This is Day Three of a Ten Day Course on how to create killer content. Visit Day One here.
“Blogs are like babies… yours is rarely as cute, smart and entertaining to others as YOU think it is.” - @sugarrae.
You’ve done two things by now: You’ve picked a subject you want to blog about, and you’ve studied how others in your space are blogging about the very same subject. In fact, you’ve reviewed the experts, as defined by search results. Feel intimidated?
Hell yes.
But so what? Remember that these other people in cyberspace aren’t competitors. Drop that act right now. In fact, they’re educators. They complement your efforts, and you complement their efforts. And yeah, many of them may seem like shiny big blogs that will forever be stronger, faster and wittier than you are. Right? Well maybe. Life can be a bitch that way.
Which reminds me of a story I heard on the radio about a woman bemoaning the fact that she couldn’t possibly go to college at her late age. She said “But I’ll be fifty in four years if I go to college!”
The radio announcer paused, then said “How old will you be in four years if you DON’T go to college?”
Point. Set. Match. If it’s what you want to do, you just have to try. Because if you don’t, you’ll be four years older in four years anyway.
Yesterday, you came up with 5 things from other blogs that provoked you. That inspired you. That you agreed or disagreed with strongly. I want you to pick the first thing on that list. Don’t even think about it - just pick it and write something about it. One sentence. Then two sentences. Then a paragraph. Work no more than ten minutes, maximum.
Here’s a great way that Fred, our bike shop owner, started his:
“I was over on Bike Blog NYC today and they have some great photos of 14 new concept bikes that I find interesting to look at. Art pieces, really. Too precious for the trails or the roads though, don’t you think? I could just see doing a digger on the Yanko and ‘oh wait!’ - there’s 5k flushed. That’s what this blog is about. New bikes. Fun bikes. Even concept bikes. But most importantly, bikes you might some day ride.”
Then hit ‘Publish’. Whoa. Did you just do that? Did you just publish something? Holy cow.Welcome to the new world.
And if you didn’t hit ‘Publish’, what’s stopping you?
Marketing Takeaway: You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
Deliverable: Your first blog post. Eureka. Why not turn it into a T-shirt or frame it?
If you’ve made your first post, comment below with the link. I would love to see what you’re all about. Word.
