Pushing Through To The Next Level

One of the most important things that happened recently, writing-wise, was that I reached a milestone in that I hit, by my count, my 1000th long format post.

I have never really done this for money, nor have a ever sought to. I do this because that’s what writers do, we write. It’s how we keep our lives flowing, how we keep our heads relatively uncluttered and, for some of us, how we keep from falling prey to addictions or maladies of one kind or another.

I have also never sought to be a journalist or reporter to make my blog writing a revenue stream because there is already enough thinking and writing that I can do for people who are willing to pay me.

Also, from talking to some of the journalists and columnists I know, you have to be prepared to write about whatever the editor or publisher you are working for wants to write about. And that never really appealed to me.

Granted, in the online world, it’s a little different. A lot of sites are powered by submissions from writers who mainly write about things they know and are confident will make for interesting reading. And that really opens things up a bit.

But, and there is always a but, the main constraint is that you are well-advised to write in the ‘style’ of the publication you are looking to be published in. Which may or may not be easier said than done.

My Next Milestone

I already have a pretty decent sized social media audience. So the next milestone is really to become a contributor to online media outside the social media realm.

There are two objectives for this activity.

One is to build backlinks to my Bullet Proof Consulting site and the levels of perceived expertise that Char and I offer. So being connected to a great many more readers of marketing oriented material is one good way to do that.

Two is basically to discover if I can actually pull this off.

Being a self-professed Luddite, I have very little faith in anything to do with digital marketing, most of which I consider to be a shotgun approach at best offering a paltry 1% ROI. (For the business I am in).

So for me, PR, which is really what these articles would amount to, is A) writing an area I am familiar with and B) Writing in a market that offers enough built-in diversity to accommodate somebody like me, with only minor modifications on my side.

What I Have To Change

Having been a copywriter for most of my adult life, I have learned to boil things down to their essence, mainly because copywriting is really all about essential messaging.

Boiling this challenge down to its essence for me is as follows:

The fundamental difference between writing promotional blogs to support your own business, and business articles for large online publications is that the former is a bit subjective and selly and the latter is more objective and informative without being selly.

Now like anything you can boil down to a relatively short paragraph, it looks easy. But it’s not. It goes against all the instincts you have developed in advertising and really your basic philosophy of communication.

But, believe it or not, doing what I have to do to find out if I can actually pull this off and break into this sector is the fun part. Or should I say, more confidently, adding this style of writing to my repertoire is going to be the fun part.

Time will tell, but I am definitely on this road now. And I will end up somewhere. Because you always do.

The big advantage that I have is a ton of source material that I can draw on from my hundreds of marketing-oriented posts, and just about everything else I have written in the business-to-business vein.

So here we go again…jim out

He is also a partner at Bullet Proof, a consultancy specializing in Brand Engineering: Helping companies achieve more effective branding, stronger reputation management, greater productivity, higher efficiencies, and ultimately, increased profits. www.bulletproofconsulting.ca

You can follow Jim...

On beBee: https://www.bebee.com/bee/jim-murray

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-murray-b8a3a4/

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jimbobmur

On Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/y97gxro4