Sometimes you’re just not getting the job done.
Fire yourself.
Hired
Unless you specifically set out at the beginning to have a multi-authored blog, I bet you started writing it all by yourself. You heard stories and read books and saw other people doing it and thought, “Yeah, I’ll start a blog!”
Maybe you came in expecting overnight greatness or a movie starring Amy Adams as you.
You had your idea, you set up your page and you got to work. And you worked. And worked.
Maybe your idea took off and you’re super famous, if so, you should contribute a piece to For Bloggers, By Bloggers and let us know how you did it! If not, then maybe you should read the rest of this.
You brought yourself on as the expert on your topic. You were the person to be writing your blog or you wouldn’t have started it in the first place. Just like everyone, you have your patterns, your styles, your ways of doing things. When you first start a new endeavor (like blogging), you won’t have those patterns yet, but you have them as a human being for other things, they’ll find their way into new things as well. Don’t worry.
Now, you’ve been blogging for quite a while and you have your patterns. You know how you write, when you write, on what you write, etc, etc, etc, etc. The problem is, now your blog isn’t seeing the exciting growth it was earlier.
Maybe you’re not the person for the job anymore.
Fired
I can already hear your comments brewing, just waiting for me to finish:
- But Joey, why would I outsource my blog? My readers are reading to read me.
- I don’t have the money to hire someone else to write my blog.
- Why would I just stop writing? I love it.
When I say “Fire Yourself”, I don’t mean literally give yourself the old heave ho. I just mean fire the part of you that’s stuck in a rut. Fire the part of you that isn’t exploring new opportunities to grow your audience and your email opt-ins. Fire that part of you that says, “This is how I do things.
Do you always sit at the same desk and write on the same computer late at night? Next time, write in the morning, on a notepad, outside. See how that helps your juices. Do you always start with an idea and then build it out? Try writing down 7 really clever titles and drawing one from a hat, THEN create a post around that. Have you ever gotten really tipsy and then typed out a stream of conscience piece? Are you curious what you might come up with?
There are very few rules to how content needs to look, feel, sound. I used to write Social Media Haikus and Poems just for the hell of it. Hugh MacLeod creates some of the most amazing art and builds social media critiques around those.
Scare yourself out of your rut this week. Get on your own case about trying new things.
Fire Yourself.
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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Haha !! When I read the title first, I was surprised !! But the content made my mind clear :)
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
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