Happy New Year - How To Start A Blog - The Manager - Edition 13

Cultivated Management

Newsletter

Edition 13 - Blogging - Why and How?

Happy New Year everybody and welcome to 2018.

I know many people have set New Year’s resolutions and goals for the coming year. I know I have. I’ll share mine at some point of the next few months. One resolution which I will share now is my goal to move to a daily blogging ritual.  Mon, Tue, Wed and Fri on my blog and every Thursday on LinkedIn. To be fair the Thursday LinkedIn post will be a repost of a weekly blog, but I’m still claiming it :)

I know a lot of my readers are keen to start blogging, and rightly so, it’s a brilliant way to fine tune your ideas, spread your message and become a much better writer. You only get good at writing by writing. 

It was really interesting to see one of my readers, Kamila Mrozek, commit to a weekly blog. I’m sure she won’t mind me highlighting her New Year’s goal and desire to commit to a weekly blog. It’s such a powerful thing to do. She’s got plenty of ideas to share with the world.

With that, this first newsletter of the year is all about blogging, why you should blog and some lessons I’ve learned along the way. 

Rob..
 

Why Blog?

I’ve covered a few reasons above but here are some reasons why blogging is good for you and your career.

It makes you pay attention
If you know you have a new post due next week, or tomorrow, you’ll start observing the world around you more intently and discover things to write about. This is good. 

It helps to clarify your thinking
Writing requires clear thinking. Thinking is a powerful thing to do and writing forces you to do it. It helps you get clear about what to write and what you’re trying to say.

It’s therapy
My blog is a place to get things “off my chest” and to work through problems. My blog is MY BLOG. Although I write for everyone else it’s primarily a place to write for my own sanity. 

It’s a career builder
Without my blog, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I have had. People find me through the blog, they hire me, they hire me to speak at events. The blog helped with that. And through blogging I’ve also built a wonderful audience (thank you all) who have helped me and shared in that success too. 

It’s a sales vehicle
A blog can act like a sales vehicle. People can read my work and then buy a book. Or they can read about the way I’m managing people and decide to join my team. It’s marketing, PR and sales rolled in to one but don’t let that become the focus. It may cease to be fun if you make it a business.

It’s fun
It’s brilliant fun blogging. Writing is a real joy for me. A day without writing is a wasted day, so blogging is a powerful way to have fun. Not everyone enjoys writing though so maybe a podcast or video are more suited for you. If you’re not having fun with it, be done with it.

It keeps me grounded
There is nothing like posting a blog and then receiving feedback or criticism. It keeps me grounded and keeps me in check when my ideas outweigh my competency. Don’t let it hold you back though, but be aware that there are a lot of angry people out there.

It’s a teacher
The best way to get good at writing is to write. Write. Write. Write. My blog has taught me to write clearly and quickly. Most posts take only a few minutes to write now. They used to take me all week. As an example, my post 10 Reasons Why It Sucks to Be a Scrum Master is my highest ranked post on LinkedIn and it took just over 20 minutes to write. Years ago, that would have taken weeks to write. The more you write, the faster your ideas will come to you and the quicker you will be able to get those ideas down.

It’s my little space on the Internet
In this crazy and noisy world of the internet my blog is my own little space. It’s a space I own and have carved out for myself. 

It’s a legacy
I have three kids. When my time is up on this planet and the craziness ends all that will be left are my words, books, photographs and the life long memories of me in the minds of those who love me.

I want my legacy to be of good writing, insightful thoughts and memories for future generations of my own family. I want my boys to read my work and be inspired. 

It requires discipline
The discipline required to create a new post, newsletter or article every week or every month is insane. We are all capable of more than we might first imagine and a blog is a very powerful way of building discipline. I’ll be blogging a lot about discipline this year as it’s the difference between good and great, between agile and not agile, between promotion or not. Discipline leads to freedom. 
 

How to get started

Getting started with blogging is hard but don’t worry. Nobody will read your first few posts, or maybe even your first handful. It might be years until someone reads something. Sure, your friends, partner or mum might read it, but a wider audience is notoriously hard to build. Hence, I didn’t mention anything above about starting a blog as a business. When it becomes about business it won’t be fun anymore. Blogging should be fun. 

To get started find something you feel compelled to write about. It might be work, or life, or a hobby, or testing, or development, or agility, or politics, or donkeys. 

Write it from the heart. Don’t worry about Search Engine Optimisation (ever) or creating an avatar to write for, just write what’s on your mind. Get your words down on paper.

Write like you speak and use informal language. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar - just write. You can tidy these things up later. Writing and editing are two different activities. Don’t try to do them both at the same time. Just write. 

Start small, don’t worry about writing hundreds of words each day. Don’t compare yourself to others who’ve been doing it for years. Write a handful of words each day. But try to do something each day. Discipline is freedom. Don’t set deadlines or apply too much pressure. Although, as you progress, pressure and constraints are beautiful things. Constraints always lead to more creativity. When you’re starting out just write. 

Turn up and write. Don’t wait for inspiration. Just write.

Pick a blog platform

I would always choose a self-hosted blog running Wordpress. Wordpress.org not wordpress.com. This is a blog that you have to host yourself using a hosting company.

Or use a hosted service like wordpress.com but know from the start that you might not be able to use your own URL and your content is not yours. Blogger, Type-pad, Ghost (also available on self-hosted), Medium, Postachio, Posthaven - all good platforms - none of them give you total control of your content. All of them are considered hosted. If they chose to close you down, you lose. 

By hosting your own blog, you maintain control, you keep your content, but it costs money and is a little fiddlier. My good friend Helen Lisowski swears by GoDaddy. I swear by TSO host. Each has one click installers that will install Wordpress, or Ghost or any other self-hosted blog platform. 

Don’t fret too much though - just go for it and choose. Grab a domain at the same time as hosting. Don’t worry too much about the domain but if you can, grab your name. My name was taken so I chose The Social Tester - then I didn’t do testing anymore so I had to switch and start again. I run that risk this time with Cultivated Management too. 

Put a simple blog design on it, add some security plug-ins and some social icon links and start writing. 

Simple Writing Tools

I’m writing this very post in Bear-Writer for MAC. It’s a beautiful, simple, elegant writing tool that stays out of the way and lets me write. Before that I used TextWrangler on MAC. I always copy and paste to Word to spell check and run a Flesch Kincaid analysis (tells you how old your readers must be to understand what you’ve written). This article is 80.9. This article explains how it works. Try to write so kids can read it. 

On Windows, I use notepad++ for writing. 

Keep it simple and clean. A full screen version is useful to minimise distractions. 

Close everything else down. Do your research before writing and don’t procrastinate by researching when you should be writing. 

Don’t worry about word count or length of post. The goal is to write something and ship it. Posting it is the really hard part. Focus on getting to that point. 

Include an image with each post, but don’t get distracted with finding the perfect one. Use Unsplash.com - licence free images of superb quality. Or take your own. Or use pictures with creative commons licenses but be sure to attribute every image you use. Always note your sources for images and information. Give kudos to other writers and bloggers, hat tip people for sources of information - share love when you blog. Share and it will come back around tenfold. 

Don’t write to cause fights, or argue, or belittle people unless you like angry people trolling you in the comments. Blog with helpful posts that people can use to be better. Education Based Marketing is the technical term and it works. There’s already enough anger and hatred in the world - we don’t need more of that. But have an opinion, stand for something - have a point of view. Learn to write in a way that gives your posts enthusiasm and edge but not controversy and rage - unless of course that’s what you really want. 

Remember you are always a brand ambassador for every company you work for. Even if you don’t think you are, you are representing yourself, and those you may work with. Be careful, but don’t let it put you off. 

Write your articles as lists or short form or long form - it doesn't matter. Keep your sentences short, or long, write long posts, write short posts, write what you want. It doesn't matter - just write. Test it, keep tweaking but don’t be obsessed with reader counts and metrics. Just write. And keep writing. Be consistent.

Capture Ideas

Use Evernote, or a notebook, or the back of your hand to capture ideas. Capture every single thought and write it down. Store it, save it, keep referring back to it. Mash ideas together to create new ideas. Always carry a notebook and pen, or Evernote on your phone. Document the world around you. Ideas for posts come from everywhere, everyone and everything. 

Fear

Fear held me back last year. More on that in future posts. The more readers I’ve amassed the more I’ve found it harder to publish. I’ve broken through the fear (more on that too this year). 

Try not to be afraid of publishing.

Make the most of your newly found lack of readers for your blog. Post and get in to the habit of shipping. The world needs your ideas. There are plenty of blogs, for sure, but none of them have your voice all over them. Nobody else sees the world in the same way as you do. Remember, it’s your blog. 

Share It

Tell people about your blog. Share it on social media. There is little point posting something and not letting the world know about it. Over time you’ll be immensely proud of your blog. Remember why you’re doing it. Don’t try and monetise it unless it makes sense. You’ll turn the creative act of blogging in to a business. You’ll make it hard work and it might not be the sort of work you want to do. 

Blogging is a brilliant, powerful and a fun way to grow as an individual. Your readers will follow you and grow with you. They will share good content. They will let you know when it fails to hit the mark. Don’t expect brilliant success from blogging alone. It used to be enough to blog, now you’ll only build an audience from speaking and training and networking also. 

But blog because you want to. Because; you want to get better; share your stories; learn how to become a better writer. 

Blogging has been the highlight of my career. I will never stop blogging.

I hope you get the blogging bug too - I look forward to reading what you’re writing. 

Email me your blog and I’ll add it to my reading list.

Happy New Year.

rob@cultivatedmanagement.com

 

Communication Workshop

As you may know by now I'm running my award winning Communication Workshop in Winchester, UK in a few week.

It's a blast to run and attendees leave with knowledge about the science of communication, how to write effectively, how to do an awesome presentation and many other scenario based communication Super Powers. 
 

Thank you for reading The Manager. 

If you have any questions you want answered hit reply to the email - I respond to all emails.

Until Next Time
Rob..

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