It seems that a lot of people are wanting to copy the efforts of popular bloggers. They want to figure out how to be the next Chris Brogan or Mashable or Jessica Northey. I wanted to talk about why I think that’s wrong, but first I wanted to tell you about a couple of my favorite bloggers (and people).
The first is Gini Dietrich. I’m sure most of you know and love Gini and her blog, Spin Sucks. Gini is sharp as a tack, but what I love about her writing is that its business-oriented, but personal at the same time. Even when she is talking business, she still writes in a way that makes you think you are listening to your best friend tell you how their weekend was. Everyone loves her writing and her style, which is exactly why she has such a passionate community of readers. She posts almost every day, usually TWICE a day if you count guest posts on Spin Sucks, and she averages dozens of comments on her posts. Gini’s readers love her, and as she clarified in a post here, her readers are driving business to her.
The other person I wanted to point you toward is CK. In contrast to Gini’s 2 days a day and dozens of comments a post, CK posts about twice a month, and gets about 1-2 comments per post. But what CK also does is have a laser-sharp focus with the content she creates via her blog, and elsewhere. Don’t believe me? Google ‘B2B Mobile Marketing’ and see how many of the results on the 1st page are content that CK has created.
The point here is, both Gini and CK (and you both should know each other, BTW, consider this an introduction!) have created a content strategy that works for them. Too many of us try to replicate what is already working for someone else. That’s THEIR strategy. We all need to come up with our own path and our own voice. Look at Gini, she has created a wonderful community on her blog, and that community is helping to drive business for her. On the flipside, CK is breaking one of the biggest ‘rules’ of successful business blogging: She’s only posting once or twice a month. But it works for her because every post is optimized and helps her expand her online footprint in the B2B marketing space.
Think about this especially if you are a solopreneur. You are completely responsible for your blogging strategy, so you have to consider what works for YOU more than what works for anyone else. You can and SHOULD draw inspiration from other bloggers, and you should be aware of what’s working for them. But you should NEVER attempt to copy someone else’s strategy and approach if it’s not right for you.
Here’s a personal example: When I started blogging in 2005, everything I read about successful blogging said to blog like Seth Godin does. Short, quick, to the point. Write your post as if it’s an executive summary, because no one has the patience or attention span to read more than that.
I want to tell y’all, it took me FOUR DAYS to write my very first blog post. Because I agonized over that post for 3 days and 23 hours and 30 mins because I had no idea how in the hell I was going to condense my first blog post down to 3 paragraphs. Finally, I said ‘screw it!’ and wrote the post *I* wanted to write, in 30 mins. As soon as I accepted that the ‘blogging rule’ about proper post length didn’t work for me, I wrote the post I wanted to write.
And that’s made all the difference. The beauty of blogging is that it gives us all a way to share our voice. I told my friends at the Live #Blogchat at the B2B Forum this, but I honestly believe that most people are smarter than they give themselves credit for. I fear that too many bloggers feel that their posts will only be popular or ‘work’ if they mimic the way a particular blogger writes. Five years ago when I started blogging there was no David Armano or Beth Harte or Shannon Paul that I could learn from. And no doubt they were inspired by other bloggers, but they also found their own voice and their own blogging path.
If you are losing your passion and excitement for blogging, if could simply be because you are trying to walk someone else’s path, instead of your own.
The only good thing I can say about giving up my job as a controller in Hawaii to move to NC to get my RE license is that I discovered and learned about blogging! Hated real estate even before it crashed but to this day love anything to do with blogging, so the real estate nausea was well worth the discomfort. While I always had horses in my marketing and branding while regurgitating RE, because horses are my passion, between my WP blogs and my fairly new Tumblr and social media exercises, I find it challenging honing in on that one thing in my horse world to focus on and ‘be known’ for… oh, wait, maybe I should start writing stories from my years traveling down the highways to horse shows back when I would see Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Anderson and Don Shula loping around the warm up arenas. In the meantime, I can’t wait every single day to get up and eek my way down my own blogging path. Thanks for everything you do, and have done, to fuel and intellectualize my adventures!
Mack–I totally agree that it’s useful to see how other bloggers create their blogging journey. The challenge that blog newbies have is how to make it uniquely their own. What works for another blogger won’t work for you. You must find your special trail targeted your audience to reach your goals. Happy marketing, Heidi Cohen
Thanks for writing this post Mack. One thought though… I’m a big believer in modeling success. Basically, find what is working for others and apply it to your situation. Make sure that you keep your voice and purpose but don’t spend years reinventing the wheel.
@Stanford Bingo Stanford, that is very healthy and very smart. But I see a lot of bloggers that start doing something simply because they see a popular blogger doing it. The mindset seems to be ‘I need to do this because Brogan is doing it’ or whoever.
More bloggers need to follow your advice, look to other bloggers for inspiration, not complete direction.
@MackCollier @Stanford Such a great post, Mack, and great comment from you both. Look for “inspiration, not complete direction.” Spot on, because if we do exactly what others do, where’s the innovation, unique perspective and authentic voice? No cookie cutter approach: just great cookies:) Cheers! Kaarina
“The beauty of blogging is that it gives us all a way to share our voice.”
YUP! And to share it in different ways: video, slideshows, audio, infodoodles!
I had to make a choice: I could either write a lot more short posts–or be able to create infrequent posts with new tools. For instance, I’m including a ton more video which is great… but it takes time to videotape, then edit, then post them. And I really like creating much larger ‘special’ pieces (like the http://b2bmobilerevolution.com paper = 15 pages!) and that takes time to make a quality piece. Same thing with creating slideshows… they take more time to concept and create–but I sure love doing them.
And after years of doing more posts that were smaller (still a great strategy), I decided to try some different formats that may take more time–and lead to less posts–but I’m enjoying it and learning soooo much. I am so happy to now have a full archive of videos (and that was a BIG step for me to do a full video channel — scary!). But video works for my mobile site as well as my blog–as mobile users need video over longer posts. And it’s fulfilling to look back at a suite of slideshows (love both slideshare and audio-enabled brainshark which lets the slideshow be more ‘personal’). And more, bigger papers and the like are planned… but again, these things easily take a month of planning so the tradeoff is not as much blogging.
But it’s not a sacrifice, it’s just a different choice… and a different way to share my voice, as you so adeptly hit on.
So I learned a lot by trying a different formats/tools and a different frequency. In this ‘era of choice’ with so many tools, it’s good to experiment (as our friend Ann Handley underscored at B2B Forum!). As for the future? We’ll see if it’s still the same strategy but I do know this: the future holds more experimentation, more new lessons and many more valued colleagues to meet, learn from, and cherish.
Sending you a virtual hug and thank goodness I got to see you this month–a year without seeing you IRL is far too infrequent! I want a strategy of seeing MORE Mack 🙂
P.S.: Gini, it’s great to meet you 🙂
@CKsays Awesome comment CK, thanks for giving us insight into why you’ve chosen your content strategy 😉
THANK YOU for questioning the “Internet reader has the attention of a spider” mantra. I, too, worried about the fact that few of my posts are under 500 characters. I blog about statistics and statistical programming and it doesn’t fit into sound bytes very often. I finally came to the conclusion that my audience is people like me, and I don’t mind reading more than two paragraphs.
@annmariastat Damn right 😉 Yes you need to write for your readers but you ALSO have to write for yourself! If you are comfortable writing longer than a couple of paragraphs, then go for it! @TheBrandBuilder writes 10-page posts, but you know what, people read it, because they know to expect that from him.
If we try to put to many rules and regulations on our blogging, we can sap our passion for the entire process.
Re: “If you are losing your passion and excitement for blogging, it could simply be because you are trying to walk someone else’s path, instead of your own.”
Love this line. When your starting out, I can see how it’s tough and you might want to mirror/mimic other’s success. But sooner or later, you’re going to have to figure things out for your own. Create your own style, find your own unique voice. Only then, do you really start to grow.
Love this kind of topic Mack. I have seen my blogging skills develop over the past couple of years and I am sure they have a long way to go but the fact remains that they are my posts and I am proud of them. If you don’t have your own voice then how much can you really attribute to the development. It may actually take much longer because most people are quick to pick out those who are trying to blend in versus those who wish to stand out. Great reminders sir. Take care
Love this! It’s surprisingly difficult to find your own voice, but in the end your blog is about you and you do your audience no favors by trying to someone else, even if that someone is wonderful.
Absolutely spot-on about following your own style, it’s not suprising your first blog post took so long to write – I think Pascal’s quote of ‘I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter’ definitely applies!
@SocialNicole What is NASATweetup?
. @Veribatim #nasatweetup ‘s r tweetups held @NASA facilities around the country – I attended #sts134 tweetup saw shuttle launch
@SocialNicole oh my gosh! I LOVE @nasa!! I tries to go to the last shuttle launch but missed it due to all the delays.
I know I have like 2 readers, but I still write anyway. Of course, when I write, it’s usually something big since I write about once a month at most these days,.
@MackCollier In agreement with you on that. Needs a better filter.
@MackCollier It posts replies to mentions of your content which makes for some potential weird mentions… (In some cases).
@juliacantor Thank ya darlin’, I needed that!
@MackCollier What can we say, Livefyre SocialSync is in beta 😛 our next update will include following parent comments to improve relevance
@Veribatim the launch was awesome…one more scheduled …
@SocialNicole I know. I’m depressed. I’ll be in Puerto Rico on a trip that’s been planned for years.
@Veribatim 🙁
@2cre8 Thanks for the retweet. Have a nice evening!
@CKsays Great meeting you, too!! I loved the “consider this an introduction.” LOL!
When I started blogging, I didn’t realize there was a blogosphere…other than the work Todd Defren was doing. I didn’t know there were rules. I didn’t know anything about search. I just wrote. And I wrote when inspiration struck (usually at 5 a.m. in a hotel room while I was on the road). That drew a few thousand visits each month (maybe 5,000). Then I had a friend say, “I’ll bet you can get to 100,000 visitors if you focus on this. ” I laughed at him. But I hired a community manager resident last summer who made me smart on all of the stuff I was missing. He introduced me to other bloggers and gave me things to read about search.
My point is the same that you made…what works for me doesn’t work for you doesn’t work for CK doesn’t work for Godin doesn’t work for johnfalchetto . The very most important part of this post is the last sentence.
Thank you for such a nice post. And @CKsays ! Great meeting you!
I can’t be anyone but myself, so why try to imitate anyone else? I write short, very personal posts. My longest post is 550 words, but most of the time they are just under or around 300 words.
I wrote a 200 word post that did very well for me (which means it got about 100 page views) since my blog has no SEO and few links, that is pretty good for me. I blog because I love it,and I think i have something valuable to say. I would not do it if I did not get up every single day wanting to blog.
My voice may not be for everyone, but my blog is finding its audience and that for me is the greatest feeling in the world
Find your blogging niche & voice RT @ginidietrich The Importance of Creating Your Own Blogging Path by @mackcollier http://t.co/bIAYkGG
@ginidietrich When did you start blogging Gini? What I find difficult today is that I really just want to write, but there is so much hoopla around blogging, best practices, growing your audience, blah blah blah. I think I use this as more of a reason to not post what I write because I don’t think it will compare to blogs like yours or this one right here. I’ve always said I blog for myself, so I can have a history of my thoughts, and be open enough to let others chime in and hopefully take something away from my experiences. I forget how awesome it was when I got one email from someone who read my Australia blog…it was all personal and someone actually learned something from it! Ok ok, you and @MackCollier have convinced me. I just need to start PUBLISHING!!! Thanks for the indirect kick in the butt 🙂
@jennalanger I didn’t start until a couple of years ago. We’ve had Spin Sucks for five years, but like every other business owner, I claimed I didn’t have time. Then the ache of needing to write I had as a kid returned and I thought I’d use Spin Sucks as my outlet. I didn’t write to grow audience or build business or to get speaking engagements. I blogged for me. I still do (as is evidenced by my post today), which I think is the difference in why my community has grown like it has. I think it was Mark Twain that said when you’re a writer, it’s like a disease. You have to get it out any way you can. So my advice? Just write for you. The rest will follow.
Love this reminder Mack! There are so many rules, and so many these days are trying to come up with social media strategies that many bloggers, and by bloggers, I mean writers, have a debilitating amount of pressure to fit into a certain formula. That’s too bad! All these rules and regulations are helpful and great things to consider, but it’s important to do what you want to do, to let your blog reflect who you are. The best way, in my opinion, is to keep writing, to let the stakes be a little lower and trust you will find something naturally.
@Milaspage U #inspire! Thx Mila! <3 The Importance of Creating Your Own Blogging Path http://t.co/Szexbzy #usguys @mackcollier @mikelehrosa
@jkretch Good morning. Loving Livefyre. 🙂 Who should we send product ideas to? Been brainstorming about 12 Most and something popped.
@SeanMcGinnis Hey Sean, very cool! Send a note to jordank at livefyre com and jenna at livefyre com. Would love to see your ideas.
Mack–Thank you for giving bloggers permission to be themselves on their blogs. Happy marketing, Heidi Cohen