Social Media

So, You Want To Start Blogging Pt. 2

Garth Beyer
What Are You Waiting For?

The one piece of advice that most people give about starting a blog is to find your niche and then start writing all the content you can about it.

Find Your Niche

Write To Find Your Niche

What remains unseen in some of the most popular blogs that are written on a specific subject is the first or second post that was ever written on that blog. If you go to the back of Shel Israel’s posts you will find that before he began zoning in on his passion (Social Media), he had a blog where he covered everything that entered his mind. He started by writing on every idea that went through his brain and put it on his first blog, RedCouch before he truly discovered his niche and created his current website.

Tim Ferriss had a similar situation. What you see now is his 4 hour work week blog, but if you go to the last page you will find his reminder that you can catch older content on his previous blog Tim Ferriss: The Human Experiment Blog

This is nearly everywhere, you just don’t see it because it is rare that you go to the last page of any blog. Many”famous” bloggers such as Shel or Tim, keep their old blogs because it was their journey to finding their passion. It may be for you too. Then again, other well-known blogs choose to delete their old scribblings because they only want to be known for their niche content and respected for their passion, not the oddball ideas that got them there.

To be more direct, don’t wait to start a blog. Forget the advice to find your niche before you start writing. Just write… write on every idea you sort-of-kinda feel is worthy because that is how you will discover your passion.

You know what happens to people who wait to find their niche before they start writing a blog?

They don’t find it.

 

Stay Positive & Go Write Right Now

Garth E. Beyer

So You Want To Start Blogging Pt.1

So, You Want To Start Blogging

Garth Beyer

I read a quote the other day after I published a post and it said “the first thing to do to become a blogger is to read other blogs.” I’m sure when you wanted to learn how to blog you have read and been told something similar. Everyone says to read blogs that get a lot of attention and that are in your niche of writing so you can get accustomed to the way your future viewers want to read.

But,

what is problematic is that they  suggest doing it BEFORE writing your own posts.

There are two points to this. The first is that if you want to write a blog on a specific topic of your interest, you better already be reading blogs, books, articles, blurbs, press releases, references, magazines and any other material related to your field of interest.

The second problematic point is that when you follow other people’s blogs, when you interact with the authors of the books, when you connect with the writers of the articles you read, they are going to want to see what you have created. For example, every time you follow a blog or “like” someones post on WordPress, they get notified that you are following them or liked their post. The writer gets a message like this sent to them: ” They thought article title was pretty awesome. You should go see what they’re up to. Maybe you’ll like their blog as much as they liked yours!” You don’t even have to tell the person who wrote the blog you liked to check yours out, it’s done for you, it’s common curtosy, it’s expected to read some material in return. Given, maybe the big blogs that are actually making an income will ignore the suggestion WordPress makes for you, but when you are starting up a blog you better try and connect with everyone possible. More so the blogs that don’t make a lot of income. That’s how you get to become a blog that makes an income.

More to the point, while you better be reading up on the information on your niche that other people are also writing on, it would be beneficial to start writing posts before really connecting with anyone else. Get your information out there, if you are starting a blog, you obviously have something powerful enough to say to everyone.

Don’t waste valuable time searching and following other blogs, seeing how they write and interacting with them. When you sit down at the computer, get to work on creating content that the writers of the blogs and articles you read, will want to read back and provide feedback. Blogging is a two-way street, you can’t expect to grow if you have nothing to show. You can’t expect to improve if you have nothing to present to the specialists you take a fancy to.

Stay Positive & Write First, Talk Later

Garth E. Beyer

Garth’s Biff With Social Media “Experts”

Garth Beyer

What do cracked clay vases, my grandma, the sowing machine and specialization all have in common?

They are old, antique, and are either stuck up in the attic or in the grave.

 

You can no longer become “successful” by focusing on one area of life. Painters can’t become successful without knowing different construction and electric techniques. Teachers can’t become successful without knowing parenting and counseling strategies. Fitness trainers can’t become successful without knowing basic psychology lessons and communication skills. It simply can’t be done. Success can’t be reached on one path.

Every boss, every consumer – the entire world expects the very best of you, the very best in a variety of ways.

Well, you can see why there is some contradiction in being called a “Social Media Expert”. What is social media? How many branches of social media are there? Do you think it’s even possible that a person can be an expert in every one of those branches? If so, I wouldn’t want to be refereed to as a social media expert, I would prefer to be called a billionaire.

Sure, Peter Shankman makes a great statement on social media experts “being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best-bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.”

However, I think Shankman has it wrong. The goal is still to make an amazing sandwich, but Social Media experts not only take the bread out, but all the other ingredients, and put it together and try to make an amazing sandwich. The problem is that the sandwich always sucks because they can’t be the best at every process of sandwich making. I repeat, there is no such thing as a social media expert.

Sympathies to the original “Twitter Sandwich”

The point is, that we can all say we are experts and professionals in social media, but the truth is the only thing we can all say that we are is journalists. We can write about social media all we want, it simply makes us more of a journalist. This post just made me more of a journalist if I may say so.

 

Stay Positive and Spice Up Your Sandwich With Variety

Garth E. Beyer