What’s Your End Game?

So you want to blog? Great. That’s a start. Now, tell me how you’re going to end it. It sounds funny, I know. You’ve barely started blogging and I’m asking you to decide when you’ll be done with it. Here’s why:

1. Not all blogs are infinite. The prime example is Julie Powell’s blog, now featured in the book turned movie Julie & Julia. It had a very set time period – one year. The self-imposed deadline gave Julie Powell structure and deadlines and became a huge part of what made the blog special.
2. Time is not always on your side. Even bloggers have lives. Remember Simon & Garfunkle’s “A Hazy Shade of Winter”? “Time, time, time, see what’s become of me..”  Just this week, Marketing Profs community manager, blogger and social media expert Beth Harte threw in the towel on her own blog, The Harte of Marketing, after 14 months of posts.  She wrote: “I need to have time for my family, my home, my life.” She’s putting herself on a time out.
3. Blogging is a writer’s game. If you can’t write, if you had trouble writing in college, if you don’t love to write – don’t blog. You won’t like it. You won’t be good at it.  Take a lesson again from Beth Harte. She’s a social media marketing expert, and by her own admission is not a writer. Therefore, the posts take a long time for her to craft and create an unwelcome time crunch for her.  For more on this, see my post “Why Not to Blog” at TheMarketingPlaza.com.
4. Blogging abbreviates. Twitter does also. If you are a trained writer (meaning went to J-school) don’t assume you’ll be a good blogger. For one, you’re probably too attached to grammar. For two, you’re probably too verbose. Headline writers are probably better trained for blogging than reporters.
5. Blogging is a sport. It takes practice and discipline. You’ve got to have a plan and know the end game. What’s your goal?  Only when you know the end game, is it time to get started.
6. Blogging is marketing. Blogging, like marketing is about putting yourself out there. Great marketing is based on a plan. What’s yours? What is your product or service. How are you going to market (present or package yourself), and let people in on the secret?

If the time is right to write, get blogging! If  you’ve just welcomed triplets into the family, you may have great content, but sleep may be a higher priority.

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Tags: Blogger, blogging, Blogs, End Game, Grammar, Harte, Hazy Shade Of Winter, Headline Writers, Julie Powell, Marketing, Marketing Profs, Media Expert, Media Marketing, Prime Example, Simon Garfunkle, Special Time, Time Crunch, Time Out, Time Period, Time Time Time, Twitter, Winter Time

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 11:59 am and is filed under Marketing, Uncategorized, Writing Efficiently, Writing Style. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.