that shuts down communication.

So if you are the blogger, you need to walk a fine line of sharing your expertise without coming off as ‘The Expert’.  It’s a very tricky proposition, and even veteran bloggers struggle with this.  For example, I recently wrote a post that I was really excited about.  The topic was a bit more advanced and I envisioned it as creating a more high-level marketing discussion.

Instead, it got zero comments.  Because when you start a conversation at a more advanced level, you are setting the participation barrier at a high level for your readers.  For example, if you start a 301-level conversation about a topic, anyone that feels that they are below that level or ‘not as smart’ as the writer, likely won’t comment.

So if you are blogging to establish your expertise and also want to have engagement on your blog, you need to strike a balance between the two.  You need to share your expertise, but not in a way that discourages your readers from engaging with you.

That’s what we’ll discuss tonight at #Blogchat: How do you strike a balance between sharing your expertise and building engagement on your blog?  Please join us at 8pm Central tonight (3-2-2014) for the discussion.  Come on, who wants to watch the Oscars anyway?