By Nikki Viljoen – Viljoen Consulting (Pty) Ltd
As promised here is the final article on the “Content” of blogging. I will certainly write some more articles on blogging at some stage, but this is it for now.
I think it is really important to understand that as bloggers, we are not just about blogging or about our blogs. We are (usually) business owners who are passionate about our businesses and what it is that we do and the value that our readers gain from reading our blogs comes from our experience – not only the experience gained from our businesses, but the experiences that we have gained from life. It’s about all that knowledge that we share about our lives, where we have been and what it is that we have lived through. It’s about the little things that have touched our lives and grabbed our interest and the big battles that we have fought and won (or lost) and why and how we won (or lost) them and how to do it better/faster/easier next time around.
So does this mean that we have to travel and trawl the four corners of the earth (strange that we say that don’t you think, when the world is actually round ) to find new material and new experiences to share – of course not! Fact is, we mostly have so much information that we already know and that we continue to harvest on a daily basis, that doing this is not necessary.
What we do have to do though is ‘keep it fresh’. If you want to keep your current readers or grow your followers, you have to keep it interesting, you have to introduce new material all the time. You have to engage with people all the time.
In order to do this, for me, I have to read, read and then read some more. Many of my guests laugh at me when they visit me at home – I usually have between 5 and 8 books next to my bed – all being read at the same time and all at different parts of their particular stories. I have magazines and books in both my toilets and also a book in the car (and no I don’t confuse the stories). I love to read and usually live vicariously, through the characters in the books – it makes for an interesting life and I have no doubt that this has stood me in good stead as I continue to write my stories and articles for posting on my blog.
I have discovered that the more I write, the more I want to write and the more topics open up to me, stories and experiences just begging to be written and shared with people who are like minded and who enjoy engaging in the story being told and who learn the lessons (or not) or who just read for the enjoyment of reading.
I have a friend who always says “Everyone has a story to be told” and for me the magic is in the telling of that story, in the learning and in the sharing.
Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za
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