Be Open And Honest With Your Blog

This blog post was inspired by Keith Urban's song Tonight I Wanna Cry. The lyrics are very revealing. Similar to songwriting, blogging opens the writer to vulnerability. Bloggers write about what they think and feel. It opens one up to criticism and disagreement. However, most people are thinking about themselves and not the writer when reading.

When people listen to music, they aren't thinking about the singer or the songwriter, they are thinking about themselves. People are applying the lyrics, rhythm, and emotion to their own lives. This is what makes hits songs -- people can relate to it. The same is true in blogging. Write posts that people can relate to. What is that? It's whatever you can relate too. Here are a few tips to better blogging.

Narrow your audience. Narrow your focus. Narrow your topics. Target a smaller audience for larger traffic. It seems counterintuitive, but think of it this way: Do you listen to a radio station that plays country, hip hop, classical, jazz, children's, and political talk shows? In the same way, people aren't going to read your blog if you're blogging about everything under the sun.

Be vulnerable. Be open and honest. Let people see who you really are. Just like the musician who pours his heart out in his/her song, be willing to voice your opinion and take a stand. I can't agree or disagree (i.e. relate or not relalte) to something that isn't opinionated. Write something the challenges my thinking. Make an argument and support it.

Think of one person and write to that person. Write your blog as if you are writing to a single person. Not a fictitious person, but a person you know. Write to a person in your target audience. If you're blogging for business, write to your best customer.

And remember, the reader doesn't care about you. They not reading to learn more about you, they're reading to learn more about themselves. The more you grow through writing, the more the reader will grow through reading. In the same way that music fosters introspection, write thought-provoking blogs.