Consultant Blogs – Seven (Count ’em — 7!) Habits of Highly Effective Consultant Bloggers
Darren Rowse at Problogger.net has launched a group writing project, inviting bloggers to announce the “Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers”.
Although my ConsultantJournal.com blog is new, I’ve actually been blogging for a couple of years now, albeit on another site. As a result, I have my own thoughts of the Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers. But, because my background is in consultant blogs, I’ve customized my list for consultants who blog.
- Author, know thyself – and thy audience. Know who you are, what you’ve got to say and to whom you’re saying it. Writing a blog is much akin to marketing your company and product.
- Write from the heart. If you’re going to bother with writing a blog, you’ve got to be speaking your mind and connecting with your subject. If your readers wanted a droning academic, they’d hit the library’s dusty stacks.
- Tell the truth. Your blog is like a long trail of bread crumbs. If somebody bothers to follow even a few of those crumbs, they’re going to notice inconsistencies. If you build a fake persona and (as noted above) fail to write from the heart, it will become obvious. It’s much easier to remember the truth than a lie – and you won’t be stuck covering up lies with new lies.
- Post early, post often. Nothing frustrates a regular reader more than to visit your blog and see silence for weeks on end. If you’re a consultant who’s up on your field, you should always have something to say. If you really can’t find something to say, you should at Sure, things happen – you have a car accident, you get the flu, you give birth to a baby, you go on vacation. And people can understand random one-time occurrences like that. But they aren’t likely to forgive it twice. If you can’t put content up on a regular basis, ask yourself if you should trade blogging for a regular website. Heck, even the Never Updated Blog updates regularly!
- Don’t post about your cat on a business site. If you run a cat business blog, go for it. But, otherwise, keep the cat pictures and stories on your personal blog. It’s not that I have anything against cats – it’s just that you want your posts to resonate with your audience.
- Link. People like the web because it’s non-linear. I still remember the joy I felt when I visited my first web page in 1994. It was a hypertext version of Hamlet. I was thrilled to be able to click to other parts of the play – and to related articles, notes and dictionaries. Keep that feeling alive. Link.
- Be bold. If you’re going to be an expert consultant, you need to stand on your own. That means sometimes breaking from the pack and saying things that may be unpopular, controversial or unconventional. To make it as a consultant, you have to be willing to stand on your own two feet. So prove it by taking the same approach with your blog.
7 Habits of Highly Effective Consultant Bloggers.
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To help find work as an expert consultant, it’s generally a good idea to be associated with an expert referral service. It will give newer consultants credibility with an established name.
Choose one relationship you have with another person that’s not all you would like it to be. It could be a good friend with whom there’s one thing that annoys you but you’ve suppressed it, or something you like that you’d like more of. It could be a work associate with whom you’re not on the terms you’d like to be. Again, don’t start by tackling the most difficult relationship you have. If you finish changing one relationship, you are free to do another, and another…, so don’t worry that it’s too small.