Sundae Blogging

In my personal opinion blogging is all about knowing your audience. If you know your readers, their likes and interests, and how they think, then everything else is just the icing on the cake.

Writing a compelling blog is easy… if you keep in mind who you’re talking to. Your tone, focus, topics, length, goals, schedule, headlines, design… it all hinges on what your audience likes and finds interesting. The connection you form with your readers is what will make or break your blog.

Tone – I am a firm believer in the phrase write the way you speak. There’s a certain communications teacher out there somewhere who I know would cringe at that thought, but its what I think works. Especially for writing blogs. Again, its about relating to your audience. Blogging should be like having a conversation with your readers. You’re talking to them, not at them.

Extras – I love links! When I write a blog, all I want to do is add links to everything. Videos, articles, my friends’ blogs, Facebook, Twitter, my past posts, anything I can find some inkling of relevance in. Not only do links increase interest and credibility in your blog, but they can also add some humor to something that could be construed as a somewhat dry topic. And since I know my audience is a bunch of stressed out, grumpy students, I figured they could use a laugh.

So in conclusion, writing a compelling blog is a lot like creating the perfect ice cream sundae. The bowl is your audience, holding all that delicious goodness in place. Ice cream = blog; boring, mundane, very vanilla. All that extra stuff you put on top (chocolate, chocolate, CHOCOLATE) that’s your tone. It adds personality and makes this ice cream worth eating. And obviously the extras are just the cherry on top.

That metaphor was a bit of a stretch I know. But I bet you all want ice cream now.