I just finished posting my 136th blog post over 256 days.
This isn’t quite the daily blog posting I had envisioned this year (as per Seth Godin), but it’s still not too shabby. particularly since the year isn’t over yet.
Now, I’ve learned quite a lot about blogging doing this sustained effort., – not the least of which is how to create a blog post while doing my morning walk by integrating a digital recorder with Dragon dictation and Grammarly, or how to shoot more effective photos for my posts.
However, there is one key insight which I would love to share with everyone, which I believe turned the corner for myself on my personal blog.
It’s simply this: I blog for myself.
Look, I do a fair amount of writing for others online. For example, I’m a Doximity Author, and on this platform, I intentionally create content which to help other physicians. I am also a consistent contributor to the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network, and on this site, I try to bring a physician’s perspective about social media to a well established, marketing dominant, healthcare social media community.
However, on my website, my blogs are not about others. Rather, they’re all about me.
What do I mean about this? Let me explain.
Everyone reading this right now has dozens of fleeting, creative ideas a day. In my case most of these fleeting ideas are silly, but there are a few which have potential.
For these potentially good ideas, I’ve set up a capture architecture. In my case, it’s a file called “Blog Ideas” contained in my Omni Focus app on my iPhone (Thank you, David Allen, author of the book Getting Things Done, which emphasizes the importance of both capture and review!).
Next, when I review this blog idea list and select the one I move past just thinking and instead investigate it – perhaps taking notes, perhaps doing a Google search, or perhaps reviewing the medical literature.
Then, after scanning these notes, I go on my morning walk and I verbally try to clarify this idea via dictation. Of note, if I do this step well, then the rest of the post creation is fairly mechanical and becomes a simple editing process.
The key thing here – the greedy, self-centered thing – is using the blogging process to clarify an idea for me.
You see, what I have found is that the act of blogging about a specific idea or topic doesn’t just give me a deeper understanding of the topic, but also locks it in place for me for future reference.
So, if my personal blog helps others on the way, that’s fine, but in my case, my blog’s specific purpose is to create a wealth of knowledge, – a personal treasure trove – which I can access at any time.
Let me give you one example.
Yesterday I wrote a post about Vital Farms, an egg producer, using the Power of Story to market their ideas. In their case, I was impressed by their use of a 3 x 2″ newsletter within every carton of eggs to help tell the story.
Thanks to that yesterday’s creation of a blog post (which, including photos, took me about 30 minutes to create), I now have access to this example of the Power of Story which I will be able to use whenever I want for the next decade i.e. when I speaking about this concept with healthcare executives or digital creative’s.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that this particular approach to blogging is appropriate for everyone (or even anyone) other than myself.
But I do think to have clarity of the mission of your blog, which includes being able to specify its principal audience (in my case, myself), does offer value.
Blog on, my friends.