This will be the 38th week in a row I’ve written a blog post.
And perhaps the thing I’ve most enjoyed about this experience is seeing others also take up writing blog posts themselves.
I don’t for a second think it’s a complete result of being deeply inspired by my own musings, but I hope in some small way these weekly articles have shown that blogging is a useful endeavour and one you can fit in to your weekly working schedule.
So if you’ve been thinking of taking up writing blog posts to benefit your brand or business, I hope that the following will be of value to you.
Now let me premise this by saying I don’t think in any way my method is the best or even the right way to approach blog writing, but all I can share with any authenticity and conviction is my own approach, in the hope that there will be some value for you in sharing my experience.
One thing I can assert with absolute certainty though, is that in today’s modern marketing landscape creating content is a key factor in success.
And my intuition says written content is just one piece of the puzzle, but it serves a very important purpose.
It’s easy to overlook the written word, when videos, photos and audio are much quicker and ostensibly exciting forms of content, but to me it seems in telling your story with the written word gives a much deeper and more personal connection between the author and audience.
Whether’s it a handwritten letter or a typed up word document, I feel there’s something deeply personal about taking time to write your most vulnerable and deeply held thoughts on paper for another person to pour over and analyse.
So here goes, one content creator’s guide to easily write blog posts aiming to help your brand or business…
STEP 1 — SHOULD I WRITE BLOG POSTS?
Yes.
If you’ve considered but haven’t started writing blog posts yet, just start.
If you’re debating whether they’re worth it or not, who knows? What’s the worst that’s going to happen? As long as you’re writing your blogs in the effort to help others or positively contribute to a discussion, what’s the worst that’s going to happen?
If you’re thinking you’re not good at writing and it’s too difficult then don’t try to write in any particular voice, just be authentic, be yourself and write what you would say if you were having a normal conversation.
STEP 2 — WHAT SHOULD I WRITE ABOUT?
Easy, write about what you know.
Write about your experience in your career, share all the nuggets of information you’ve learned in an effort to help others in your position or aspiring to be in your position.
Be entertaining, be informative or even better be both.
STEP 3 — HOW DO I WRITE IT?
I have a long list on my phone of bullet pointed topics I think would make for an interesting blog post. I very rarely get ideas sitting at my desk, so whenever an idea pops in to my head I add it to the list and accompany it with as many of the points I would include in the article.
It’s much easier to start with a topic and a few rough notes each week than an intimidating blank page, trust me.
Make a list now of all the topics you could share your knowledge and experience on. I’m sure you could easily get to 5.
And there you go that’s 5 weeks worth of blog content. I’m sure in the next 5 weeks you can easily add more to that list too.
Now most importantly, give yourself a strict posting schedule and stick to it.
My blogs for the week will be up at 8:30AM every Wednesday and without a deadline it’s so easy never to find the motivation and/or time to write a blog post when you don’t have a set time in place.
Whether you want to write posts daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly (obviously the more regularly the better), stick to that schedule and make sure that your blog posts are published in that time frame.
Don’t get too hung up on perfection. Some blog’s will be better than others and it’s amazingly helpful to see which of your blogs perform well so you know what resonates best with your audience.
After all you’re not writing these blogs just for you, you’re writing them to help other people.
So try, adapt and improve in a continuous effort to make your content more valuable and helpful for them.
STEP 4 — ACTUALLY WRITING IT
Set yourself a target. When I first starting writing these posts I wanted them all to be at least 500 words long. As the week’s progressed and certain topics needed to be covered more in depth, they got longer and longer. But each week I’ll make sure the post is at least 500 words long.
Thing about how you want your audience to conusme your content and what form it needs to be in. For me, I want mine to be quick articles you can read and absorb on your coffee break, so anything that’s around a 3–5 minute read is perfect length.
Shorter is better, but make sure they’re long enough that the reader comes away feeling they’ve got some value from them. If you’re unsure, I’d say again aim for 500 words.
So you’ve got your topic. Use your first sentence to tell your audience what that is. Then use the second sentence tell them why it will be a help to them.
If you’ve made some notes around the points you want to cover, type these out roughly in your document, then go back and add to them.
If you’re telling your audience about a lesson you learned from experience, set the scene, give us the full story or anecdote and then tell us what the key moment was where learning took place.
Tell us how you’ve incorporated this in to your life going forward.
Finish by wrapping everything up with your conclusion and repeating your key takeaway point from the article.
Create an ending phrase that you use every week, both so you have an easy way to end every week but also my intuition says that in an ever changing and evolving world, our brains find comfort in some sense of consistency and familiarity.
STEP 5— SHARING IT WITH THE WORLD
The more time I spend in content creation, the more my intuition says that how you distribute your content plays a major role in it’s success, often arguably one equally important as the message of the content itself.
(I wish I could give more detail on how to distribute content succesfully, but it’s an area I’m currrently spenidng a lot of time to educate myself better in).
For posting…
I’ll normally do a rough first draft of the blog post in a word document and then do a second session where I re-draft it within Medium.
I’ll normally start writing these a few days before my posting day too.
IN CONCLUSION…
If you’re thinking about writing a blog go for it.
I hope the above has been of a help to you and in sharing my experience around the practicalities of blog writing, it can help you get started.
And most importantly I wish you every success.
Jack
As I finish this article, I feel it will be one that very much needs a Version 2 written at some point in the near future. Thank you for your attention reading it this week, your time means the world and thank you for choosing to spend your coffee (or tea break if you’re Gareth Vogan) reading my article.
What I’m Currently Reading…
‘Crushing It’ — by Gary Vaynerchuk — it’s a great one! Check it out here… https://amzn.to/2t13pmR)
About Jack
I help people, brands and business communicate more effectively with their customers through visual, audio and written content.
I do this through Southpaw Sport, the sports content marketing company I’m currently building as well as on a freelance basis working for agencies and production companies.
Visit www.jacktompkins.co
You can follow me on YouTube where I post weekly vlogs sharing my experience and opinion on content production.
YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/user/jackt18
And my social media for behind the scenes look at what I’m up to
Instagram — @jackwrtompkins
Twitter — @jackwrtompkins