I read a blog post today by a blogger that I have a lot of respect for.
The headline of the post was 20 Warning Signs That Your Content Sucks.
Number 2 struck a nerve:
2. Your posts read like journal entries
Not too long ago, most people used their blog as a sort of online journal, where people took a few minutes every day to write down their thoughts. But blogs have evolved beyond that. Now they’re more like online magazines, with highly polished content.
If your posts look more like “Dear Diary” than a magazine you would see at the newsstand, you’ve probably got a problem.
The problem isn’t that your posts read like “Dear Diary” entries. The problem is your posts read like shitty magazine articles.
I’ll admit, I’m probably a bit biased to the old ways having lived and breathed the Internet for a majority of my life. But the way I see it, I can read a thousand crappy blog posts on how to write better content for my blog. But I can count on one hand the number of blogs posting something truly impactful—and those blogs are more “Dear Diary” than People Magazine.
It’s someone writing about what they know best, which is their life and what goes on in it. Your life experiences are about the only thing you can really know for sure. And it’s not just about the facts. It’s about your opinion, your point of view. It’s your story.
My story is what I try to write about, and what I always encourage others to write about. We’re not journalists. We’re bloggers with half-ass opinions on everything from our jobs to what we ate for dinner yesterday.
The only thing we have in this world is our stories. And nobody will ever be able to tell your own story the way you tell it.
So get on with it. Write your shitty “Dear Diary” posts.