A friend recently asked me ‘Is Blogging still a thing?’
For someone who works with content, I had to stop myself from throwing a bit of a hissy fit. I held back – and wondered if replying was still a thing.
The answer to the question on blogging depends on whether:
- You don’t blog
- You do blog but do it badly
- Your blog and your content rocks
Now if you are at stage #1, and want to start making a note to yourself skip #2 and go straight to #3. If you are #2, you can either work to improve your blog and advance to #3 or do the entire world a favour and move back to #1.
The world doesn’t need more content for content’s sake, the internet is already over-saturated.
Why luck has nothing to do with it
If you are looking at other people’s blogs that have great articles, engagement and a steady audience, you might be thinking that they just got lucky.
Perhaps that business owner has an innate magical ability to write and connect with their audience. That they have inside contacts and ginormous budgets that they use to bring them traffic.
Perhaps, they have secret insider knowledge… etc.
However, all of the above is unlikely to be true.
The real secret is much simpler. People and companies that do still blog, and do a damn good job of it excel at:
- Being consistent in how often they publish a post
- Promote their blog far and wide on social media channels and beyond
- Share blog posts in their newsletters
- Creating well-written, engaging, useful and easy-to-read blog posts
But their super duper big number #1 Secret:
‘They know it’s not about them’.
They put their reader, their website visitors, and their customers/clients at the heart of their content plan.
How do I know this:
Once upon a time (bear with me), I used to attend events. During a particularly mind-numbing presentation. Where an engineer was droning on about the wingnuts of a plane (I kid you not). A wise man leaned in and said: “Find one useful thing to take away from each presentation, and it will have been worth your while”.
He was right. If I could find a gold nugget in each presentation after a few days I will be richer than when I arrived.
Now from that particular presentation, I learned that I have no love for the nuts and bolts of planes and I should always check who is speaking. I also learned that if you are speaking at an event, know your audience and what they’ll be interested in learning, as most of the audience on that day was asleep, checking their emails or on the way out the door.
It is exactly the same for blogging or any content you create.
If you only go on about how awesome you are (we have all met this person) or wingnuts, people will switch off.
Now, your products and services may be the most spectacular on the planet. But if it’s a plane’s wingnut, it’s not going to mean much to me unless I own the plane. Sadly, I don’t own a plane, Yet!
How to get your audience’s attention:
I once read, “If you talk to a man about himself, he’ll listen for hours”. It totally cracked me up and at the same time, I realised that this is true for anyone of either sex. Talk to anyone about themselves and you will find they’ll listen for hours.
It’s not about you or your product or services but what they can do, how useful they are, what they can solve and the value they bring to your audience.
While people will enjoy your antidotes, in reality, people use these to find common ground – do they relate to you? Are you part of their tribe? How does your experience tie in with theirs and what does it all mean in the grander scheme of things?
So today’s golden nugget is for you to know, focus and write to and for that ideal customer of yours. Get to know and understand them, and ask yourself what you can share that would be of value. What will make them feel as though they’ve found a few golden nuggets of their own?
Thankfully blogging isn’t dead and it’s still a thing for those that get it right, it’s as relevant today as a wingnut on a plane. For those in the air – a wingnut is exactly where you want it to be.
Blogging too can take your company, and personal brand to new heights, depending on how well you know your audience, and how generous you are with what you have to share.
Thanks for the beautiful images: Photo by Leio McLaren on Unsplash & Rawpixel
