How many times have you heard this; I don’t know how to blog? Probably more times than you care to count. A few weeks ago I attended a live #BlogChat hosted by Mack Collier. One of the participants asked ‘what if you don’t know how to blog?’ My answer to him was ‘if you can talk, you can blog.’ Has anyone considered answering the question this way before? I continued by adding ‘do you have conversations? Answer questions people ask? Ask questions of others?’ Then, why can’t you blog about it?
One of the biggest misconceptions of blogging is that it can and should only be addressed by people who know how to write. Ya sure, I get the point here but not all bloggers are the world’s bestselling authors and even if they are, they sure didn’t start that way. Blogging is not like writing a book report or a research report people! Although some great blog posts are about data and yes, even books.
Yes, you should know a bit about grammar but the fun part about blogging is there are really no rules. As Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman mention in their book The Content Rules, you can start a sentence with the word ‘and’ and use your personal offline vocabulary (anyone else having a wicked awesome long weekend?).
One of my favorite posts was on Joe Pulizzi’s blog and it was about 20 words long. 20 words! And some of the best posts are simply a picture with a caption (ever seen one of Joey Strawn’s cartoons on Mark Schaefer’s blogs? Too funny!!).
Don’t get caught up on 500 words or 4 paragraphs or whatever. Like anything, it takes practice. I write at least 1 blog everyday and while I may not post them all because they are total crappola, I write because it helps me get better. And even some of my favorite bloggers like Ingrid Abboud at nittyGriddy will tell you not all posts are award-winning. Just don’t get caught up in it.
So unless you are deadset against blogging and ever becoming a blogger, the excuse ‘but I don’t know how to write’ just won’t fly. Fact remains that if you can talk, you can blog.
Did you just say something?
This is another great post as well for Malaysians. Because I have encountered a lot of customers told me that they can’t blog. I believe Malaysians reader should read this post and know you!