Blogging 101 – Being a Blogging Master

 Blogging 101  – Being a Blogging Master

By Nikki Viljoen – Viljoen Consulting (Pty) Ltd 

First off, let me just say this – not everyone can be a Master (or a Mistress for that matter) – that said, we are still always the Master (yes and the Mistress) of our own destinies.

As a Master (or Mistress) what are our expectations?  What are our expectations of other Masters and Mistresses?  For me, it’s not only about the content, it’s not only about the construction of the sentence or whether the grammar is correct (although that is also very important) it’s also about how much of yourself, your emotions that you put into your writing, and how you connect with the emotional requirements of your audience.  You have to get them excited, you have to connect with their heartstrings, you have to challenge them, you have to make them reflect, you have to make them indignant, you have to shock them, you have to move them in some way!

Again for me, the biggest challenge was getting over my own fear.  You know what I mean, the ‘what if I fail’, ‘what if people don’t like me’, ‘if I succeed, what will be expected of me’?  You can’t be afraid to let yourself out of the bag (never mind the cat)!

We all have conversations with people and we connect, and engage with those people – write like that. Write like you are having an engaging conversation.  Write with compassion, with humour, with passion, and yes even with anger.

People need to believe in what you are saying and they can’t do that or connect with you if you are disconnected from yourself.  Don’t be bound by your own limitations – move past those, go through those, go around those or over them or under them – you’ll learn the best way to connect with, to link to, and to create that particular emotional connection.

If you battle to get started, it’s a good idea to perhaps write down the reasons why you are battling to get started.  Some of the most common reasons are:

- Why – because I am not sure that people will be interested in what I have to say

- Why – because I am not in the mood to write about anything right now

- Why – it’s a really sensitive subject and I am not sure that I should be putting it out there.

- Why- it’s really difficult to write about stuff that I have never really done before, I need to do some more research.

Actually, at this point, you probably need to really think about what it is that you want to do.

Why do you want to write? Are you passionate about what you do – are you passionate about who you are, and are you passionate about what you want to share? If your answer to these is yes, then you need to tell the story.   Every article or blog that you write needs to tell a story and every story must have a value, otherwise, you are not “sharing”.

Stand up and look at yourself, really look at yourself – you know that you have what it takes, you know that you are really good at what you do.  Let go of your fear and your uncertainty.

Stand up, be yourself, be all of who you are and all of who you can be, and write that story.

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