“It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it; it ain’t what you do, it’s the time that you do it; it ain’t what you do, it’s the place that you do it; and that’s what gets results!” Or so sang Bananarama and the Fun Boy Three in 1982. And their advice still holds true today, for blogging as for so much else.
Anyone can blog, but if you want results, you need to heed Bananarama’s advice. Getting clear on what results you want from your blog will help you decide the way that you blog. So make sure you’re clear about your business objectives, and how your blog can help you to meet them. Then make sure you’re blogging from your customer’s or reader’s perspective: will they be able to relate to your blog, and will they recognise that you’re writing for them? Write with intention and purpose, so that what you write is informative, interesting, and/or entertaining. And most importantly, write as yourself: let your personality shine through, and write in a way that people can hear your voice.
Time is important when it comes to blogging. Blogging every week gets you better results than blogging every month. For a start you’ll have more blog posts to share, and new readers will find a lot more material that helps them get to know, like, and trust you. It also builds momentum, and if you commit to a post a week, you’re less likely to forget to write it. Of course, as my coach discovered, you’ll get even better results if you blog every day, but most people find once a week more manageable, and consistency is as important as frequency. Finding a good time to blog will help you to blog more frequently and more consistently, so it makes sense, if you want your blog to bring you results, to schedule in time to blog and stick to it.
The places you can blog are myriad. Arguably, the best place for your blog posts is on your website, presuming that you can drive traffic there. You want people to visit your website so that they can see how you can help them. An interesting, informative blog post is a good reason to send people to where your products and services live, without having to start with selling. But if you don’t have a website, or if your website doesn’t have a blog facility yet, you can post in various other places that will get you results. If your customers are likely to hang out in LinkedIn, it has a great publishing service: it’s easy and quick to publish, and everyone in your network will get a notification that you’ve published a post, making engagement easy too. If you go down this route, make sure your profile is up to date, and that it’s easy for people to find out how you can help them. Other places to post are Medium, Instagram, YouTube for vlogs, and iTunes for podcasts. This is only the tip of the iceberg, so please post any other suggestions you might have in the comments below.
So if you want your jive to swing, take it easy and pay heed to the way, time, and place that you blog!