Personalizing Your Business Blog

Although blogging has been around for some time, I’m a late bloomer in the blogging frenzy. I had a hard time getting past the “What would I talk about?” phase. I kept running into the “I’m just me, I don’t lead a very exciting life. What could I possibly find to write about that would interest people?” wall and the feeling that people might find me boring. Most of my time is spent in front of the computer doing web work for my clients. I feel that I’m very good at my job as a web designer, but I don’t consider myself to have any “expert-status” on any one thing. Because I put my client’s work first, it’s not often that I get to work on my own site. In a round-about way, without admitting it out loud, I rejected blogging as a waste of time and it was my opinion that blogging was geared for personal sites, and certainly not for business.

Be PERSONABLE Without Being PERSONAL

My research included checking with other designers who have been into blogging for awhile and the things they said really made sense. Done properly, blogging can be good for a business. One of the key ingredients is to be personable without being personal. You’re certainly not going to talk about your most intimate secrets or the last fight you had with your spouse and what that may have been all about. It was general consensus among long-time business bloggers that letting your hair down a little bit and allowing a bit of yourself to flow into your blog writings gives your clients and potential clients a little bit of insight into who you are and what your personality is like. The rule goes something like this … “If you wouldn’t say it to your client’s face, then don’t include it in your business blog.” This made really good sense to me. They let me know that being personable was not the same as being personal and that one must consider just what kind of site you’re displaying and what kind of an audience you’re looking to gather.

Blogging Can Help You Attract More Clients

An interesting outcome some of them reported was that they started attracting more clients that really clicked with them. It’s so important to have a good working client-designer relationship and if the personalities mix well, it becomes a more pleasant business union which makes for better productivity. After listening to everything they had to say, blogging started to click with me as a viable option for my own web site. I was bound and determined to give it a chance.

I found it interesting that in talking with my friend and co-worker, Amy, and encouraging her to take up blogging herself, she pretty much had the same initial reaction to it as I had. After I explained that I had been having some of the same thoughts she was but that my investigation had changed my mind, she did some research of her own and when I heard back from her, her response was an enthusiastic “sign me up!” She’d caught on quickly to the benefits for herself and her own business.

I Was Blogging and Didn’t Even Know It

I actually got started blogging on my other web site which is really my dog’s web site but I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing at that time. This again falls under the “anyone who knows me” category and if you know me at all, you know that my dogs are my true joy. Their site isn’t a blow by blow daily journal of the funny cute things my dogs do. I’m very big into dog rescue and other things involving dogs. Their site is geared towards German Shepherds and German Shepherd rescue but it also lends itself to general dog information for any breed whether it be purebreds or not. Things like animal cruelty and pet health and welfare are some of the topics their site covers. Doing their site taught me that not only can blogging be fun, for me it’s quite therapeutic! For me, it’s a healthy mental outlet, some time away from the daily grind, an opportunity to try my hand at some creative writing for myself (which will serve to benefit my clients) as well as an opportunity to help others as well while still keeping me productive at the computer. To top it off, blogging is fun and if anyone needs some fun in their life it’s me!

I Think of Blogging as a Learning Adventure

Blogging can, and in my opinion, should also be a learning adventure. Not only will you learn about yourself, but if you click around the Internet you’ll learn plenty about blogging. You’ll more than likely find blogs on other sites that are related to your own business and this in turn will give you the opportunity to pick up ideas not only for your business but your web site as well.

I still get hung up on what to write about, but I make an effort to add a new blog entry about once a week and will try really hard not to let it get past a week’s time before adding something new. Blogging is something that can really help keep your brain from stagnating as well and you might just find that your creativity level is much higher than you thought it was!