By Jayme Soulati–“The Bean”
Authenticity is at risk. There is too much pressure as a professional blogger to monetize, engage, develop a brand, be a leader with unique content, and utilize digital marketing for lead generation and search marketing. When you’re making the climb from newbie blogger to professional, there are many bloggers ahead of you to follow and heed their examples.
It’s not hard to see that all the tools of the trade to create the largest professional brand are right there for the plucking; but, at what expense?
Are you risking your own identity as a professional by changing it up too fast or too much? How do you feel as a blogger when you sit down to write?
These are questions that need asking on your path because there’s one thing about blogging I want to instill with you:
- Genuine and authentic persona as a blogger are traits that will always be critical to success; always.
- If or when you become mechanical about the journey, it’s time to take a break.
- If or when you put more strength on analytics to tell you what to write and determine your success, it’s time to re-visit your original goals.
- If or when you lose focus of your personality and are writing without verve, think about your core.
I have always written content from my circles of inspiration; rarely if ever have I written content based on analytics or key words. Perhaps that’s short-sighted; perhaps not.
I realize there are solid reasons to write more content based on how people come to visit; however, I also realize that’s not the goal of my writing, either. Even if I was to put up a ton of posts oriented to message mapping, for example, people would probably get tired of seeing the same thing, and I would get pretty bored with it, too.
When you write, be sure to keep your personality in the story. It doesn’t have to be written in the first person to do that; it has to have your spirited delivery.
The thing about analytics I’ve always pondered is whether it would pirate authenticity. We know Google continues to adjust its algorithm to wreak havoc on everyone’s crazy-ometer. If you depend on analytics every day to determine what to write, then you’re risking authenticity. That’s my view, any takers?
