Online Marketer vs Creative Writer: A Tale of Two Bloggers

There’s nothing like the warm, comfortable feeling of knowing that you’ve mastered your subject matter.  Whether you’re blogging about it or presenting to a room full of people, it sure feels great to have all the answers.  But after a time, doesn’t it seem like you’re starting to cover some of the same material over and over again?  I know it does to me.  Here’s my idea for fixing that: Every now and again I’m going to blog about stuff I know almost nothing about.

I know, I know, this goes against a number of the cardinal rules of blogging: write about what you know, build an audience around a niche, engage a community about what they care about, build a brand around a competency, all the wood behind one arrow, etc, etc.  I get it.

Here’s the thing though, those are all mostly marketing principles, not writing principles.  Blogging is an odd mix of creative writing and online marketing.  The online marketer in us totally gets that to build a successful brand you have to focus your efforts.  Many of our promotional programs actually depend on it (SEO, birds of a feather blog communities, guest posting for like minded blogs, building a reputation for expertise, etc).  There’s no disputing that if you want to build a blog that sells stuff, your blogging should focus on that space and do a good job of selling your expertise in that domain.  If you think of blogging as marketing copy, this goes without saying.  I should disclose that for the most part, that’s what blogging is to me.

But marketing copy sucks to read.  My inner online marketer is allowed to promote my blog, but not to write it. If I blogged in the style that I write marketing copy, not only would nobody read it, but for the most part I’d hate writing it – which is the second reason my inner online marketer isn’t on the writing staff.

So my inner creative writer is happy that my inner online marketer has found us some readers, but now he has some demands.  My inner creative writer is passionate about the subject matter, but knows that if that’s all I ever write about, my writing will turn into meta-copy that’s appreciated by only a few other hardcore subject matter experts occupied with the same kind of navel-gazing.  Eventually, I’m going to have to progress and so will any readers that have stuck with me.

As a reader, there are few things more engaging than a journal of when someone tried something, failed, and then figured it out.  That just doesn’t happen often enough when you’re in your element.

Progression into new areas doesn’t happen overnight, but it does eventually have to happen.  One that grows never grows old.  And writers that constantly reach for something new, whether it is subject or style, won’t grow stale.  Does that mean you can no longer write about what you know?  Heavens, no.  At the end of the day, your perspective on your domain is still what got you readers in the first place and as long as you’re still enjoying it, you should never stop.  But I bet your readers would love to read an occasional tale of discovery almost as much as your inner creative writer would love writing it.  Don’t let your inner online marketer stand in your way.

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