You’re not special. Blog anyway.

December 1, 2014

tags: blog, blogging, courage, expertise, memorable, post, special

by Wade Kwon

Often, I am asked about blogging. Specifically, “Why should I blog? I’m no one special.”

You’re not special, but you should blog. I’m no one special, and I blog a lot.

In November, I published 75 posts on five blogs. Four were auto-generated, and two were book chapter excerpts from authors in Birmingham (and I spent time on those long posts with light copyediting).

You don’t have to be special to blog. You just have to make the time to create something and muster up the courage to hit “Publish.” Virtually no one will see your post, and you will have put a little bit of yourself out into the world.

The challenge you face isn’t that you’re an amazing person or a boring person. The challenge is that you’re trying to convert a big nebulous thing like LIFE or VIEWPOINT (or COMPANY or BRAND) into a discrete unit called a blog post.

I don’t have that problem because I’ve been writing a long time for publications. So I’ve had lots of practice converting an EVENT or an INTERVIEW or a CONCEPT into units called articles. If I wrote them quickly and accurately, I might get paid more and have better opportunities to create more interesting articles.

You will not magically write a perfect blog post for your first shot. If it takes you an hour to write one post, it make take 10,000 posts to become an expert blogger.

I’ve got maybe 6,500 posts published in 9 years. So eventually, I’ll be an expert blogger.

I blogged about weightlifting and dieting for a couple of years on Project Bulk. On Day 1, I had zero knowledge about either subject. Zero. But after the first 6 months, fans would come up to me to talk about that one site. They were interested because I was open and passionate about learning more in these two areas.

A stranger at a tailgate party this past weekend knew me from my posts on Media of Birmingham; my last post there was a year ago. But he remembered because he’s interested in local journalism and was kind enough to read my stuff. That is high praise in my book.

You can create those memorable engaging stories for your company. (And yes, your company isn’t special either.) Don’t plan it to death: Create something, hit “Publish,” repeat.

You absolutely do not have to be special to blog. But blogging again and again can actually make you special.