Some of you may remember Marcus Sheridan when he was just a guy who owned an outdoor pool company and wrote a blog called The Sales Lion. I loved reading his blog, I loved the way he wrote, and in general I loved the way he thinks; still do.
by Eddie Van 3000 via Flickr
One of those things most of us who’ve been around a long time (too long for some lol) will eventually see is something we disagree with, even if it’s a relatively small thing. One of those things I sometimes advocate for new bloggers is that if you see something that sparks a thought in your mind, whether you agree with it or not, it’s pretty good inspiration to respond to it; that’s exactly what I did when I came across something I disagreed with, and I’m sharing it with you because, in the long run, you might take the point of this post and use it for your own potential long term success.
Unfortunately, I can’t find the article anymore, not because it’s not on his new site but because the Wayback Machine, which has never failed me before, failed me this time; sigh… Luckily, I remember enough of what he said that I can reference here; y’all should thank me for this bit of recall. 🙂
Marcus wrote a post titled It’s Called a BLOG, Not a BRAG. His point at the time was that many blogs are written more with the person writing the blog in mind than the readers. His postulation is that no one is interested in reading about you, the blog owner; they want to know what you have to offer them, or what you can do for them. He later clarified that he was talking about business blogs when we talked, but since I’d also “kind of” crossed that line, I still decided to address it.
He does make a good point. If every post that’s written comes across as “I, I, I” and offers nothing else, it’s possible that at some point some readers might not want to visit anymore unless they like that person a lot. However, I couldn’t totally agree because to some it came across as a blanket statement across the board; that’s not true.
I’ll counter that point by asking a few questions. One, what if the blog is a collection of personal stories? What about like my business blog, like when I wrote about the 20th anniversary of my being self employed, or other articles where I often lead into my points of view by telling true stories of things I’ve encountered to help people identify with the lesson of the day? Or what about this blog, where I recently wrote a post about the 14th anniversary of this blog and still gave tips on blogging while also talking about my journey so far?
Those are the questions, and here’s the premise, which leads to the title of this article. Even if you’re writing about a specific thing like Carol Stephen does with her blog titled Your Social Media Works, which is also the name of her business? She often connects her life to her topic; in my opinion that’s what makes her blog interesting.
With that said, it’s time for the 5 reasons why your blog is definitely about you, no matter what you write about:
1. Blogs with personality make for a better read.
If you’d had the opportunity to read Marcus’ post literally, it was almost saying that you should just sell or market and not do anything else. Of course he wasn’t saying that, nor does he do that; he’s very personable. What’s also interesting about his blog is he writes a lot of posts about himself, telling stories of what happened and what brought him to the place he is today.
The point was to not keep talking about how successful you are if you’re selling something such as affiliate products, courses, membership sites, etc. You don’t want to be seen as… well, let’s let Clint Eastwood say it to you…
https://youtu.be/CZstgDZoLkA
2. We want to feel we know the person writing the blog, no matter what type of blog it is.
Think about this one for a bit. If someone is writing a “make money” blog, which a lot of people do, what is it that separates that person from everyone else? Why are there only a few people making it big with those types of blogs and so many others are failing? For that matter, what separates those blogs that make money, regardless of niche, from all the others?
It’s that we get to know these people, and through their writing we start to trust them. But you can’t learn anything about a person that won’t share themselves with you, and thus you won’t buy from them either. True, one can go overboard, but a balance in topics and discussion is always a good thing.
3. How else can you convince people to buy anything from you without talking about yourself from time to time?
My friend Peter talks about himself all the time when he’s pushing the latest product on his blog or YouTube channel. He’s not telling you what’s going on in his life, per se, but what brought him to this new product, why he likes it, and why he thinks you’ll like it as well. In between those posts, he tells some stories here and there, and of course lots of jokes. That’s because you can’t sell all the time; do that and people will stay away because no one wants to be sold to 24/7.
We might as well admit that we’re interested in the people we follow or read way more than what they’re talking about. Sure, if you really want to learn something you’re going to research it and you want specifics. But if it’s a site that’s captivating your interest, it’s usually got an engaging personality behind the words; at least I keep hoping so. 🙂
4. Why shouldn’t you be proud of your accomplishments?
In Peggy Klaus’ book Brag!: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn without Blowing It, she talks about the importance of talking about yourself and your accomplishments because if you don’t, no one else will. Sometimes those are the things that separate you from someone else. So if you’ve won some kind of award, mention it. If you’ve done an interview somewhere, or had a guest post published somewhere, mention it. You’d better talk about yourself sometimes because very few of us have someone else who’ll talk for us; trust me on this one.
I have to admit that I’m bad at this one. For instance, when I posted this article on blogging beliefs, I highlighted an award I was given by an organization I was a part of for 13 years, but I didn’t talk about it. I’ve been honored to receive lots of awards and accolades over the course of my life, but the only one I’ve ever really talked about was when I helped a hospital increase it’s yearly revenue to $730 million, which was more than a 100% increase from when I got there… and I only talked about it in passing because to detail it would take a lot of time… even though I have a brief link to it on my business site. In any case, I guess I need to read Brag again some day.
5. It’s your blog.
That means you’re responsible for every aspect of it. Why did you create your blog to begin with? If it has no personality, who will care about it but you? It’s up to you to promote, to talk to people, to write at least a portion of the content, and if there’s nothing of you in it then what’s the point?
You’d better talk about yourself from time to time, or at least allude to yourself. Let people know there’s a real person with real feelings, real personality and real talent writing that blog. Even if you’re trying to sell or market something, talking about what drew you to it, why you bought it (if you did), and how it’s helped you do… whatever… could help.
By the way, I started this article off by talking about Marcus Sheridan. I’m proud of everything he’s accomplished. That had been my plan, but I’m not as personable in public. Check out his website, and if you ever get a chance to see him in person, go for it. Here’s a small sample:
https://youtu.be/1ja3jn2KhM8
Anyway, don’t forget to add some personality to your blog, even if you have to talk about yourself occasionally. Without that, who cares? Now it’s your turn; what do you say?
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Happy New Year, Mitch! My blog is a total exercise in self-indulgence, but it’s a creative outlet rather than a business, so it works. I agree that it would be pretty dry and dull without injecting personality into what you write. And self-promotion is a must if you want to have an audience and build relationships. You can’t be shy in the Blogosphere. Your articles are always interesting, and I’m in awe of all your accomplishments. Brilliant!
Thanks Debbie; you’re great for my ego! 🙂 You definitely add a lot of personality to your missives; especially loved the one regarding 1970, even if it was one of the worst years of my life.
Happy New Year, Mitch!
I agree with everything you wrote. This is the mantra on my blog! https://morphodesigns.com/5-reasons-customize-blog/
The landscape is changing. Blogs, in my opinion, are going the way of MySpace. Tiktok will take over the world. It’s already surpassed the Google home page!
Cheers,
Mitch
LOL! Short but totally accurate! As for blogs dying out like MySpace et al (is TikTok dying out? I still see it all over Insta and other places where I’m not looking for it), I seriously doubt it. The majority of people are scared to have their picture taken, let alone get in front of a camera and do something stupid for the entire world to see (unless they’re under 30, but that never lasts long enough).
No, TikTok is not dying any time soon. Also, it’s not just about stupid pranks. People are learning to leverage the platform to get viewers to their other platforms, where they can then sell stuff.
Cheers,
Mitch
Happy New Year, Mitch!
I agree with you about writing about yourself. That’s what makes a blog interesting, after all. Bragging isn’t as interesting (even those “humble brags” are pretty transparent), but story telling with a point is always a good idea. Almost always
Thanks for the backlink to my blog, by the way. I appreciate it!
Carol
Glad to include you; it’s always a pleasure to read your thoughts and share mine. We’re two of a kind… only I’m more verbose! lol Let’s hope 2022 is a banner year for both of us… in more ways than one!
Mitch,
I’ve always believed in this philosophy, however, I also believe different blogs reflect different lines of thinking. As a journalist, I want to provide important information. As a 60 something year old woman, I’ve got responses to the information I write about so I separate them for credibility purposes. Nice relatively short post. I kept reading because it was interesting. Lol!
LOL! I’ve broken you down over the years to where you can view a blog article that’s nearly 1,500 words as “relatively short”! 😀
Truthfully, most of your blog posts have been about you both directly and indirectly. Whether you notice it or not, one can feel your position on almost every topic you write about if they’re paying attention, even if you’re asking your audience how they feel about what you’ve written about (including the article you’re linked to above, which I hope others will check out). That’s a different kind of writing than the dry stuff I seem to unintentionally subject myself to every once in a while since I visit so many blogs where the title compels me to check them out to see what they have to say. When it feels like I’m seeing a copy and paste article, I bail as fast as I can. If people took more pride in what they’re putting together, even if they’re reviewing something, those articles would be a lot more palatable and digestible, and hope encourage visitors to come back more regularly.
Hi Mitch,
Happy New Year. So much of business is about relationships. I am a huge fan of building connections between people and touching upon the human side.
Whenever I have been involved in business blogging I have always advocated giving a piece of that human side as part of it.
It makes people real and helps build trust. There are boundaries in what you ought to share, but the walls sometimes are higher than they need to be.
I totally agree Josh. The reasons I keep coming to your blog for instance is because you share your stories and personality, and you also almost always have two different stories going on in one post. I don’t think that’s something I’ve seen from anyone else over the years, which of course means you’ve found your way to be unique.
As for the business side, truthfully I think that whether or not we’re selling something, if we’re writing our blogs it’s indirectly a business either way. Overall I hope people trust me enough to keep coming back, but I also remember that there have been times when I’ve driven people away because I took a contrary position on something they didn’t like. Me being me, of course I stuck to my guns. 🙂 After all, my blogs are definitely about me! lol
Mitch, you may remember there was a time when I used to be a prolific blogger, not to mention I used to comment on a heap of blogs. Not so much these days as I am concentrating more on YouTube. You may be wondering why that is so and I can answer that in one word, Netflix, lol.
I really need to limit the amount I spend on TV and get back to some of my other tasks.
As someone who hasn’t watched TV in the longest time, I never thought of you as a Netflix guy. Back in the day I knew you as the business guy who worked early in the day and had the rest of the day off… or something like that. Still, it’s good to see you putting stuff out on your blog as well as your YouTube channel.
Yep, but nowhere near as much as I used to. I should do something about that lol
As long as you’re having fun, do it as often or as little as you want. That’s why I dropped to only one day a week postings; I’ve got other things that I “need” to do; this is my fun place… at least most of the time. lol
I concur with you about expounding on yourself. That is the thing that makes a blog intriguing, all things considered. Gloating isn’t as fascinating (even those “modest boasts” are really straightforward), yet narrating with a point is dependably smart. Quite often.
Gloating doesn’t work often, but I’d gloat if I was given a talk show or Mariah Carey showed up at the house to sing a bunch of songs for me. 😀 With that said, gloating for the sake of gloating most of the time won’t get you anywhere, but promoting yourself for business persons by letting people know what you’ve done makes a lot of sense.
Blogging Enhances Storytelling Blogging is all about telling stories, be it in words, pictures or videos. Storytelling is an integral part of today’s marketing. However, storytelling also requires skills that need to be honed. Practice makes you better and blogging is a way to improve your storytelling skills. 2. Blogging Improves Communication Skills By improving your storytelling skills, you also improve your communication skills. Are you shy, introverted or do you have low self-esteem? Blogging helps you overcome this obstacle. Communicating is trying to convey information to other people. With good communication skills, you are better able to convey ideas or knowledge to others.
Well… I wouldn’t say all blogging’s about storytelling, but I would say that storytelling makes lots of blog content feel better and easier to read. It’s certainly never boring if one can tell a story in the proper manner.