Category: blog

Writing a Blog is Hard… Not Writing is Harder

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I am going to talk unabashedly about how this empty WordPress box makes me feel in this exact moment: Stressed.

Often, I’d rather just pet my cat and ignore the turmoil in my mind that persists until expressed. Much like my gym membership, this blog can be more a source of personal guilt than fulfillment.

My cat can't read, she prefers pets versus blog post from me.

My cat can’t read, she prefers pets versus blog posts from me.

It’s unfortunately easy for me to ignore this blog. The internal nag to become more selfaware through writing is something I’ve grown accustomed to pretending I can’t hear. I spend all day in the minds of my clients and their publics, articulating through text what they can’t effectively. Specifically avoiding my own voice and biases, I isolate myself from the process, making it much easier to churn out writing. I don’t get overwhelmed articulating the specifically requested ideas of others like I do when it’s just me, my mind and an insatiable need to write.

Currently sitting in this blog’s “drafts” folder, are at least five blog posts that I would consider about 50% complete. Each contains 500+ words of carefully considered semantics that have been derailed by unattainable standards. No matter how long I stare at any paragraph, on any post on this blog, I will always find words to change, ideas I’d like to expand on or tangents to remove.

– If you read my first blog post, you know that was never what I wanted for this blog.

Knowing I will never be completely satisfied with how I express myself is the largest source of backlog and inactivity on this site (unlike the closure I receive on work completed for work and by clients). Working myself up only makes it more difficult to articulate exactly what it is I am trying to say.

shade

Being concise and compelling requires digging into and slicing away at my mind. Tossing out what I later see as irrelevant begins to feels contrived. After 30 minutes on a headline and hours more on a blog post that doesn’t end up talking about that original idea anyway, I doubt why I started writing to begin with.

So, what am I gonna do about it? This. I am going to publish this post immediately after I finish it.

Already as I am writing this now, I am running through this post in my head, wondering if I have even said anything, questioning why I would ever think people would bother reading this. Have I just repeated myself incessantly? What will people think of me as a professional writer if I’m telling them I struggle sometimes? Why would any stranger on the internet care?

In order to bring myself to hit publish, I have to change the way I think about what it is I am doing:

I write because I have to. I’m compelled to do it from a source within myself. I must write what spills out of me, but people must not like it. That’s ok. If I cater too much to what I think people want to hear, versus what I want to say, this blog becomes another PR campaign and not the repository of reflections on working in social media, journalism and marketing that I intended – it becomes work. 

When I scrutinize myself with impossible expectations, the fear of my own criticism keeps me from success. If I were more relaxed with myself and the words that already come naturally, this blog would be much further along. However, like making it to the gym, with each post I do “complete” and surrender to the public, my motivation to do so grows.

4 Things To “Be” When Posting To Social Networks For A Client

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I like to be spontaneous, interactive and a little “off-the-wall” when sharing on my own, personal, social media accounts. Often I’ll post my gut reaction to something happening live or retweet without much consideration, because ultimately I’m judge, jury, and executioner (…and victim and defendant) of any consequences due to bad personal brand management. However, if the posts are coming from anyone but me, I use the following four guidelines to ensure I am being what (or who) I should be:

Be Your Client

Your clients social media campaign is not the place for self-promotion. Try to keep yourself as distanced from the actual content you create as possible so avoid even being accused of abusing your position.

1) Be Your Client:
You’re not just out there tweeting what you had for lunch that day. You are doing a job; make sure everything you share is in line with that. Before clicking “submit” look back at the account you’re about to speak for, does whatever you plan to share advance the objective of your clients campaign?

Don’t share just for the sake of sharing. Make sure your content is high-quality and worthwhile otherwise you may clutter up your audience’s news feed and their reaction will be to no longer receive updates from your organization. Justify each post in light of the campaign’s specific goals.

Be A Tool

Go ahead, tell everyone what you really think… in a helpful manner.

2) Be A Tool:
Be the go-to-resource in your organization’s industry. If you want to corner the market on something, you have to not only be a part of the conversation, but control and direct it. Become the thought leader of everything [INSERT YOUR BRAND’S INDUSTRY] by being the first to share relevant news, tips, ideas, etc. even, especially if it did not come from your brand directly.

3) Be Human:
Social media is there to be… SOCIAL. Talk and engage with the people who are talking about your organization. Be involved in the discussions that include you, otherwise someone else may control the conversation. Remember to have fun.

I have to remind my clients to avoid coding jargon and to interact with the general public in a more personable level.

I have to remind my clients to avoid coding jargon and to interact with the general public in a more personable level.

I don’t follow brands or personas that lack the potential to make me laugh (or smirk to myself at least), charm, or surprise me. The fact that individuals are able to engage with otherwise inaccessible organizations (enterprise, startup, or nonprofit) is the #1 feature that makes social media so impactful for PR and valuable for marketing.

 

 

 

Huge walls of text are intimidating and will deter users from giving your content A second glance. Spice things up with photos/graphics/designs/etc.

Huge walls of text are intimidating and will deter users from giving your content A second glance. Spice things up with photos/graphics/designs/etBe Visual:

4)Be Visual:

This post is less than 500 words.  I represented all four of my main points visually. My audience does not want to read (and neither does yours), so I’ve made it optional.

 

What’s in a lead? A blog by any other intro would archive so quickly.

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I could spend hours, days, even weeks trying to think of what I’m typing at this very moment; It would be agonizing and unnecessary.

-Ahhh there it’s done, the first sentence out of my way-

My work persona is a perfectionist; real me does not have to nitpick. At work when I write a news release, or even ghostwrite for a client’s blog, 100% of the time it is the first sentence that takes

This graphic was created in hopes of repurposing original, plain text into a visual item that's more stimulating.

This graphic was created in hopes of repurposing original, plain text into a visual item that’s more stimulating.

90% of my time. While I can be the heroine who catches the “pubic vs. public relations” typo, being positive there is error where there is not can be devastating to my productivity. What if what I say doesn’t capture the audience? What if I could do it better? How do I convey that what I’m saying is essential to my audience?

–Chances are, no matter how spectacularly it reads, the client will want changes-

This is my personal blog. I’m doing it for fun – Not to raise a “klout score,” not to make money from advertisements, or receive free goods in exchange for endorsements. I work in the interesting crossroads of media communications and high-tech. These two industries directly affect one another. Like most bloggers, I have thoughts about the things I discover and trends I notice that I feel are worth sharing [to an empty WordPress].

-My expertise is in written communication, digital or otherwise, that is: 1) Engaging; 2) Concise and 3) Relevant-

That’s how I found myself in the tech world. Software developers can be fluent in multiple languages, all more complex than English (the single language I speak fluently) and yet they often have a difficult time conveying even their most basic principles to their customers and investors their those who can’t understand the code.

That’s where I come in. I act as a translator and articulate ideas that C-level audiences understand not only in a technical way, but that spotlights benefits particular to their business’ situations.
Let me tell you something about being do this while being neither software developer or C-Level: The words do not just flow, inspired from your fingertips. You have to work for it.

This is something I made for a social media campaign in the surprise/cheer category. The easiest content I encounter is for twitter because you can't get too deep in 140 characters- which can also hurt you.

This is something I made for a social media campaign in the surprise/cheer category. Easy when compared to writing actual material over brand new concepts.

Topics like Continuous Delivery, Agile methodologies, DevOps, and the ever-mysterious “Cloud” can hurt my brain but, I’m unwilling to do half-assed work for clients. I will stay with a project for as long as necessary to assure it is above and beyond expectations.

So, when it comes to this blog, which I hope you find resourceful nonetheless, I’m just going to relax, write and enjoy myself. Sure, I’ll run spellcheck before posting and fact check my statements, but I will not spend weeks, days, even hours stuck writing any single sentence on this blog.