How to make sure no one will read your blog (or listen to your ideas)

After only a few months at this blogging thing, I think that I have found something that I can truly say I have incredible perspective on: being a terrible blogger.

The blogging world has a set of values and ideas. I am certain that this phenomenon will make for the kind of stuff that fine academic institutions will soon create use to create literature and sociological theories. It sounds like the kind of class I would have taken, ENG 562: Blog Theory.

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Here are some of the blogging communication mistakes I have made.

THE LIST (of unwritten miscues…well, I guess they ARE written now, but, nevermind)

1. Don’t post regularly. If you are not posting at least a couple of times a week, then don’t be shocked when nobody is regularly commenting or digging or stumbling or whatever stroke of validation you were searching for. In blog world, as well as the world outside, consistency matters over being clever…much to my chagrin.
2. Being a great writer is better than being a good reader/listener. Blogging is to offer something to the world, so it needs to be unique. You begin this process by looking at and imitating other’s blogs. Find some to whom you can relate. Write down what you like. Start doing those things. If you are even mediocre, you are ahead of the game.
3. Fall victim to overt ploys at traffic-nabbing. Being Stumbled Upon can be great, but that is the ADHD of web browsing. Stumblers and traffic seekers are sometimes like Homer Simpson when he was saw a military-grade deep fryer that could flash-fry a buffalo in 40 seconds, he whined, “Forty seconds? But I want it now!” Nothing is more important than consistent, relevant content. There is no secret traffic pill/search engine optimization pill. Anybody who says differently is selling you something.
4. Join everything. It is not required nor is it an advantage to rocketship your name and presence into every single social networking site out there. You need something that you are going to add to each place. Also, it is not a requirement that you add every widget in the world to the side of your blog (or Facebook page or LinkedIn profile). Visit Adam Kreitman’s blog for more on how to not get sucked into the shiny, sexy, overwhelming vortex of social networking.
5. Be afraid to screw up. I only learned these rules by breaking them and not by following advice. So, I really should have taken my own advice, not posted these, which allowed you to figure these out for yourself. However, these are merely suggestions, so, if you think I am off my blogging chair, then try it for yourself. If what I said doesn’t apply to you, please let me know how you did it. I need to learn.
6. Feel the need to create the deepest most Earth-shattering idea before you start writing. I do this a lot. Ask yourself some tough questions…what types of readers do I want? What would they need? What is my goal in communication? Usually, they don’t need your ability to sound incredibly clever. They need something real they can sink their teeth into and implement.
7. Don’t worry about your readers. While “good content” means relevant, it doesn’t mean clinical or verbose. Be terse. Be entertaining. Be authentic.

Looking over the list, it strikes me that these mistakes apply to the world outside of blogging. Being consistent, authentic and truly seeking to serve another person is just a more effective way to live and communicate. It took screwing up at blogging for this guy to get that.

ANSWER ME THIS

Here is my question…if you had to teach the ENG 562: Blog Theory course who would you use as your examples? How would you structure the course? What is unique to blogging language?

Also, please let me know if I missed anything important. I am still new, you know, with much to learn.

The person with the best reply gets to have a FREE lunch…note, that I am not specifying where the lunch would take place.

- Jeremy Nulik, Creative Energy Officer, St. Louis Small Business Monthly

You like? Let others know:

What word cloud would your customers write about you?

When I meet someone for the first time, I have often wanted to hand them a preface. This would contain a few key moments from the past, failed relationships, funny/tragic stories, a songlist and a stack of DVDs (mostly bad 80s movies).

That way, when I say something like, “well, at least I have that going for me,” people would immediately recognize what I was talking about. Whether they would find me funny or not is another story.

Instead, what usually happens is that I get a few minutes into conversation, I say something that sounds inappropriate or misguided. Then, I attempt to explain my choice of words or reasoning for the placement of a story.

Personally, I am waiting for the folks at Google to come up with the iCloud. This is a digitally generated keyword cloud that would display above your head at all times. This way people would know what is important to you, how you define yourself and what your personality is like.

Here is what I think mine would look like:

This is how your iCloud may look after you realized you deleted all your episodes of your favorite reality TV show from your DVR:

You’re ready to make a killer sales presentation:

While you are dreaming at night:

All that would be required for this to come to fruition is some form of brain scanning device. This should be easy to come by for the Google folks. Aren’t they the royalty of the Inter-webs?

All of this is leaving out the possibility to tie this in with the social networking software and text messages. The Twitter people could grab a hold of this and the need to constantly update people on where you are and what you are doing. It could be the iCloud autoTwitter.

TRY THIS ONE OUT:

Go to wordle and create a word cloud for yourself and for your organization. Then, make one using the text from the last reviews of you or your company. You may notice a discrepancy, and that creates an opportunity to change what words your customers associate with you.

Really, the people at Google don’t need to create these. Everybody already sees them anyway…for better or for worse. They are writing one for you right now. As much as I would like to have a preface to make things easier for folks that I meet, people are already writing one for me. The cloud that we create for ourselves is pretty useless in relation to how others interpret who we are.

Your marketing does not belong to you, and you don’t get to write your word cloud.

So, what words are you putting out there? Please email me or comment below with your word cloud.

It really is all “about you”

So, they (whoever they are) say that you should give credit for using someone else’s words or ideas the first couple of times you use them and then, after that, those ideas are yours.

One idea that is not quite mine yet is the About You page. I shamelessly stole this idea from my friend Adam. He writes about my theivery here. I got the idea from a story that he wrote for the Small Business Monthly.

Here is what creating an About You page did for me and what it can do for you or your company’s literature:

• Took my eyes off me. So many times, when I am asked to talk about myself, it tends to make me uncomfortable. Rather than put myself or my company through the interview process or discuss features and benefits of Jeremy, Inc., I would rather think about you. It puts me at ease.
• Made me think about who you really are. This exercise forced me to think in some detail about who in world would find value in something like this blog. The “about you” exercise has given me a framework for what to leave out of the blog as much as it has informed what to include.
• Gave me the perfect forum to talk about me since I’m talking about you. The things that I say about you actually tell you more about me than if I just tried to write about myself (if you followed all of that, then you may need some psychiatric help…don’t worry, I know someone). You get to know me better by my description of you and the things I value about you.

This simple exercise has broad applications for companies and organizations. At the outset of a project, website, new product or service, ask yourself what information would be on the “about you” page. Who is this serving? Who would find value in this?

Stephen Covey says to “Begin with the end-goal in mind” and the “about you” execise does just that. It forces you, your team or organization to look outward to what effect you hope to achieve by first figuring out who it is for.

Having the humility to take the eyes off yourself and think about your target audience – their fears, desires and needs – can do nothing but make your next idea or project more successful.

Thanks, Adam. Keep the good ideas coming. There are plenty of theives like me willing to harvest.

HOMEWORK

The next time you feel the urge to start a new project, whip out a blank piece of paper and a No. 2 pencil. Begin to write the About You page for that particular idea. The real strength of the “about you” exercise comes from the process of doing it. Your customers, readers or team members will thank you.

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Jeremy Nulik, Creative Energy Officer (CEO), St. Louis Small Business Monthly