For the past 5 months or so, I start blogging, and I have managed to put out 5 posts a week since I started. Now when I started doing this, the first thing I thought was “how can I come up with enough to talk about?”. I have to confess, I’ve surprised myself. I discovered a few things, and I wanted to share those with you.
1. You know more than you think – If you consider yourself an expert at anything, then there’s an audience out there that wants to hear what you have to say. Now, you may not consider yourself an “expert”, but a famous quote I heard is that “In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king”. What does that mean? it means that in your subject you know a lot more than someone just learning. So you might not have every answer, but you have a lot of answers the average person has no clue about. This was a tough one for me. I’ve been doing a lot of these things for so long that I assume it’s common knowledge. Well, I’ve learned that what I think is common knowledge, is actually only common among other experts, but not to the average person.
2. Writing is too much work – this one plagued me for a while until I learned a simple concept. Write like you’re talking to someone over coffee or drinks. Don’t try to write a masterpiece, rather just write like you would talk. While this won’t win you a Pulitzer, it strikes the average person as a “real”. If you write like you’re having a conversation with someone you don’t come across as an arrogant expert, rather it brings a feeling of familiarity, comfort. Strangely enough, I’ve discovered that a lot of people are actually reading what I consider ramblings. Sometime I feel like I’m just babbling on, but then I’ll get a comment from an old friend, or someone that I’ve never met before, and it gives me a renewed effort to keep blogging.
3. Be consistent – this one has been tough for me. To do this right, you really need to post consistently every week. I decided I’d do every weekday. The problem with this is that I don’t feel like writing every night. So for that, I discovered an awesome trick. I write when I’m in the mood. This means I might be writing 2 or 3 posts a night, then I schedule them to run in the future. I’ve done my best to keep a 2 week buffer of posts. Now this might not work for everyone, but my stuff isn’t tied to current events, so for me I can write down somehting I do today, and post it next week and no one cares. This allows me to write when I’m in the zone, and not panic when suddenly I haven’t blogged in 3 days.
I hope this helps. Just remember, stick with it. You probably won’t see any results for weeks or even months, but if you stick with it, you’ll surprise yourself at the readers you’re accumulated.
Thanks for reading,
Mike
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,Mike