The Importance of Story-Telling For Bloggers

Story-telling is an age-old pastime that has been around since before written language even existed. We all love stories. We remember stories. And if you master the art of story telling, but also learn your OWN story, you will be light-years ahead of any other blogger in your niche.

What I’m about to share in this post is like the tip of an iceberg. The rest of that iceberg is stuff I plan to get into a little bit later in a brand new program I am putting together just for aspiring probloggers. More on that later, though.

The Importance of Character

When people first come to your blog, they will immediately look for something that catches their attention. Most likely, they will look for a solution to a problem that they just searched for in a search engine. They happened upon your blog. Their attention span is VERY short.

In most cases, the reader will either find value in your post or they will not. Either way, they are most likely going to leave and not come back. But, what is the difference between that passer-by and the person who will turn into a repeat visitor? It is the story. Most notably, YOUR story.

What turns a person into a loyal reader is a level of reality or empathy with you. They identify with you. Most importantly, though, they will identify with your character.

A character, you ask?

Most of the time, the readers of your blog have not met you in person. They have no reality of what you’re like. What they DO come to know, though, is your character. It is the representation of you which forms in your reader’s mind. That character should represent the traits that your reader is after.

All characters have a story. Where did they come from? What happened in the character’s life to bring them to the present day?

Some Examples

There is a good chance that you’re not exactly understanding what any of this has to do with blogging. I’ll try to bring you there, but here are a few examples.

1. Myself. Very few of you guys know me in person. However, chances are you have ideas about what I’m about based on this blog. You know I make my living as a blogger. You know I’m a family man (that is, if you noticed the pictures which rotate at the top of this blog). So, you could say that my character for this blog is a down-to-earth, relaxed family man with powers of making six figures as a blogger and who shows others how to do so in a very straight-talk way.
2. John Chow. His character is that of a dude who lives the “dot com lifestyle”, eats out a lot, and makes a bunch of money online.
3. Chris Pirillo. I bring him up because his market is completely different. Chris plays up his character big time, even going so far as to make use of his own head in various facial poses. His company logo is a caricature of himself. His character is uber-nerd who gets to play with technology all day.
4. Ted Murphy. He is great at personal branding and he plays up the character of a slightly crazy social dude who likes to stick out his tongue a lot (another play at the whole “crazy” thing). He’s crazy and he’s funny and that makes people want to follow him and do business with him. Ted’s a sharp business dude.

If you follow the internet marketing world much at all, you’ll see that many of them develop a character of the dude who makes a bunch of money but hardly works at all. That is done on purpose because that character represents who their audience wants to be.

The Marketing Lesson

The idea of developing your character is another way of saying to develop your own personal brand. The importance of it comes down to the ideas and concepts which you (or your character) represent in the reader’s mind.

Now, there is a VERY important caveat that I have to make sure you understand here: You are NOT supposed to make things up!

When I say the word “character”, it is easy to assume that I’m talking about just creating the ideal character for your market even if it isn’t the real you. No! If you’re lying when you blog, you’re not going to get anywhere. You’ve got to be genuine. Ideally, you and your character will jive completely and totally. If you’re in the right market for you, then that’ll be mostly the case. However, everybody is multi-faceted. So, I would encourage you to simply play up those strengths that back up your character.

Develop Your Story

Like I said, this is the tip of an iceberg. I can’t make anybody an expert in branding with this post. But, take the concept and think about it for your own blog.

1. What traits is your market looking for? What in a character would your target market empathize with?
2. Taking the above into mind, what is your character for your blog’s market? Does it represent you truthfully?
3. What is your back story?

With that character in mind, your blog should tell your story. Your “about page” should most definitely build up the character and tell the back-story. Your posts can reference the back story to teach and make points.

At the end of the day, why does any of this matter? Well, it equates to traffic. People will follow your blog in order to follow your story. They want to hear about new developments for your character. New things learned. When it comes to marketing things to your audience, it will be much easier to do when your readers have a relationship with your character.

Your thoughts? Did I go a little too deep here?