Blog writing is something new to me. I’m much more accustomed to writing research papers that require days of library study and countless spell checks and revisions (truth be told I probably wrote most of my papers the night before and hoped my teacher skimmed it when grading). So when I was asked to write for the blog I thought this would be a piece of cake. Just throw some random thoughts down on paper and type them into the computer = 30 minutes later a blog post. Simple. Done. WRONG.
Blog writing is much more difficult than I anticipated, but it is still doable. After an inspiring meeting with our Content Strategist at Worthwhile and some mishaps of my own, I have come up with a few lessons learned. Some of the more experienced bloggers may say DUH when you see these, but hopefully they are timeless principles that can help or remind any writer for the web.
- Identify an audience — don’t just write to the stars. If you have a specific audience in mind it will help your post be more refined and encourage more discussion among those reading it — especially if they felt like the message was directed at them.
- Take breaks — come back to your work. Don’t try to cram that post in 1 hour before it is due (preaching to myself here). Get your thoughts out and then change gears with your mind. Do something different and come back to your post. This will help you with a fresh perspective. How many of us have written a paper and gotten it back and said, “Oh yea, I would have done that differently looking back!” By coming back to your post after a somewhat lengthy period of time you get that chance to “look back” on your work and make it even better. Once again this assumes you started early and have the chance to go back.
- Have someone else check your work. Get someone you can count on to run ideas through, check facts, or even just give simple feedback. If you don’t get someone friendly to check the post your readers will be sure to let you know you’re wrong (and not always in a nice way).
- Engage your audience — make sure your post is something they’ll want to discuss and something they can discuss. Don’t just let their comments fill the string below your post. Respond to them and keep the post “alive.” Your readers can provide more valuable information than the post itself! This also gives you a chance to make corrections and add things to your post based off reader feedback.
So thanks to the many readers who provide great feedback on the Worthwhile blog. I welcome any tips you have for an amateur blogger and even good topic suggestions for our blog. Maybe you have a lesson learned you can share. Your input is valuable.
