When you talk to people in your life about blogging, not everyone’s going to get it. But that’s okay. However, because emotional support matters, you need to convince the people you spend the most time with. 

What’s the value of talking to everyone in your life about blogging?

Blogging is an activity that requires discipline. Just to clarify, you sometimes won’t feel like blogging, which is okay from time to time. But this isn’t okay if it’s a regular occurrence. 

Inevitably, the definition of “key people in your life” will vary for everyone. So, I’m just going to put this in fairly basic terms.

Think professional life, think personal life. Who has the greatest influence on the decisions you make in any given day? Blogging is still a relatively new concept, in the same way being an Instagram influencer is a fairly contemporary idea. So, people are still figuring it out. 

For those of you who are struggling with explaining blogging to the VIPs in your life, I’m here to help.

1. Family without the internet. Conversations in your life about blogging that can make an impact

Being misunderstood by your family sucks. And I know that because I’ve been there. So, let me tell you a story about explaining blogging to my 90-year-old grandmother.

A conversation that happened in my life about blogging. And how it challenged my worldview:

Explaining my work to grandma is challenging. Well…it used to be. All she knew is that I was travelling more, because of the flexibility it offered to work anywhere.

Then, I found some good advice in Ali Luke’s Daily Blog Tips article:

Track important metrics, such as cashflow. Once your blog starts making money, track how much you’re getting month after month. You can show this to family and friends to explain how your blog is growing. When the people around you see that blogging is more than a passing whim, they’ll be much more likely to take it seriously.

I was doing that already. But I had never used the metrics I already had to explain what I do. So, at the next family dinner, I showed grandma my blog. Then, I showed her the graphic on my home page, which shows some of the sites I’ve been published on, along with the clients I’ve worked with.

As I showed her that graphic, I explained that my blog was the tool that got me many of those clients in the first place. When she called me the superstar of the family, I considered this a sign that it worked as best as it could.

2) Yourself: just as important of a person to convince in your life about blogging

Although this likely seems like a surprising addition to the list, it’s also accurate. Because I speak to people all the time who are held back by their fear of failure when it comes to launching a blog.

But what’s the worst that could happen?

Perhaps no one will read your blog, or you’ll run out of original ideas. The good news though, all those mistakes are fixable and more common than you think.

The only actual way to fix that is to invest time, and maybe even money into people and resources that will help you solve these problems. Here a few suggestions:

• Besides this blog, both the Express Writers blog and the Content Marketing Insitute are valuable resources for bloggers of all niches.
• If you hire a freelance writer or blogger, someone who is also comfortable with SEO, content management/ editorial calendar management, and social media & email marketing is your greatest asset. I’m also an option FYI.
• My blogging starter kit can address any of your questions throughout the process.

3. Your clients, boss, or anyone else who has control over your professional life

Most of the time, when clients hesitate it’s because of a bad experience. Perhaps they hired a freelancer who wasn’t a good fit, and they don’t want history to repeat itself.

Or…maybe it was the mistakes they made with blogging, which led to no readers or social shares and a really bad first impression.

So, my solution for that is the following:

Take a second to ask them why they’re not open to the idea of blogging. If it’s because of a bad experience with a freelancer, find out what happened and offer a solution to the mistakes that freelancer made.

This is also a great solution if they set up a blog, publish some posts, and it’s producing zero results. More likely than not, they’re probably either using the wrong promotion tactics or writing the wrong content.

According to Hubspot, writing posts with durable relevance on a consistent basis is key. So, if blogging isn’t working take a second to assess what you’re putting out there, and whether or not it can provide value for your audience over the long-term.

If not, focus your future content creation on subjects that will be helpful for your readers a day, a month, and ten years after it’s released. This will help make the hours you spent on promoting and developing content totally worth it.

Above all else…

Any skeptisim you may face about blogging is about long-term results. So, the best thing you can do is prove that you’re capable of using blogging as a tool to make your goals more than just something that will happen “one day”.

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Please add a comment below if you'd like to discuss this topic. – Rosie