So
“blogging” is on your 2014 New Year’s resolution. Good for you. My goal
is to guide you well past the first 28-days and into habituation.
Starting blogging is not going to be easy for you. You’ll be all hot and
ready at first but you’ll probably never make it — at least not without
my help. More people give up on blogging — and writing in general —
than give up on going to the gym in order to lose weight and get fit.
Blog wasn’t built in a day. Mark my words.
A
majority of my revenue is generated from blogger outreach, namely
long-tail and deep-dive, outreach that extends all the way into the
thousands of bloggers. As part of the client service work on behalf of
my clients I have engaged with many thousands of bloggers over the last
decade.
Let’s see if I can help you get through the first push-off.
1) What is your agenda for starting a blog?
There is no right or wrong answer here. What do you want out of your
new commitment (or re-commitment) to blogging? Are you blogging to
get the job of your dreams?
You can, you know. Are you blogging to ward off boredom as you raise
someone from a Zygote? Do you have aspirations of getting free stuff in
the mail that you’ll then review on your blog? Fair enough — completely
possible, even probable if you can prove your mettle. Are you committed?
Agencies don’t sent out Hermès Kelly Bags or let you borrow S-Class
sedans to just anyone. You’ll really need to commit to making it into
the A-list of your topic or category of choice before you’ll start being
treated like royalty. When it comes to even receiving cheap swag or
tchotchkes you’ll need to have blogged well and long enough to be a
known entity with a passable reputation and Klout score.
Oftentimes,
if your aspiration is to be a tech guy or fashionista, you’ll need to
underwrite your own gadgets and gear yourself. At least until someone
fancies you to be just the right person who has the reputation, voice,
access, and reach that resonates with each unique promotion. Good news:
once you’re on board, you’ll probably be a go-to guy for as long as
you’re positive, responsive, and professional. It’s simple: commit to
treating your blog much less than a journal or diary and more like a
profession, a job.
That’s not to say you need to become square or reporterly. Objective
is not what anyone wants. People want you, they need you. They should,
down the road, know and enjoy your wit, your mind, your world, your
experience, and even where you are in the world — with your family,
kids, friends, city, state, personal passions, hobbies, and all of that.
People want the whole package, and that package is you, Mr. or Ms.
Blogger.
2) Only start a blog if you love writing and have something to say:
Here’s secret number 1 about blogging: blogs don’t write themselves.
Secret number 2: blogs, and the associated marketing, promoting,
connecting, pitching, connecting, relating, commenting, and responding,
and then blogging some more: short pieces, response pieces, shill
pieces, longer pieces. Guess what: lots of writing. Don’t worry,
passion-player: if you don’t like writing, maybe Video Blogging on
YouTube is for you.
Ugly? Maybe
SoundCloud
or an audio podcast on Stitcher. Terrible, nasally, voice? Well, it’s
OK. Nerdy, nasally, awful voices are the new black when it comes to
podcasting. There are virtually zero velvety dulcet tones going on
anywhere in Podcast-land. Still ugly? Well, maybe ugly means you’re more
authentic — go ahead and give YouTube a try. Start a YouTube Channel
today! But don’t worry. You can become as much — or more — of a
sensation on YouTube as you can on a blog. YouTube is how
Justin Beiber was discovered, right? And, YouTube is the second most popular search engine right under
Google Search.
And,
if you’re really committed, try out all the platforms in order to build
your personal brands: YouTube, Soundcloud, Facebook, Google+, Twitter,
Reddit,
StumbleUpon,
Digg, Tumblr, as well as your blog. It’s as much about you, Blogger, as
it is about each particular, discrete, post you birth into the
world-o-sphere.
3) Blogging is a lifetime commitment:
Like immunosuppressant drugs after heart transplant surgery, once you
start blogging you can never stop — or terrible things will happen. One
will kill your body, the other will kill everything you’ve worked so
hard to accomplish. To paraphrase the quote about Rome, your Blog wasn’t
built in a day, but it burned in one. What takes you months — years —
to build can go away in weeks.
4) Nothing’s really going to happen for the first six-months:
Once you consummate your marriage (with your blog) you need to realize
that not matter what you do, unless you already have a well-developed
brand, a multinational company, or are between and A-C-list celebrity,
then you’re going to have to work like a banshee and maybe — just maybe —
you’ll start getting some SEO and popularity traction by month six.
More likely, however, you’ll have your ups-and-downs over the course of a
year based mostly on the quality, popularity, trendiness, and luck. If
you start seeing more consistent readership and deeper popularity as
manifest my consistently-increased social sharing (by people other than
you and your best friends) then you’ll start seeing your metrics move
more reliably.
Please remember, however, that blogging is
primarily about connecting with your goals. If your goals are to attract
the attention of an employer or a brand or agency, then metrics aren’t
everything; however, if your goal is to make a living through
advertising and affiliate marketing, then yes, you’ll surely need to
care about traffic and numbers: the more the better. But don’t let raw
numbers drive your concept of your success or failure. Remember, all you
need to do is attract the attention of employers, colleagues,
reporters, agency reps, and brands.
5) Writing is only a quarter of what it takes to be a blogger: Writing
takes a lot of work. And you’ll need to do a lot of it. But the
blogging is only a quarter of the time you’ll need to put in. In
addition to that work, you’ll need to maintain your blog website, you’ll
need to sort out site moderation, become somewhat of an expert in
WordPress, Drupal, Xoomla, Movable Type, Typepad, Tumblr, Squarespace,
Blogger, or whatever you choose (choose WordPress).
You need to
jump in, feet-first, into social media, including your own personal
Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ profile. Quite possible a Facebook,
Twitter, and Google+ professional brand profile page. Maybe Pinterest,
even. Quite a few bloggers also maintain newsletters, email lists, and
email subscription lists.
Then, you’ll need to meet all the other
people in your blogging space. You’ll need to keep track of social media
mentions about your blog posts, you’ll need to monitor comments and
respond in a timely manner. You’ll need to delete spam and moderate
abusive comments.
I am sure I have just scratched the surface.
Domain name registration, email monitoring (for that fateful email
that’ll get you that Mercedes Benz S550 test drive or your very own
Kelly Bag), and all sorts of other technical issues you’ve never though
of: down time, a broken template, a corrupted database. You will have
become an entrepreneur, publisher, reporter, media-mogul, and
technologist all in one fell swoop.
Read more at
http://www.business2community.com/blogging/fulfill-resolution-blog-11-steps-0733852#XkKOLYPm57fJlLpf.99
About Justin Cofield
