Hi guys, welcome to another episode of the series Laws of Digital Writing.
Please do well to read the introductory part of this series on my blog.
In this post, we’ll be looking at the first law of digital/online writing.
…Law #1: Don’t Start a Blog.
You might say, “Oh, why not a blog? Is blogging not a part of online writing, and are businesses not built through blogging?”
Yes, that’s correct.
Blogging is a part of online writing, and businesses are built through blogging—but NO, blogging is not the first place to begin.
Your rationale may go something like this:
“I own my own blog. It’s mine.”
“I can run it the way I like.”
“I can write what I want to write.”
Notice how everything is centered on “I.” That’s the big mistake many newbies make. They think only about themselves and not about their readers.
As a result, they go through the same painful process others before them went through. They start a blog, spend hours—or even a lot of money—designing it, only to publish their first one or two posts and have their words fall on deaf ears. Why? Because nobody knows their blog exists.
And if they really want their blog to reach readers, they’ll need to do a lot of SEO. This leads them to spend even more time and additional money building strong SEO that will rank on search engines.
To get viewers through social media, they’ll also have to post their links on their platforms. What many don’t know is that social media platforms don’t like excessive link posting. No platform enjoys people leaving their site for another one.
At that point, they become stuck, frustrated, and eventually give up on their dream of building a business around online writing.
But the best way to start online writing is through microblogging—or better put, social blogging.
I am social blogging right now, and you are reading my social blog.
So, what is social blogging? It is writing in places where readers already exist. That way, you don’t have to go looking for readers—the platform already has them there to listen to what you have to say.
Your Twitter profile, Medium page, and Quora answers are technically your social blogs. So is PeakD/Hive.blog. What you’re doing is not dragging readers from one site to another; instead, you’re keeping them where they already are and showing them what you have to say.
It’s that simple.
Social blogging is becoming the future of online writing.
I know you’re already thinking, “But how on earth am I going to make money through social blogging?”
Relax. Like I said, we’re on a journey—this is just the first step.
This leads us to Rule #2, which I’ll be discussing extensively in my next post.
Please, if you haven’t already, kindly follow me on this platform, as I’ll be dropping subsequent episodes of this series. 🙏