The HeART of Blogging

As chief storyteller for Open Heart Creative, I just assumed I’d host a blog.

After all, blogging has its roots in storytelling. And a good blog post is a lot like a good short story: it’s entertaining and thought provoking and fairly economical in getting to the point.

Right?

Well, maybe not.

During a recent conversation about marketing with a colleague who is launching her own business, we chatted about her website. I said of course she’ll write a blog because it makes perfect sense given her personality and what she does for a living.

“Ugh!” she said so emphatically she nearly spilled her cup of tea. “Writing blog posts at my old job was the thing I hated most about marketing!” I asked why, and she mentioned things like impossibly long word counts, repetitious content, and the painstaking attention to keywords. “I know it’s important for SEO, but it’s so boring and such hard work,” she concluded.

“Boring” and “hard work” are two things that do not come to mind when I think about blogging.

The personal blog I started in 2009 was one long celebration of things that amazed, surprised and delighted me. I’ve followed many a blog – of the personal and business variety – that are interesting and informative and often inspiring. So how could something so enjoyable lose its raison d’être? Has the “business” of blogging been reduced to just another dreaded task on the To Do list?

I’m not naïve. I’m a card-carrying marketing professional and it’s my job to understand what a successful blog can do for business development. But I’m also a writer, and a voracious reader. I can’t help but feel disillusioned each time the corporate world commandeers a social media platform to help sell more toilet paper.

Blogs were not created to sell toilet paper. As I recall, back in the late 90s and early 2000s, they became popular as vehicles for sharing information. Trolling Google in search of confirmation, I found multiple definitions of the word “blog” that all boiled down to this:

A blog is basically an online journal.

In its Introduction to Blogging, WordPress, the self-described “largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world,” notes, “A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other websites.” (Nowhere is there any mention of improving SEO.)

I don’t know about you, but for me the words “journal” and “diary” conjure images of swirling ideas and deep reflection. They are vessels where the seeds of invention, imagination and inspiration are planted – and nurtured. Spaces where hope springs eternal and dreams take flight.

So at its heART, then, a blog is a tech tool that enables us to share our thoughts and opinions – maybe even our hopes and dreams – with others who might find them meaningful, useful, or inspiring. If this results in more toilet paper sales, so be it. But that’s not the raison d’être.

Of course you’ll be smart about growing your blog. You’ll set goals and be clear about your core business strategy. And like it or not, you’ll keep a list of your top 10 or 12 keywords handy to satisfy those pesky but essential search engines.

But if your content isn’t compelling, if what you’re sharing doesn’t resonate with readers or offer them anything of value, if you don’t love what you’re writing about – then they’re not going to care about you, your website, or your business.

At the end of its list of blogging tips for newbies, WordPress offers these words of advice: “Have fun blogging and remember, there are no rules to what you post on your blog!”

Let this to be the raison d’être for my blog.