Don't Be Lazy, Write Your Own Blog Posts

Don’t Be Lazy, Write Your Own Blog Posts

November 20^th 2014 Sally Ormond article writing, blogging, connecting with your audience, thought leadership

thought leader

Are you a small business owner?

Are you looking to build your business online through content marketing (a horrible term, but one I’ll stick with for the purpose of this blog)?

Are you currently looking for a copywriter to create the blogs and articles for you?

Stop right there.

The sole purpose behind content creation is to position yourself as the “go to” person in your field – to become a thought leader.

I appreciate that you’re a busy person and there are never enough hours in the day – blaa, blaa, blaa – but how can you be seen as a thought leader if your thoughts aren’t the ones people are reading?

Making a connection

You’re right, time is a huge issue for you and yes, if you’re not used to it, sitting down and writing an article or blog can take a while, but neither of those are valid excuses to get someone else to do it for you.

That might seem like a strange thing for a copywriter to tell you, but I am great believer in relationship building. The only way you can do that is by showing your expertise and personality through blogging.

As a small business owner, your customers tend to have direct contact with you. Therefore, when they read your blogs and articles, they need to feel as though it’s you having a conversation with them. That’s why you should be doing the writing – it’s your style, turn of phrase and personality they should be engaging with, not someone else’s.

Granted, writing the first few posts will be like pulling teeth, but as you get in to it and develop your style, you’ll be knocking them out at a great rate of knots. Just let yourself go, shrug off that imaginary straight jacket and let your personality flow. Don’t be afraid to be controversial; put your opinions out there using your every day language, but remember whom you are writing for. After all, if your readers don’t like your topics they’re not going to read them.

What about bigger companies?

If you run a larger company or corporation and have multiple contributors to your blog it’s a great idea to have a copywriter on board who can tweak and amend the posts to make sure they follow your company’s style and ethos. They can even contribute themselves by writing articles or re-purposing existing content to create blog posts (for example recycling old white papers).

There doesn’t tend to be one contact person in large companies, so it’s not so vital that an individual’s personality comes through. It’s more important that the style and company brand are upheld.

If you want to be a thought leader, you must write your own articles, blogs and social media updates, it’s as simple as that.