Comments on: The (My) Guide To Finding Your Blogging Voice http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/ Six Figure ProBlogger, Blog Marketing, Make Money Online, Blogging Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:19:00 +0100 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: The Padrino http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-26874 The Padrino Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:02:00 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-26874 Be YourselfIf you try to write with a different persona then yourself, or if you try to be cute when in real life you’re not, or if you try to be controversial but that’s not you, then you are adding a burden to the blogging process by creating extra work.  If you are yourself, you don’t have to over-think. This tip not only applies to the content, but also to the voice you’ll use on your blog. Is it ok to have misspellings? To use expressions from the city you grew up that not everybody will get it? Is it ok make jokes? If those things reflect who you are in real life, then yes. Don’t use the same language you use on a business email to a client. That’s not the real you. The real you is the person talking to friends about that topic on a restaurant table. Every time I have a guest blogger I tell him or her: “write as if you were sending an email to a friend”. Make it personalPeople will not read your blog because they want to know the latest news from your industry. They’ll read it because they want to read about your opinion. Yes, personal opinion. Don’t try to make a neutral-point-of-view writing. This is not a magazine or a newspaper. It’s your blog and your voice/thoughts matter. Because of that, don’t re-post content from others, don’t just copy a news snippet from AP because you find interesting. That’s being part of the echo-chamber and it only decreases the signal-to-noise ratio on your blog. A schedule that worksThe biggest mistake of new bloggers is to set a schedule even before they have a feeling for how long it takes to blog. First of all, don’t set a schedule for yourself, but set goals -- say that you’ll try to write 4-6 blog posts per month instead of saying “every Monday”. What if there is a Monday that you are busy and don’t feel like writing? Then you’ll have a feeling of failure and from there is just downhill to not blog anymore. Give yourself some time to find the sweet spot. Maybe you’ll find you got addicted to it and you’ll blog 5 times per week. Maybe you find that you are really capped at 2-4 posts per month. Either way, don’t set a schedule on the first few months. Be spontaneous. An idea queueWhat if you run out of ideas to blog about? If you are like me, you’ll never do. Every time I’m in a meeting, or grocery shopping, or just wandering the Internet and I have an idea that would make an interesting blog post, I send myself an email with a 1 or 2 sentence description of it. Then I organize all my ideas in a single place (on my case a draft message on Outlook). Every time I find myself w/ 20-30 minutes to spare I check my list of ideas for blog posts and write about it. My current list has 10 items. The list grows when I go to all day events, meet new entrepreneurs or investors or hit a new challenge on the business. Have a themeA typical mistake of new bloggers is to write about “everything that I’d find interesting and I’d like to read myself”. On that case you’ll have an audience of one. Yes, you are a marketer, but you also like to cook, build model airplanes and are really into astronomy and salsa dancing. You need to pick the central theme of your blog and stick to it, otherwise you alienate your readers every time you go off topic. It’s very common for Tech Startups bloggers to veer too much into the technology aspects and forget the startup  side of things. If you start writing about a new script testing tool you are not writing about tech startups, you writing a technology blog an that’s a whole different beast. Title matters  Most of your readers will only read the title of your blog post -- the same way people scan newspaper until they find something that attracts them. Avoid titles without context (“Another win”, “We are back”, “Tough week”, etc.). Think about what would your reader get if she read only the title. These are a few good titles “Tips on how to market your startup in a recession”, “How will Obama affect startups”, “Acme releases new tool to count coyotes with a twist”. Content styleHaving pictures on your blog post dramatically increases the number of people that read your post. Seriously. I can’t explain why, but it’s well known by many bloggers. If you have a picture or image at hand, go ahead and add it to the post. But don’t make it a burden (like trying to find a LOLcat image for each post you do). Also, do bold important pieces of text to make it easier for the people who read by scanning (same reason you should use numerals instead of spelled out numbers), but don’t emphasize every other sentence. Size mattersContrary to when you are writing an article, a blog post can be as short as one paragraph and as long as you want it to be, but the sweet spot is between 1 and 4 paragraphs. And by sweet spot I mean post length that maximizing the number of people that will read it fully. The only two exceptions I can think of to write longer posts is if you are doing a Q&A type of post or if you are doing a list (“12 reasons to …”). The reason these are ok is because they are easy to scan and for the reader to get the gist of it (like this blog post you are reading right now). Have funDon’t panic if you don’t get hundreds of readers on your first week. Be very happy if you get five readers. You should be doing this for the long run, so like anything that takes time, it’s much more palatable if you are having fun along the way.Here are a few things for you to read next to get your blog going: Be YourselfIf you try to write with a different persona then yourself, or if you try to be cute when in real life you’re not, or if you try to be controversial but that’s not you, then you are adding a burden to the blogging process by creating extra work.  If you are yourself, you don’t have to over-think. This tip not only applies to the content, but also to the voice you’ll use on your blog. Is it ok to have misspellings? To use expressions from the city you grew up that not everybody will get it? Is it ok make jokes? If those things reflect who you are in real life, then yes. Don’t use the same language you use on a business email to a client. That’s not the real you. The real you is the person talking to friends about that topic on a restaurant table. Every time I have a guest blogger I tell him or her: “write as if you were sending an email to a friend”. Make it personalPeople will not read your blog because they want to know the latest news from your industry. They’ll read it because they want to read about your opinion. Yes, personal opinion. Don’t try to make a neutral-point-of-view writing. This is not a magazine or a newspaper. It’s your blog and your voice/thoughts matter. Because of that, don’t re-post content from others, don’t just copy a news snippet from AP because you find interesting. That’s being part of the echo-chamber and it only decreases the signal-to-noise ratio on your blog. A schedule that worksThe biggest mistake of new bloggers is to set a schedule even before they have a feeling for how long it takes to blog. First of all, don’t set a schedule for yourself, but set goals — say that you’ll try to write 4-6 blog posts per month instead of saying “every Monday”. What if there is a Monday that you are busy and don’t feel like writing? Then you’ll have a feeling of failure and from there is just downhill to not blog anymore. Give yourself some time to find the sweet spot. Maybe you’ll find you got addicted to it and you’ll blog 5 times per week. Maybe you find that you are really capped at 2-4 posts per month. Either way, don’t set a schedule on the first few months. Be spontaneous. An idea queueWhat if you run out of ideas to blog about? If you are like me, you’ll never do. Every time I’m in a meeting, or grocery shopping, or just wandering the Internet and I have an idea that would make an interesting blog post, I send myself an email with a 1 or 2 sentence description of it. Then I organize all my ideas in a single place (on my case a draft message on Outlook). Every time I find myself w/ 20-30 minutes to spare I check my list of ideas for blog posts and write about it. My current list has 10 items. The list grows when I go to all day events, meet new entrepreneurs or investors or hit a new challenge on the business. Have a themeA typical mistake of new bloggers is to write about “everything that I’d find interesting and I’d like to read myself”. On that case you’ll have an audience of one. Yes, you are a marketer, but you also like to cook, build model airplanes and are really into astronomy and salsa dancing. You need to pick the central theme of your blog and stick to it, otherwise you alienate your readers every time you go off topic. It’s very common for Tech Startups bloggers to veer too much into the technology aspects and forget the startup  side of things. If you start writing about a new script testing tool you are not writing about tech startups, you writing a technology blog an that’s a whole different beast. Title matters 
Most of your readers will only read the title of your blog post — the same way people scan newspaper until they find something that attracts them. Avoid titles without context (“Another win”, “We are back”, “Tough week”, etc.). Think about what would your reader get if she read only the title. These are a few good titles “Tips on how to market your startup in a recession”, “How will Obama affect startups”, “Acme releases new tool to count coyotes with a twist”. Content styleHaving pictures on your blog post dramatically increases the number of people that read your post. Seriously. I can’t explain why, but it’s well known by many bloggers. If you have a picture or image at hand, go ahead and add it to the post. But don’t make it a burden (like trying to find a LOLcat image for each post you do). Also, do bold important pieces of text to make it easier for the people who read by scanning (same reason you should use numerals instead of spelled out numbers), but don’t emphasize every other sentence. Size mattersContrary to when you are writing an article, a blog post can be as short as one paragraph and as long as you want it to be, but the sweet spot is between 1 and 4 paragraphs. And by sweet spot I mean post length that maximizing the number of people that will read it fully. The only two exceptions I can think of to write longer posts is if you are doing a Q&A type of post or if you are doing a list (“12 reasons to …”). The reason these are ok is because they are easy to scan and for the reader to get the gist of it (like this blog post you are reading right now). Have funDon’t panic if you don’t get hundreds of readers on your first week. Be very happy if you get five readers. You should be doing this for the long run, so like anything that takes time, it’s much more palatable if you are having fun along the way.Here are a few things for you to read next to get your blog going:

]]> By: Tony Teegarden http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-25404 Tony Teegarden Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:42:00 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-25404 Well that's all you gotta know is it's cool with you. Anything else is operating outside your own value system. Some people get charged up within groups and others feel sucked dry from them. Myers Briggs and other personality type trainings reveal that. But heck, if you already know it cool ;-) Glad I could still connect with you! Well that’s all you gotta know is it’s cool with you. Anything else is
operating outside your own value system. Some people get charged up within
groups and others feel sucked dry from them. Myers Briggs and other
personality type trainings reveal that. But heck, if you already know it
cool ;-)

Glad I could still connect with you!

]]> By: Raam Dev http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-25403 Raam Dev Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:14:00 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-25403 Haha, no worries man. :) I'd say I haven't strayed much outside my "comfort zone" as far as socializing in the past year, but I think that's OK. Upon further analysis, I realized my desire to socialize more comes from a perfectionist mentality, where I feel I should be good at everything.  The truth is, I genuinely do not enjoy socializing. One-on-one or two-on-one is fine, but with larger groups of people I fall back into an observational state of mind, observing interactions between people and learning from them instead of trying to jump in and make myself heard. Haha, no worries man. :)

I’d say I haven’t strayed much outside my “comfort zone” as far as socializing in the past year, but I think that’s OK. Upon further analysis, I realized my desire to socialize more comes from a perfectionist mentality, where I feel I should be good at everything. 

The truth is, I genuinely do not enjoy socializing. One-on-one or two-on-one is fine, but with larger groups of people I fall back into an observational state of mind, observing interactions between people and learning from them instead of trying to jump in and make myself heard.

]]> By: Tony Teegarden http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-25394 Tony Teegarden Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:26:00 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-25394 Damn Raam, a year later and I'm just now seeing this. #FAIL. Regardless I'm curious how you've ventured through this? (Since you DID ask this a year ago) Believe it or not I actually spend a lot of time by myself these days too doing the same as you. As far as your questions I would seek to find out this way: How important is it to me to do more "real world socializing?" What do I stand to gain from it if I do? What do I stand to lose if I don't? Does it feel right to do so? Just tune in and if you're good with how you're going stick with it. I'm not sure it's a must that you do. It's a must that you do what you feel is your truth. Damn Raam, a year later and I’m just now seeing this. #FAIL. Regardless I’m curious how you’ve ventured through this? (Since you DID ask this a year ago)

Believe it or not I actually spend a lot of time by myself these days too doing the same as you.

As far as your questions I would seek to find out this way:
How important is it to me to do more “real world socializing?”
What do I stand to gain from it if I do?
What do I stand to lose if I don’t?
Does it feel right to do so?

Just tune in and if you’re good with how you’re going stick with it. I’m not sure it’s a must that you do. It’s a must that you do what you feel is your truth.

]]> By: Mark Mobley http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-17744 Mark Mobley Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:21:33 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-17744 Along these same lines I had a similar realization on the Enemy formula, Find out who you really are. Or as Shakespeare put it, "Know thyself." Most people think Doubt is having two choices. They don't realize that they are already one of the choices and that are looking at a possibility of a change. Most people have not pushed the edge and found out who they really are. And it is as you have said. This can only be done by taking risks. Along these same lines I had a similar realization on the Enemy formula, Find out who you really are. Or as Shakespeare put it, “Know thyself.” Most people think Doubt is having two choices. They don't realize that they are already one of the choices and that are looking at a possibility of a change. Most people have not pushed the edge and found out who they really are. And it is as you have said. This can only be done by taking risks.

]]> By: usb flash drive http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-16592 usb flash drive Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:26:38 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-16592 I have always approached economic point of view the digital "whale" and his own voice. It was def a fun adventure and you try tweaking every post I make it better are absolutely right. One thing I struggled with a bit, I find that to establish a group of people and trying to talk do not reach everyone - because I really love to educate. I have always approached economic point of view the digital “whale” and his own voice. It was def a fun adventure and you try tweaking every post I make it better are absolutely right. One thing I struggled with a bit, I find that to establish a group of people and trying to talk do not reach everyone – because I really love to educate.

]]> By: Mary K Weinhagen http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-16555 Mary K Weinhagen Fri, 11 Jun 2010 23:57:23 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-16555 FANTASTIC post! And great timing... yep, as a blogger I'm feeling a bit wobbly. You give me hope! :-) The encouragement is greatly appreciated. It's time for me to simply say what I have to say and quit fretting over what my reader might 'hear'. :-) FANTASTIC post! And great timing… yep, as a blogger I'm feeling a bit wobbly. You give me hope! :-) The encouragement is greatly appreciated. It's time for me to simply say what I have to say and quit fretting over what my reader might 'hear'. :-)

]]> By: Raam Dev http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-16553 Raam Dev Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:43:56 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-16553 Great stuff! I'm curious to hear your thoughts and/or advice for people who genuinely speak less than they write. <br><br>I'm an introvert. I spend a LOT of time by myself, writing, reading, and researching online. I've been blogging for the past 8 years (regularly for the past 4) and it almost feels like my online voice is evolving and developing faster than my in-person voice/personality.<br><br>Any thoughts on the importance of real-world socializing as it applies to developing an online voice? Am I making it more difficult for myself by not actively trying to develop my real-world voice and personality? Great stuff! I'm curious to hear your thoughts and/or advice for people who genuinely speak less than they write.

I'm an introvert. I spend a LOT of time by myself, writing, reading, and researching online. I've been blogging for the past 8 years (regularly for the past 4) and it almost feels like my online voice is evolving and developing faster than my in-person voice/personality.

Any thoughts on the importance of real-world socializing as it applies to developing an online voice? Am I making it more difficult for myself by not actively trying to develop my real-world voice and personality?

]]> By: Tony Teegarden http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-16543 Tony Teegarden Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:24:58 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-16543 Ralph, we actually have a little of all of those traits & personalities in us. It's a very simplified version of the Meyers Briggs version. (I just like to keep it simple for folks first entering into the understanding of personalities. <br><br>So it doesn't surprise me that you have both as highly recognizable characteristics. The real power comes from operating from within the middle of them all. Not leaning towards just one. Many folks fall into the trap of thinking the "Shark" is the most powerful quadrant when it's the "middle" that allows you to listen with empathy to all and thus connect with them all. <br><br>As far as generating cash flow with your blog? Read Davids stuff for sure and I'd suggest joining his "Inner Circle" program. I know David personally and I can assure you he won't let you down with ways you'll be able to accomplish your desired goal. <br><br>You have to help yourself before you can help others at your full potential. Seriously check out his Inner Circle. I believe it will be time and money well invested. Ralph, we actually have a little of all of those traits & personalities in us. It's a very simplified version of the Meyers Briggs version. (I just like to keep it simple for folks first entering into the understanding of personalities.

So it doesn't surprise me that you have both as highly recognizable characteristics. The real power comes from operating from within the middle of them all. Not leaning towards just one. Many folks fall into the trap of thinking the “Shark” is the most powerful quadrant when it's the “middle” that allows you to listen with empathy to all and thus connect with them all.

As far as generating cash flow with your blog? Read Davids stuff for sure and I'd suggest joining his “Inner Circle” program. I know David personally and I can assure you he won't let you down with ways you'll be able to accomplish your desired goal.

You have to help yourself before you can help others at your full potential. Seriously check out his Inner Circle. I believe it will be time and money well invested.

]]> By: Ralph http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-voice/comment-page-1/#comment-16528 Ralph Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:12:16 +0000 http://www.davidrisley.com/?p=2843#comment-16528 I think I'm a whaleshark. I really want to help people but I do have specific goals that need to be reached. My blog is all about helping but it is so time consuming that it needs to generate income for me to continue to do run it successfully. Just curious, what do you think of the "post as" field that Disqus is now using instead of of name/email/url fields? I'm not a fan of it. I think I'm a whaleshark. I really want to help people but I do have specific goals that need to be reached. My blog is all about helping but it is so time consuming that it needs to generate income for me to continue to do run it successfully. Just curious, what do you think of the “post as” field that Disqus is now using instead of of name/email/url fields? I'm not a fan of it.

]]>