Finding Your Blogging Voice

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My first foray into blogging was not on this site here, for business, but on my hobby site for fun in my spare time.  I am very competitive and I turn everything into a challenge that I must conquer.  I find it helps to motivate me to accomplish things and move forward in life.  My hobby blog was no different.  I challenged myself to become a blog superstar.  To become the blog everyone wanted to read and subscribe to and in case you are wondering; no that did not happen, and no it is not the “it” blog.

I bring up that blog because that is where I found my blogging voice.  I’ve written previously about why every business should have a blog and it is something that I advise my client’s to do.  One of the objections that I hear is:  “I’m not witty/funny or know how to write eloquently/formally.”  Basically, they do not know how to find their blogging voice.  I do not think that you have to be intentionally witty or funny to blog or write in a formal style, not if that is not true to who you are and how you speak.

When I first started writing on my hobby blog site, I first tried a more formal approach.  My thought process was that I always made good grades on term papers in school and graduate school is almost entirely writing and reading.  I figured if I could make it through grad school and did well writing in school, surely I could write a few articles/posts for a website blog.  I kept it formal and I did not see much traction or success.  I do not believe that the formal writing style was the problem, but that it was not my genuine speaking voice.

With time, I became a bit lazy and the formal style dropped.  Instead, I began to write more like I talk/speak.  I started speaking to my readers instead of treating them like professors requesting my paper for a grade.  When I started doing this, I saw more traction with my blog in the form of engagement from my audience.  They answered my calls for guest post submissions, commented on posts and my traffic and subscription numbers increased.  I no longer have the time that I used to, to devote to that site (the woes of entrepreneurship), but the site continues mainly through guest blog post submissions.

I believe to find your blogging voice, you must find your actual real life voice.  How do you speak when you talk about something you are passionate about to someone in real life?  How do you explain it?  How do you give out advice and tips?  That is the same voice that should be used on your blog.  Speak to your readers and not at them.  Unless your topic is of a scientific/technical nature AND the audience that will be reading the information needs to consume the information in a formal way, use your natural voice.

WordPress is “Easy,” is Relative to Your Experience

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I love the WordPress platform for building and maintaining websites.  Lots of web designers, entrepreneurs and bloggers love WordPress as well because it’s so “easy.”  When working with clients and explaining WordPress to them, I have branded it as “easy” to use and learn as well.  However, I have begun to realize that “easy” is relative and WordPress may not be “easy” to learn or maintain for everyone.

WordPress is “easy” to me for a variety of reasons.  One, I no longer have to hand code a full site.  Gone are the days of me designing websites based on what I knew I could actually code and make function.  I went to school for graphic design and later went back for a MBA in marketing, but all of my web design skills and knowledge are self-taught.  I am admittedly more right brain than left and the left brain is what sees art and music in all of those lines of code, styling, hooks and calls.  WordPress came along and made it “easy” because I can use something existing as a base to build off of.  Instead of starting from scratch, I can use my coding skills to customize, tweak, tear apart and put back together a site that is unique in look to my client and gives them the functionality they need.  Compared to what I had to do before, WordPress is “easy.”

Another reason is that maintaining what I have built is much simpler and no longer requires the expertise of a client’s webmaster (does that term still exist).  Before WordPress, if a client needed a change or update made, they would have to come back to me to modify the code.  Now the interface looks similar to Microsoft Word although the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor is not quite so WYSIWYG.  Thus, making WordPress “easy” to maintain and update, but again; this is all relative to my experience and knowing what it used to be like.

For someone that is entirely new to websites and is looking to have one made for their business, WordPress may not seem so “easy.”  Especially when they have an interface that is similar to Microsoft Word, but does not really act or function like Microsoft Word.  It can be downright frustrating.  WordPress also requires a bit of technical savvy to really get a handle on how things work on the back-end and how that all correlates to what is seen on the front-end.

While it is great to be able to say what it used to be like and how hard that was in comparison to WordPress today, for a client that needs a business site, it is all irrelevant.  Today they need a site and today they need to be able to maintain it.  If I told them that it would be “easy” with WordPress, then that is what it needs to be.  For that reason, I no longer tout WordPress as an “easy” solution, because “easy” is relative.

Why I Quit Facebook…Sort Of

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I quit Facebook.  Well, sort of.  Before social media became a marketing tool, I was an avid user on the personal side of things.  Like most, I bounced from network to network as they were created and became popular.  Myspace, CollegeClub, and a bunch more that escape my memory at the moment…sad, I know.  When I first landed on Facebook, it was actually after it had been opened up to non-college students.  I had tried to sign-up when it was for students only, but was unable to, because I had graduated and lost access to my .edu email account.  When it was opened up to everyone, I jumped on board.

Fast-forward to now and the current social media revolution as a tool for personal, marketing and professional uses.  I have continued my social media hop, but now I hop and stay for a while.  Also, when I hop, the purpose has changed from being purely personal, to being for business/marketing reasons.  I am on Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Facebook with my freelance business (follow me).  What I am finding is that I enjoy the other social media networks more.  I enjoy them more, in my opinion, because the connections I share also share more content that is in line with my interests.  If I follow someone, but later decide I do not like the content they share, I unfollow them…and I do not feel guilty about doing so.

Facebook is a different story.  My personal account is filled with connections from people I have interacted with or encountered at various points of my life.  Some I have worked with, gone to elementary school with, attended college with, etc.; you get the picture.  Although I personally have met or known more people I am connected with on my Facebook profile than on the other social media networks, I feel less connected to them.  Just because I have met or known them, does not mean we share the same interests, thoughts and/or values.  I also feel guilty to “unfriend” people because it feels more personal than unfollowing someone I do not know on another network.

Instead, I have taken a passive aggressive approach and hide posts from certain people from my timeline.  I have started to come to a point where I feel like why bother.  If I did not need the personal account to keep my business page, I would close my account.

So for now, I sort of quit, I keep the account open and only pop in for business reasons.  Does anyone else feel this way?

Is Content Marketing a Trend?

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I start today’s post off with another question:  Is content marketing a trend?

My answer:  No.

“Content Marketing” is the latest marketing buzz word that is being thrown around amongst marketers, entrepreneurs and digital strategists.  According to Wikipedia, “Content marketing is any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers.”  In today’s digital landscape, this is being done through the use of infographics, white papers, social media, ebooks, blogs, etc.  Wikipedia goes on to say, “Content marketing is focused not on selling, but on simply communicating with customers and prospects.”

Because of the recent explosion of content across digital mediums and platforms; it may feel that content marketing is a trend or fad that has just cropped up.  However, I would argue that content marketing strategies have existed for a long time in traditional marketing mediums.  In print, companies have distributed helpful literature in the form of pamphlets, leaflets and guides.  The literature did not directly sell anything to the consumer, but was helpful information.  It also kept the company top of mind for that consumer when they needed the services offered by that company.  In media, we have seen public service announcements that provided helpful information to the public and were sponsored by enterprises.

Technology has helped to change the marketing landscape and a traditional marketing strategy has now made the leap into the digital age.  So no, content marketing is not a trend.  It has just been repurposed to work in an ever changing, fast moving, and digital world.

Content Marketing: Is Blogging Dead?

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I have seen the question come up of whether or not blogging is dead fairly often recently.  For many, blogging is a part of their content marketing strategy.  For most that are using content marketing as a strategy, blogging is the only method that they are employing.  Blogging has been around for a long time, but in my opinion, only started becoming “popular” and the “thing to do” within the last five years or so.

I believe that it has become the popular thing to do for many reasons:

• The successful careers that have been launched by popular bloggers like Perez Hilton, Bryan Boy and many others.

• The potential to earn passive income/revenue from ads on a blog.

• The SEO benefits that bring traffic and new potential clients/customers to a business.

• The relatively low cost and ease to implement and maintain a blog.

Add to this an increased desire for many to become entrepreneurs or the next big thing, and we have seen an explosion of blogs and bloggers.  Everyone has one.

So, do I think blogging is dead? No, I don’t.

While I feel that the blogosphere and internet are saturated with blogs, I feel that it has turned into a trend that will die.  Wait, didn’t you just say that blogging is not dead?  Yes, that is what I said and believe.  It is the trend itself that I believe will die.  When the next big marketing concept hits, everyone will clamor to jump on that trend and many blogs will be forgotten and will die.  What will remain, will be blogs that were never about just pushing out content for the sake of pushing out content.  What will remain and continue to thrive, will be blogs that were in it because they loved to produce whatever content they were producing, they were passionate about it and believed it was worth while to publish.