Ever since the advent of Web 2.0 in the early 2000s, I have been a blogger. Granted, I didn’t know that is what I was doing, or that such a label would be apt for what my interest was back then, but I always knew that I had some kind of a special appreciation for writing online. Blogging appeased this desire, in a way, by providing a regimented approach to content generation on a website. No matter where you go, Blogging offers a dated, journalistic format that hearkens to the needs of personal diaries, newsletters, and yes, magazines. Its approach to content generation is content-centric, with a page structure that allows for quick and efficient updating without having to know much—or any—real code.
As one might suspect, these pages that get added to blogs—as well as common variety websites—have SEO-related implications that govern their utility to modern webpages. The reality is that blogs, as a result, have become essential components in digital marketing verticals for businesses of all shapes and sizes, and for the reason that most companies would like to find ways of utilizing SEO techniques to produce more online conversions.
Therefore, to anyone in the know, blogging is more than just “some shit you add onto a digital marketing strategy.” It can be valuable, or even essential to modern marketing—so the reasons for why businesses want to incorporate blogs can be fairly clear. But like all new content platforms, however, one of the only ways for businesses to leverage blogging’s value is by committing to the practice of blogging well before any of its channel-related benefits are even remotely close to reaching maturation.
Put another way: if marketing departments want to leverage blogging as part of a holistic content strategy, then the managers of these departments need to know that a part of achieving this goal involves creating content when one’s target audience quite overtly doesn’t give a fuck about it. Or, put yet another way, businesses need to understand that part of having a successful blog involves being comfortable with time spent blogging while nobody is looking.
In my experience, most marketing managers, operations managers, and various flavors of mid-level employee absolutely hate hearing shit like what I just said. Nonetheless, however, it is a truth that even I have not been immune to while working on the first quarter of planned content for this blog. But to a department head that is well-conditioned by measuring time and money spent relative to the immediacy of their commensurate results, answers like the one I provided simply do not suffice. For such reasons, many companies are entirely fine with treating their blog as an afterthought—or outright not having one—primarily due to a preference for cultivating results through earned and paid promotional channels. Sure, while channels such as magazines and advertisements have battle-tested performance records that date back almost 100 years, the general problems of earned and paid promotional channels are pretty clear: on one end, you have to be worthy of discussion, while on the other, you have to be rich enough to survive. Ultimately, neither channel gives businesses the opportunity to have direct and unmitigated control over their own company narratives.
Blogs and other content-centric forms of promotion are owned channels, which lend the ability to provide low-cost unpaid promotions that generate value, positively alter brand image, and control company narratives in depth. These things have intrinsic value to marketers of all strokes, but to leverage them, companies—as well as individuals—have to be comfortable with what it takes to build them.
I think that when most consider the concept of blogging when nobody is watching, they are met with a disconcerting degree of discouragement—at least, when also taking into consideration that the direct benefits of blindly writing are first experienced by one’s very skills in writing itself. That isn’t particularly appealing. For most people—even most marketers—writing is a functional activity. It is something that people know they have to learn, and something that most people become convinced they are good at, and so when the rubber meets the road, most people cannot conceptualize the idea that they are a bad writer, or that their writing skills need to be continuously fed assignments for them to truly develop in meaningful ways. Furthermore, people understand that writing is something that can be preferences based—with different readers having different standards for syntax, structure, pacing, tone, and character voice. Thus, because of the generally open-ended nature of what can even suffice as good writing, bad writers can easily hide under the guise of “personal preference”—but in reality, nobody prefers the shit that bad writers are churning out anyways.
Fundamentally, good writers need platforms where their writing can exist—and that is where blogs can come into play. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I believe this is where the value of blogging should be identified. I personally do not think it is enough for most people to simply know that with each infinitesimal post, they are becoming a progressively more sophisticated writer. I do, however, believe that many individuals and businesses could find value in blogging if it meant that such platforms were tools for communicating one’s perspectives and expertise on a host of specialized topics. While others may chime in that the value of blogging when nobody is looking is the gradually-increasing supply of work results—and I am inclined to agree—I have found in my personal experience that one of the biggest reasons for why I get up and continue to blog is because I want to be a thought leader on the topic of content creation. While yes, this can for some translate into having a large and widely accessed platform, in its most basic form it is merely the process of chronicling your best ideas, perspectives, and analyses related to the field that you operate in. Conventionally, the problem that I have with identifying work examples as a benefit of blogging, is that it is specific to the process of writing. Furthermore, it does not necessarily frame one’s skills within the context of topical focuses that a client may need a prospective writer to be well versed in understanding. But even if it is specific to a desired focus, it merely reveals the idea that I can do the work, instead of revealing the ways in which I am willing to think about the work—and come to tried and true decisions. In reality, while prospective clients—even in the last quarter—have asked me for examples of my work, the best ones have always wanted examples of how I think about the work, and their perspective on what I am saying usually is what makes them comfortable with delegating a wide host of responsibilities to me. In many ways, it is proof that I am worth the amount that I quote—and if you can believe it, I can communicate this value regardless of whether or not my portfolio is even up to date.
But if I had to identify what I believed was the tried-and-true benefit of blogging on a daily—or even regular—basis, it is this: that the continued pursuit and relaying of factual information has the potential to make all who do it better human beings. The world is always changing, developing, and revealing the exciting and new things that are happening inside of it. This can range from everything such as new music and fashion releases, to sports information, politics, activism, and other parts of the human experience. If I had to identify the way in which I have benefitted from blogging as an activity, it is that blogging allows for me to continuously educate myself on the ways of the world as they are happening. As a result, blogging is a tool that allows for me to regularly pursue exposure to new people, places, things, and ways of living. It has made me more knowledgeable, and worldly, yes, but it has also made me more understanding, open-minded and empathetic. In my mind’s eye, the reason for why this can be true for all people are relatively clear: To find new topics, one must pursue new topics. To pursue new topics, one must research new topics. To write about new topics, one must understand new topics—which can only be achieved by taking the time to do real research.
In the end, the altered perspective of the writer that comes about as a result, is what I consider to be the true benefit of blogging when nobody is looking. The fundamental truth is that regardless of whether or not this blog’s audience even reaches the scale of being leverageable, the greatest benefits of blogging that I have experienced are almost always humanistic. Sure, some websites I’ve made have attracted monthly visitors in the tens of thousands—but many haven’t. In truth, if there were ever a reason for why I stopped writing for these projects, it is because they likely never did much to promote new ways of thinking, living, or even bothered to challenge me in new ways.
Would it be nice to have a popular marketing blog? Absolutely, just as much as it would be nice to have a living and breathing example of my content creation and marketing efforts. Ultimately however, as the writer, the value of doing the work that is writing has to be more than the mere potentiality of an audience’s future existence. If that is all the allure that blogging has to offer, then it will never be seen as something efficacious, exciting, and educational, and it will always be seen as cumbersome, onerous, and gutting. That is why I think that blogging, at its highest level, is an opportunity to actively become a better, smarter, and more educated person. It is an opportunity—a perfect excuse—to chase new information, grasp it, and relay it, only to walk away in the end with a better understanding of the topic at hand. With us nearing the end of our first content season, I have come to the conclusion that even more than the prospect of hard and fast readers, the prevailing desire to continue blogging is rooted in a desire to be a better human being, and yes, I think other people should identify this desire as well. Alternatively, they also could not. That would be an easy explanation for why blogging to some is a relaxing activity, while blogging for others is much like chasing a day that will never come. Whichever side of the aisle you fall on, however, I recommend that you consider finding a perspective that frames blogging as beneficial for you.
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