Blogging Is Not Dead
Five blogging personality types you can use on Medium.
The most successful writers and entrepreneurs have a blog or website. I use these words interchangeably throughout this post because they are the same thing for our purposes.
Whether you write for Medium, sell a service, a book, or a product, your blog is your calling card.
Despite what some people say, blogging is not dead.
You can still monetize a blog in various ways — ads, affiliate marketing, selling a product or service, or all of the above. Think of it as a virtual business card, whether you’re a writer or you sell succulents online.
Just because blogging is not dead doesn’t mean it isn’t a lot of work.
It is.
You have to be tech-savvy or pay someone to do the techie stuff while you provide the content. However, owning a blog is necessary to promote your brand.
It is your platform.
Why blog?
Amateurs wait to be discovered. Professionals build a personality on their platform.
Even making the wrong decision when starting a blog is better than standing still. You can always course-correct along the way.
Your blog represents your brand, you, online to your readers and customers.
You have to have a platform, a way to connect with your tribe, and gain an audience. What many successful writers and bloggers call true fans. You want to convert your readers into true fans. A true fan buys, reads, pays attention to what you have to offer. They follow you. With enough true fans, you can turn any business, product, service into a multimillion-dollar business, but you need a website.
Once you have a website representing you (your brand), the single most powerful tool to connect with your audience is an email list. Start collecting emails yesterday. It is an essential marketing tool to offer what you have to sell to your tribe, even if all you have to offer is a link to your latest Medium story.
Your goal is to capture your reader’s email so you can stay in touch with them and convert them into customers eventually. You accomplish this through an email list. It looks more professional when your list goes to a professional blog where your true fans can check out what you are up to. Anytime.
What is your goal? Start with the message.
Step one in blogging is deciding what you goal is and then start with the message. What is it you want to accomplish? Do you want to take your audience from Medium to your blog so that you can keep in touch with them through a weekly newsletter and possibly sell them some product or course down the road?
A website would allow you to have a landing place for your Medium followers to get a better idea of who you are and what your business represents.
You’d be able to market to them directly through email when you have a course set up or a book to sell.
Focus your message — narrow your theme.
Don’t write about everything on your blog. This is where it is best to niche down. Remember, it is your business card showcasing your brand.
Write clear and simple content and let go of looking perfect. Perfect is the enemy of the good. Clarity trumps perfectionism. People prefer authenticity. You have authenticity when your audience sees a clear vision represented on your blog.
Perfectionism is often an excuse to not start doing the one thing you are scared to do, the one thing that if you did it, you could improve and change your life.
What do you want to say?
Find what resonates by saying something. Use trial and error to find what your audience responds to, you will find what you have to offer as long as you don’t quit.
As long as you’re authentic, you will resonate with some people.
Those are your people.
According to Jeff Goins, writer and entrepreneur, 99% of successful bloggers are in one of the following categories. To narrow your focus, choose one that best describes you.
Five Blogging Types:
1. The Journalist
The Journalist loves to ask questions so they can find the answers themselves and share them with their audience. Even when they fail, they share that too. They learn out loud.
You can start a blog even if you are not an expert in something, you seek out the information, figure it out, and explain and share what you’ve learned to your readers.
Darren Rowse of Problogger.com is a great example of this.
#2. The Prophet
The Prophet is the truth-teller.
The Prophet builds his/her platform by telling the truth about everything and is usually dissatisfied with the status quo — a rabble-rouser.
The Prophet doesn’t mind saying things other people don’t agree with or like.
Seth Godin is one blogger that comes to mind. He has been blogging for two decades.
#3. The Artist
The Artist has an eye for beauty and connects to their audience through the aesthetic in a compelling way.
Ann Voskamp’s blog, annvoskamp.com, accomplishes this; it focuses on gratitude and beauty. She writes in beautiful prose and shares profound lessons through the vehicle of poetry.
#4. The Professor
The Professor has a thirst for knowledge building a platform based on an obsession for facts and data.
For example, Michael Hyatt.com takes complex questions and problems and breaks them down into simple solutions and steps.
The Professor blogger does a lot of research for her platform; it is informative and interesting. They have a love of education and want to share their knowledge with others.
#5. The Star
She is the brand. She is the star of her platform.
The brand is her charisma and likable personality. The Star’s vehicle for communicating her message is her story. The Star wants to help people by sharing her life and tribulations.
Anne Lamott, an author of fiction and non-fiction, does this well on her blog on writing ExtendedSession.com.
Lamott shares her life, writing courses, and posts weekly thoughts on what’s happening in the world in funny self-effacing posts.
Stars need to make themselves relatable, their quality is empathy.
Medium
All of these blogging personalities work well when writing on Medium, use them all.
You don’t have to niche down when writing on Medium. You can use any blogging personality, you don’t have to pigeon hole yourself to one type.
However, for your platform, pick one personality type, and stick to it.
Successful bloggers give their audience what they came for; establishing a personality early on will help you find an audience faster while honing your message.
There are many great benefits to writing for Medium — the best thing is it acts as your website without any of the SEO hassles and hacks you have to perform for blogging.
The ability to find an audience quickly is possible on Medium, whereas it takes a lot more time to find an audience blogging, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.
The two can work hand in hand.
Your blog will help you gain traffic on Medium (simply add a category called Medium at the top of your blog and add links to your posts to the group). In your Medium bio, add the link to your blog. One directs your readers to the other. With a simple call to action at the bottom of your Medium posts that reads, “If you’d like to stay in touch, click here,” you can capture your readers’ email addresses to keep in touch with them via email.
Send subscribers a weekly newsletter with updates and a link to your blog along with a link to your latest Medium story to divert them to your website and your story, respectively.
You will be perceived as a more professional writer and business owner.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering type-A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
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