Do you spend countless hours on your blog, trying to get this whole “inbound marketing” thing to work, only to wake up the next day with 0 shares, 0 tweets, and 0 comments? Are your blog posts met with resounding silence every time you post?
Do you look at other business blogs and wonder how they manage to present their information in such an interesting, engaging, and exciting way?
If like millions of other business owners and bloggers, you struggle with these areas, the answer is simple:
Build a business blog with personality.
How will this help your blog, you ask? Here’s how:
Personality allows you to humanize your business
Three key factors for getting people to buy from you are empathy, trust, and reputability, which are all a part of humanizing your business and brand. By humanizing your business, you can make a sincere connection and build relationships with your customers. This will in turn allow you to tap into emotional triggers that will not only encourage sales, but also increase the likelihood that your customers become loyal advocates for your business.
By avoiding the same boring, dry flat tone and sprinkling in emotion and personality, you suddenly turn a boring blog into a living, breathing, personality, allowing your customers to feel an emotional connection and build a relationship with you. Your customers will now feel more comfortable in committing the desired action – whether it be clicking on a link, downloading your eBook, or trusting your suggestions on affiliate items.
Personality makes you stand out
Developing a blog with personality is the easiest way to separate yourself from the masses.
Read that again, and think about it. With over 156 million public blogs online, it’s often literally impossible to find a niche that is in demand that nobody else is occupying. As a result, this means that there’s competition, and this also means that this competition is from people who are offering exactly the same services as you, and often at a cheaper rate too! So how do you separate yourself?
By offering a unique personality.
Personality isn’t something that can be copied easily – and thankfully many of the cookie-cutter web businesses and writers lack the ability to develop a compelling blog personality. Your blog personality is a way to separate yourself from the crowd, to stand out boldly in a sea of millions, and to give your readers a reason to choose you over everyone else.
Ok, so I’ve made a compelling case for why you would want a business blog with personality (in case you weren’t following, it gets readers to commit action and separates your blog from all the others).
So how the heck do you do it? How do you create a blog with a unique personality that will increase your number of loyal customers?
Here are seven simple keys for creating a winning business blog personality:
#1. Write in a conversational manner
The real secret to putting personality into every single thing you write is by writing in the same way that you speak. Too many writers make the mistake of writing in a formal, almost detached manner. While that may be just fine if you’re writing for a technical audience or a college lecturer, it’s not ok for your typical blog audience. Your blog audience doesn’t want to hear a formal tone – they want you to speak to them. Every blog post should be a conversation between you and your audience, and by writing how you speak, it will seem far more authentic.
#2. Make it descriptive
Quick question: Which is better:
- an 800 pound gorilla in the room, or
- an 800 pound gorilla, with dark black haired streaked with silver on it’s back, teeth bared, eyes full of rage?
I thought so.
Being descriptive is the second step of putting personality into every blog post. You don’t want your audience to read about what you’re saying – you want them to experience. You want them to use their five senses to taste, touch, smell, hear, and feel what you’re talking about. You want them to experience the same emotions, the ecstacy and crippling sadness, that you yourself are feeling. By being descriptive, you turn a dull, hazy explanation into one filled with clarity and honesty.
#3. Be a little controversial
Don’t be afraid to air controversial views or opinions, as long as they are based on fact. Don’t be afraid to use carefully placed language, provided that you are not faking it for the sake of being “edgy”. You may lose a handful of readers for your “real talk but guess what?”
The rest of your audience will love you more for it.
In fact, it may be better to have polarizing content than for it to be bland or boring. Some of my favorite (and the most popular) blog posts have expletives in them – for example Corbett Barr’s provocatively titled “Write Epic Sh*t” post gained huge attention for him and his brand.
Of course, inherent in being controversial is your knowledge of your reader and who you are as a person. Only use this type of language if it’s consistent with your personality, and with your voice. Never use it as a “shock” tactic – people will quickly see your blog as inauthentic and leave.
#4. Ask questions
Following on from step one, we’ve already established that a great business blog doesn’t just give information – but it has a conversation with their readers.
And how can you have a conversation unless you ask them questions?
Asking questions while writing gives your readers a chance to respond – which is a way to draw them into your personality, and make them feel like you’re’ having a two way conversation with them.
#5. Tell them about you
Another great way to build the personality of your business blog is to let your readers know about you, the business owner. We’ve already established how powerful building a personal connection can be to developing a successful brand – and this can be strengthened by adding in important personal details into your blog.
There are lots of successful bloggers who do this – for example Pat Flynn telling us about his kids, etc
The best way to do this is to turn your personal details into a narrative that actually furthers the point you’re making in your blog post – for example Derek Halpern told us about his experience with his $100 haircut, revealing an intimate detail and teaching the readers a valuable lesson.
PS – less is more. Your business blog should not be a personal diary, so please keep those details on what
#6. Think visual
The easiest and quickest way to grab and keep a readers attention is to remember to tailor your content visually. In addition, it’s also extremely helpful to develop a blog with personality. The colors that you use have a big effect on how people will perceive your blog. In addition, there’s also the pictures/fonts/any other graphics that appear in your header and any other areas on your website.
Then there’s your blog post itself – using thought provoking or just plain interesting pictures will help to give your blog a sense of personality. Even something as simple as using italics, bold, or large font/caps will make a massive difference in displaying that your blog has its own personality.
#7. Don’t overdo!
Know when enough is too much. Ensure that your personality filled posts are filled with concrete, usable information, a lesson, etc. Depending on the type of post you should know when to amp it up and when to dial it back.
Building a blog with a personality doesn’t have to be rocket science (unless you’re writing about rocket science…in which case it probably should be rocket science). Do you have your own tips about writing a business blog with a sparkling personality? Do you face a challenge with injecting your own unique voice in your business blog? Let me know in the comments section and I’ll be happy to respond.
Images: ”Masked/ Shutterstock.com“
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