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- Are Your Personal Stories Turning Readers Off?
This guest post is by Ali Luke of Aliventures.
You've probably heard that you should put some of your personality into your blogging. And you know that stories are a great way to engage readers—to capture not just their attention, but their hearts as well.
Perhaps some of your favorite bloggers are people like Naomi Dunford or Johnny B. Truant or Pace and Kyeli Smith—folks who write from the heart, who are open and honest, and who make you feel that you know them. You want your blog to be like that too.
The problem is, it's easy to get personal stories wrong. And a blog that's too "me me me" can be a total turn-off for readers. They might not even read a full post before getting bored and clicking away.
Copyright Anatoly Tiplyashin - Fotolia.com
Readers are put off by…
1. Stories that have no point
If you can't think of what to post about, don't just ramble about your life story or write about your day. Just as with any blog post—or any piece of writing—readers will expect some structure and a clear message from your post.
2. Badly-written stories
Of course, you don't have to be the next Shakespeare in order to be a successful blogger—but you do need to be able to write. If your writing itself isn't very good, then readers aren't likely to stick around. Conversely, a brilliantly-written piece can be incredibly engaging, even if the subject matter doesn't seem very promising.
3. Stories that leave no room for the reader
So often, bloggers write personal stories that seem to be nothing but a self-indulgent exercise. These stories might be of interest to the blogger's own friends and family—but there's no reason for anyone else to care. The reader feels ignored and sidelined: the story is "me me me" with no acknowledgement of the reader.
The biggest problem with your stories is that:
No-one cares about you … yet
When a new reader comes to your blog, they probably know very little about you. They might have clicked on a retweeted link, they might have found you via a search engine—chances are, they don't even know your name.
Of course, personal stories are a great way to help readers start to care—but not if you hit them with too much, too fast. Your reader doesn't just want to know about you: they want to feel a sense of connection. They want to know that you're someone who they can like, or admire, or learn from.
How to use stories the right way
If you suspect that your own stories might be putting readers off rather than drawing them in, here's how to turn things around.
1. Start with a mini-anecdote
A short anecdote can be a great way to grab attention at the beginning of a post—so long as you don't drag it on for too long. You'll ideally either want something so unusual that it grabs the reader's interest, or so typical (for your audience) that the reader can feel "that's me".
(You might want to return to the story at the end of the post too.)
How to do it
Here's an example:
“I wake up, hit snooze on my alarm clock, and lie in bed. The alarm goes off again—and now I know I absolutely have to get up. I'm frazzled, and know I'm going to need to rush to make it to work on time. I scarf down my breakfast and brush my teeth, trying to juggle priorities in my head because I don't think I have time to look at my todo list—I know I'm already behind schedule.”
(From The 10 Minute Difference Between Stress and Happiness by Sid Savara.)
2. Break your story into chunks
In some types of blogging, you may have a long, in-depth story to tell. Perhaps you're a mommy or daddy blogger writing about your kids' early life, or you're a personal development blogger telling the story of how you screwed things up in college.
Don't try to tell your entire story as one epic post. Break it into a series – and make each part have a clear central point.
How to do it
On The Simple Dollar, a personal finance site, Trent tells his story in a series called "The Road to Financial Armageddon":
“The best place to start is the beginning. I was born into poverty, a family in which both my mother and father had been raised in poverty, too. Both of my parents were used to the concept of living from payday to payday, never having enough saved for themselves to survive more than a week or two. To some degree, this was out of necessity; there was often not enough money to put food on the table.”
(From The Road to Financial Armageddon #1: The Earliest Mistakes by Trent Hamm.)
3. Put yourself on the reader's side
(e.g. Writing about financial difficulties, early career problems: "I've been through it too.")
As bloggers, we're often writing about situations which we've been through or problems we've overcome. We may well have come by our knowledge the hard way. For instance:
- If you're blogging about parenting tips, you might have done a few things wrong with your own kids.
- If you're blogging about marketing, you might have had a disastrous launch or two in the past.
- If you're blogging about gardening, your early attempts may have made you seem a little less than green-fingered.
Your readers are coming to your blog to learn how to solve problems, yes—but if you present yourself as an all-knowing guru, people may be put off. Readers want to know that they're not alone, so help them by sharing stories that say "I've been through this too."
How to do it
Here's how to share the less-happy bits of your story so readers can identify with your feelings:
“I had asked for feedback, and at the time, I sincerely meant it, or thought I did. The problem is, once I consider something finished, I can't imagine anyone's honest feedback being anything but "Stellar! Best thing I've ever read! I've been waiting for this all my life!" So this feedback, even though it was constructive and mostly positive, crushed me. As fried as I was by then, I couldn't be see anything clearly. I was devastated, ready to quit writing and retreat to my cubicle.”
(From Writing an eBook: How to Get Started (and Finish!) by Cara Stein.)
4. Tell an embarrassing story
Sites like "Learn From My Fail" are popular for a reason: we like to read other people's embarrassing stories. They give us a laugh—and often lift our mood ("at least I didn't do that!") They can even provide valuable learning experiences.
You don't want to overdo it and come across as a bumbling idiot – but occasionally admitting to something embarrassing or talking about a failure can make you more human in your readers' eyes. They can also gain sympathy.
(Just be careful not to write about any current failures. "My total business fail last week" isn't likely to win you many new clients…)
How to do it
Here's an example (with great use of dialogue, too):
"Hi, uh …. Mr. Bruise is it?" No. 1 said.
"Yes, it's actually Bruce, but thank you, I …"
"All right, what do you have for us today?" No. 3 said.
He was looking down, rustling some outstandingly important paperwork into some sort of crucial order.
"Yes, thank you, I, I'll be doing a short monologue from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and another from Sean Penn's turn in Carlito's Way."
I heard one of them groan under his breath.
(From Why Everyone Hopes You'll Be the Hero by Robert Bruce.)
5. Make sure your story teaches the reader something
Funny or heartwarming or engaging stories are all well and good—but what readers really want is an "aha!" moment. They want your story to teach them something new, or to shed new light on something they already know.
How to do it
You don't have to be explicit in spelling out "the moral of the story", but if it works for Naomi Dunford…
“Moral of the Story: Marketing Begins In Product Development.
When you are building your product, think about the stupidest person you've ever met. That person is your customer. Think about what problems they could have with your product.
When you are a wine producer, you want your customers to be well aware of how much wine they have on hand at all times. (Please pardon the pun.) You do not want them at home, trying to bust a move on their wife, setting up candles and massage oils and doing whatever people without kids do, just to find out they're out of wine.”
(From Moral of the Story: Marketing to Alcoholics Edition.)
Are your stories working for you, or do you need to give more value to the reader? I'd love to hear about your experiences with telling stories, whether they worked or not—the comments are open!
Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach, specialising in helping bloggers to take their writing to the next level. Her ebook The Blogger's Guide to Effective Writing was described by Colin Beveridge as "full of the tricks the pros use so that bloggers like me can put together posts and series that look halfway competent." Read what other bloggers said about it here.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Are Your Personal Stories Turning Readers Off?
Переслать - Why "International" Bloggers Have an Unfair Advantage
This guest post is by Lucas Kleinschmitt of German Efficiency.
If you're in the blogging business, not being a native English speaker can be tough. The market in your home country will often be small, there may not be a culture of buying things online, and it can be difficult to find guest posting opportunities in your native language.
On the other hand, blogging in English seems like an equally bad idea at first glance: How are you supposed to compete with an army of bloggers whose command of the English language greatly exceeds your own? Even if your English is really good, you will probably need to pay a professional editor to avoid the occasional English-as-a-second-language errors.
Image copyright NASA Goddard Photo and Video, licensed under Creative Commons
I admit it: all that sounds rather intimidating. But don't despair! Fortunately, we "internationals" enjoy one huge, unfair advantage for which every American, Australian, or British blogger should envy us. In fact, all the hurdles we must face shrink to nothing when compared to this major benefit that comes with being an international blogger:
We can leverage our home country's brand
I'm a time management consultant from Germany. My surname is as German as it can get—Kleinschmitt—and my blog is called German Efficiency. I teach personal productivity, made in Germany, to people from all over the world.
Is my command of the English language as good as that of the American probloggers? Of course not. But can they teach German efficiency? Of course they can't.
And that's my point: As a German productivity coach, I have my unique selling proposition built right into my nationality.
Who would you rather have teaching you about vodka: an Australian or a Russian?
Who would you prefer to learn the Salsa from: a Canadian or a Cuban?
Whose romance blog would you prefer to read: the British banker's or the Parisian artist's?
Your country's unique selling proposition
You might be the guy from Switzerland blogging about watches, or the lady from Holland writing about cheese. You could be the Brazilian martial artist teaching us Capoeira, or the Japanese comic book fan keeping us up-to-date on manga.
Every part of the world is renowned for something. The advantage we internationals have is that almost nobody from our home country is blogging about it in English.
Yet, the global community is the one that cares most. I'm far keener to learn about romance from a Parisian artist than another Parisian artist will ever be. To the latter, the former Parisian artist is just another guy teaching romance. To me, he's a Parisian artist teaching romance! How could I not read his blog?
Indeed, opportunities for us internationals are endless. There's a giant market gap, and our unique selling proposition is handed to us on a silver plate.
Time to step up, don't you think?
Lucas Kleinschmitt teaches you personal productivity, made in Germany, at his blog German Efficiency.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Why "International" Bloggers Have an Unfair Advantage
Переслать - Building Blogs is Like Building Muscles
“Building blogs is like building muscles—in order for them to grow you need to use them.”
I tweeted the above statement a few weeks back and it got so much traction I decided to create this video on the topic.
The idea for the video came out of the a Skype chat session I had with five readers who all worked through the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook together. Their feedback was that they felt like they’d all signed up to the gym together and had just had a month of intense training. In each case, their blogs had grown (both in terms of content and traffic), and they’d come to the realization that daily blogging exercise was what had led to the results.
Transcription of Building Blogs is like Building Muscles
Hi. It's Darren from ProBlogger here. Today I want to talk about a principle of blogging that I think most people understand but many bloggers I come across don't actually do anything with that knowledge. And that is this: a blog is like a muscle, it only grows when you use it.
Most of us understand that to have a successful blog you need to actually blog. You need to actually create content. You need to do the activities of a blogger in the same way that if I want to grow my biceps I need to actually pick up something heavy and I need to exercise those biceps. If I’m just passive with them they won't grow at all.
So most of us understand that, but most of us also just let our blogs happen when we feel like blogging. Most bloggers I interact with? You ask them, you know, “what is your blog posting schedule like?” and they kind of look at you a little bit blankly. "Well it's kind of like when I sit down at my computer and I think maybe I should come up with something to write about". It's very impulsive, and it's not very strategic.
Now, using this exercise metaphor, I'm actually someone who doesn't exercise very well on an impulsive basis. I actually need to be a little bit strategic about it.
The times in my life where I've been the most fit and most healthy are the times in my life where I've actually put a plan in place to become fit and healthy. They're the times in my life where I've enrolled in a program of some type to exercise. They're the times in my life where I've enrolled in a gym and talked to a fitness instructor and got them to devise me a plan of the type of exercises that I need to do. They're the times in my life where I've talked to a dietician who’s helped to put together a plan of foods that I should be eating at certain times of the day. They're the times where I've been intentional, and have actually done something and put something in place to help me to be fit and healthy are the times that I've actually been fit and healthy.
And the same is true with my blogs. I remember in the early days understanding this principle for the first time, and noticing that the more I posted, the more readers would come to my blog. The more I posted, the more people would leave comments on my blog. The more I would interact with my readers, the more they would interact with me. The more you use your blog, the more successful it becomes. And so when I began to notice this, I started to put some plans in place to help me to blog.
I remember the first time, about three months into my first blog, I developed an editorial calendar. I didn't call it that at the time—I had no idea what an editorial calendar was—but I got a spreadsheet out, and I put down the different days of the week, and the different activities that I would do on my blog. At that point I was posting on a daily basis, but I began to think, “Well, on Mondays I could ask a question. On Tuesdays I could do a "how to" type post. On Wednesdays I could link to another blog and bounce off something that they'd written and link back to them.”
And so I began to think about different types of posts for different days of the week as a strategy to get my blogging regular, and to be a little bit more strategic about it in some ways. In many ways it was kind of like an exercise plan for your body, but it was an exercise plan for my blog.
Over the years I guess that editorial calendar has developed, and has changed at different times depending on the different stage that my blogs are at. There are other activities as well—it’s not just the content that you write that you need to be a bit strategic about. It can also be about promoting your blog. So you may add in to your schedule, “In Tuesdays, I will visit five other blogs in my niche and I will watch what they're doing. I will email their authors. I might leave comments on their posts.” Those type of activities can be things that you can be a bit strategic about as well.
Another area that you can be strategic about is around building community on your blog. So you may say, “On Thursdays, I'm going to email three of my readers and just say ‘Hi, I appreciate you reading, is there anything I can do for you?’” You can interact with your readers in the comments of your blog—that type of activity can be scheduled in. You can be a bit strategic about it.
Similarly you could add in activities around doing search engine optimization if you want to grow your readers through Google, or you could schedule in things about monetization, you know—looking at how your ads are placed on your blog, and doing some optimization of that on a regular basis as well.
None of these things just happen any more than muscles growing without exercising them, so be a little bit strategic about it. Now you may have the incentive and the initiative to be able to do that for yourself, or you may need to do one of two other things.
You might get a program like ProBlogger’s 31 Days To Build a Better Blog or ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging. The reason I actually created those ebooks was to get people doing daily activities that would get them in the rhythm of blogging. So you may choose to use a program like that, or you may devise your own, or use someone else's.
And the other thing I'd say is: don't do it alone. One of the things I know about health and my body and being fit as a person, is that I'm much more likely to exercise if I'm somehow doing it with another person. Whether that be a fitness instructor, or whether that be a friend who I go for a run with, or a friend who I might play a game of tennis with. When we are social in what we do with our bodies, for many of us it's easier, and the same I think is true with blogging.
When you join with someone else to work through a program like 31 Days To Build A Better Blog, or some sort of other program that you devise to take your blog to the next level, you're more likely to actually put that into practice. There's that sense of accountability. It's a little bit more fun, and you can help each other and resource each other through that as well. So I'd encourage you to think about not only being strategic about your blogging and putting a plan in place for it, but to also think about how you can do that with someone else. How you can build some accountability and cooperation with another blogger to build your blog.
So I guess I'd encourage you with that advice again: a blog is like a muscle. You need to use it to grow it. And for most of us, that means actually being a little bit strategic and putting some sort of a system or a rhythm or a routine in place to help us to go to the next level. Whatever you do, don't just leave it to chance. If you want your blog to be successful, if you want it to achieve certain goals, you need to put some systems and rhythms in place to take you to those places.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Building Blogs is Like Building Muscles
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