After nine years of posting, thousands of hours of writing and over a million words in print, I’m joining Gapingvoid in a celebration about what I’ve learned from the wonderful world of blogging:
Blogging teaches you what freedom feels like. Hugh Macleod writes in his new book, “Own your own media and own your own platform, and you own your own career. Own your own career, and you own your own life.” And in my experience, the power to say whatever you want, anytime, without being edited, without the fear of corporate fingerprints – and to legally own everything you say – is about as free as it gets. God bless blogging and the freedom it provides.
Blogging teaches you to adopt an incrementalist mindset. It’s not about one key post that changes everything, it’s about performing day after day, helping a few people a little at a time, trusting that the accumulation of the work will bear fruit. And because most blogs are abandoned a few months after creation, maintaining continuity over the long haul separates you from the pack. The best way to beat the odds is through massive output.
Blogging teaches you to do justice to the things you notice. The day you start blogging, you start walking around like you’re holding puzzle pieces. You’re hyper sensitive to the world around you. And you approach every encounter as grist for the mill. This delicate sense, this posture of incurable curiosity, allows even the tiniest experiences to inspire you. And it keeps the queue filled with things to blog about forever.
Blogging teaches you to choose your currency wisely. Whether you value comments, page views, conversions rates, reader interaction, online awards, ad sales, new business, industry positioning, thought leadership or platform expansion, every blog is successful according to its own metrics. And as long as you regularly revisit what that currency is, nobody can judge how well your blog is doing but you.
Blogging teaches you that every blog post is a product. Every post its own piece of digital merchandise, with its own launch date, target market, social trajectory, leveragability and profitability. Some blow up, some just blow. Some make a killing, some just make a thud. But as long as you show up every day and post, you’re still in the game. But if you never click the publish button, you’re just winking in the dark.
Blogging taught me to give a daily gift to the world. They’re not just posts, they’re contributions to an ongoing body of work. They’re additions to my artistic legacy. With every day that goes by, that reservoir grows bigger. And like a forced savings account, when the time comes to make a withdrawal in the future, there will be enough of a surplus to tap into and convert into something highly profitable.
Special thanks to Hugh Macleod and Gapingvoid for restarting the conversations about blogging and turning our obsession into a movement that matters.
#FreedomIsBlogging, indeed.
LET ME ASK YA THIS… What have you declined this week?
LET ME SUGGEST THIS… For the list called, “21 Things I Learned While Spying on Myself,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!
* * * * Scott Ginsberg That Guy with the Nametag Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting [email protected]
My job is to help companies make their mission more than a statement, using limited edition social artifacts.
Want to download your free workbook for The Brandtag Strategic Planning Crusade?
Meet Scott’s client from Nestle Purina at www.brandtag.org!
