Every once in a blue moon, a person comes along who inspires you. Someone who reaches down into the basement of your soul and rips up the carpet of inspiration and serves it on a pewter platter to you. Ron Burgundy is that type of person and I think it behooves us to listen to what that Anchorman can teach us about how we blog and how we communicate with our audience.
Speak to us, Ron.
Believe In Thyself
“I’m kind of a big deal.”
Blogging is, at its heart, a brave thing to do. You’re taking what you think and what you believe and you’re putting it out there for millions upon billions of people to be able to access, read, comment on, and share. Be strong in your beliefs and opinions. They may not be the most popular ones or the most “hip” ones, but they’re yours. Trust in yourself and believe that you are, in fact, a big deal. Your thoughts are strong and valid because they are yours.
This isn’t to say you have the right to be a smug ass about things if someone proves you wrong (keep an open mind), but don’t shy away from posting something you think people might disagree with. You are a big deal. Act like it.
Show Thyself
“I’m in a glass cage of emotion!”
Kind of flowing off the last tidbit of wisdom, part of blogging is actually realizing that you’re putting yourself out there for the world to see. Let us see who you are. Wear your emotions on your sleeve in that glass case so we can understand your fears, excitements, downfalls, and victories. People like to connect with people and the more human emotion you show in your writing, the more human you will seem.
The more honest you seem to your readers, the more honest they’ll be with you.
Allow Comments and Sharing Options
“I wanna say something. I’m gonna out it out there. If you like it, you can take it. If you don’t, send it right back.”
You’re writing because you want to say something. You want to say something because you want people to read it. Hopefully, you want those people to tell you what they think of it and share it with their friends as well. There are a lot of blogs out there that don’t allow comments and don’t have social sharing buttons that are easy to use. They either block comments, spend weeks approving them to show and/or have broken social sharing buttons.
The best blogs are ones that communities form around. Throw your thoughts out there, but leave room for people to take it and share it or to throw it back to you with their own thoughts. You may even get some new readers or ideas from it.
Diversify
“Well, I could be wrong, but I believe diversity is an old, old wooden ship that was used during the Civil War era.”
Sure, you have a niche. You’ve built up a following talking about one set of things. That’s what you do. That doesn’t mean you can’t diversify within that topic or your writing style. If you normally write long-winded posts, try writing a short one (under 150 words perhaps). What areas within your niche don’t you cover because you don’t know that well? Explore those areas, teach yourself something and then teach that to your community.
Trying our different writing styles will strengthen your skills as a writer and exploring new areas within your topic will keep you on the edge of your craft and knowledge and continually give your readers something to come back to.
Encourage
“You stay classy, San Diego.”
Some bloggers are jerks. That’s their thing, the persona that they’ve built up. While that works for some, the old adage that you catch more flies with honey is true in blogging as well (Or the parable of the North Wind and the Sun, if you prefer). If you are actually helpful and you truly care about the people in your community, that will show and readers will stick around. Encourage people that leave you comments and thank those that take the time to interact with you. Built other up around you and by default you will rise with the crowd.
You don’t have to have a catch-phrase, but find ways to encourage and thank the people that take time out of their day to read what you
Signing Off
Thanks, Ron Burgundy, for your wisdom and your candor. Great Odin’s Raven, we have learned a lot to day. What other lessons can you think of from this hairy man from the 70s? Would you interpret any of his pearls differently? Why not share them in the comments?
Stay Classy, Internet.
Joey Strawn is a blogger, husband, entrepreneur, and general purveyor of awesomeness and currently blogs at JoeyStrawn.com. He is president of Empty Jar Marketing in Nashville, Tenn. and works with local and national businesses to increase exposure and brand using digital marketing strategies.
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Joey, This was a really creative post! All the tips are really solid. I particularly like Encourage. I see you around some of the same sites and one thing that is very noticeable about the engagement that has developed in some of the top communities (Gini D, Danny B, Mark S, to name a few) is how encouraging those bloggers are towards their community members.
Looking forward to the sequel!
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