Blogging 101 - The Content - Part 7

BLOGGING TIPS – The Content – Part 7


By Nikki Viljoen – Viljoen Consulting CC June  2010

Let’s face it – I write 5 new articles a week for my blog – that does not include what I write for the newspaper or the magazines such as Business Women or Your Business or Women’s Inc and it certainly doesn’t cover all the Policies and Procedures that I write for my clients – that’s purely just the blogs.  As you can imagine, my blog becomes, on occasion a voracious beast – seeming to devour everything, including me.  That said, it was my decision to write the blogs, it was my decision to share my knowledge and/or experience and/or research as I go along.  So yes, it’s my decision to post when I do.  That said, I know how I feel when I go to my favorite blog and notice that there are no new posts.  It feels like I have been abandoned!

For the record I do not post blogs on South African public holidays (which is why there wasn’t one posted yesterday) and I ‘shut down’ the office from the 16th December to the 1st working day of the New Year.  So there will be no blogs on those days.  I know that recently there was a time when I just had to stop – I felt like I was having a meltdown – so much stuff happening, too little sleep and not enough dreamtime or even rest.  What I should have done was posted something telling everyone that I was taking a break – people like to have consistency in their lives and reading their favorite blog on a daily/weekly/monthly (whatever time frame) means that you have to be writing their favorite blog on a daily/weekly/monthly (whatever time frame).  So again it is one of those “do as I tell you and don’t do as I do things!”

For many people, reading a blog (or any article for that matter) is them investing time in what it is that you have to say.  Time, as we know is money, so for them to be investing that time, is a great compliment to you.  For many, the justification for them taking time out of their busy schedule is a negotiation (usually an internal one).  The negotiation is this - “I am going to take time out of my busy schedule to read something that is interesting.”  So here’s the thing – what you write has to be interesting!  It doesn’t have to be funny (although that is my natural style of writing – so for me that helps), but it does have to be something that they want to read, something that is perhaps unique or something that is new or even something that is satiric.  Even if the topic is one that the whole world is familiar with, make it interesting, look at it from a different perspective or from a different angle.  Even if you use ‘your observation’ as the foundation of your blog make sure that it is interesting and full of information,

Next week we will look at a few more points about the content of your blog.

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za