Humans love to make excuses for why something can't be done. They won't call them excuses, but let's get real—if you're tasked with doing something, and you give a reason why you can't (or won't), it's not a reason—it's an excuse. Excuses are our brains' natural reaction to anything that's uncomfortable or out of the norm.
"I don't have time to go to the gym because I work too much."
"I can't make your party because I'm booked solid."
"I can't make the deadline because I don't have all the resources."
You get the idea. The same goes for your blog or any other creative writing you're involved in. You've read and heard all the negatives, so you've decided you can't do it either. Well, you're not getting off the hook so easily with me. I'm going to give you six myths about blogging that I've heard, and I'm going to debunk them all.
Myth 1: I can't write well. If you play any sport or do anything at all other than breathe, chances are you didn't do it very well when you first started that either. Everything takes practice and a commitment to getting better. If I were to go back 13 years and read my first blog post, I guarantee that it would look a whole lot differently than how I write today.
Myth 2: You have to post every day. Will you get better results IF you post daily? Sure. Do you have to? Absolutely not. You should, at a minimum, post every week, but if you look at some off the ideas that I've given in the past, it's really not that hard to come up with ONE post a week.
Myth 3: No one reads blogs. Far from the truth. I spend a good portion of my early morning combing thru blogs and reading new content. New blogs are created (and killed) daily; nothing will ever stop that. But, believe me, people are reading and sharing them at a consistent rate.
Myth 4: My industry doesn't translate well to blogging. It doesn't? Do you have a website? Do you have printed material? Do you have a professional staff who were hired because they're experts at what they do? Do you have clients who need your product? If you answer “yes” to even two of those questions, I would say your industry can (and probably does) translate to a blog. Now, granted your blog may not get the traffic that Huffington Post does, but if you do a little research, I'm confident that at least one of your competitors has a blog.
Myth 5: Your posts have to be between “x amount” of words. This one is tricky, and there are as many opinions as there are words. Some say long-form posts perform best. Others say no more than 300 words works best. My opinion is that you should write as many words as you need to in order to get your point across. If you tend to ramble, have someone edit it for you, and tighten it up, but other than that, do what feels and sounds right to you.
Myth 6: Blogging is easy. Absolutely a myth. Until you get the hang of it and you start to enjoy it (you will, I promise), it will seem like a lot of hard work—and it is. But it's not impossible, and the best thing you can do is keep at it at and be prepared. Come up with an editorial calendar that has topic ideas on it. Find the strong voices and writers on your staff. Think of new ways to use material that has already been created. With a little bit of planning and strategy, it will become a much easier task.
There you have it, 6 myths—all debunked. Now that I've taken away your excuses, what are you going to write about today?
