There are millions of blogs on the internet. To be exact, there are 152 million at this moment. It may seem easy to get lost amongst them, but the truth is, it is not that difficult to set yourself apart from the others. Your blog is a content marketing channel that is very powerful. A recent study indicated that small businesses that blog see a 126% increase in sales. Marketers who have made blogging a priority are thirteen times more likely to generate a return on investment. You don’t have to be a small business to benefit from blogging. One in three Fortune 500 companies have active blogs. There are many other benefits to blogging as well. One of the more obvious ones is improved SEO as fresh content comes up first on a search, driving more content to your site. The process of blogging is also beneficial to your startup company as it helps your company define its position and voice in the marketplace, crafting an identity that can appeal to both investors and customers.
Blogging will also help you build your network and create a community. It takes some time and patience, but as traffic and a network builds, a regular readership emerges. A community is hard to quantify or evaluate with analytics. It’s the sense of inclusion and involvement, which comes through the topics you blog about and the discussions created in the comments section. Blogging is also a way you can give back to your community, directing attention towards worthy causes and events that can support your startup. So, blogging takes work. But it also means that with the noise generated by 152 million other blogs, your blog can be part of an endless echo that’s bouncing around the internet. Your blog has to stand out.
The right keywords aren’t going to make your blog stand out. Neither do inbound links and authoritative writing. If you really want your blog to stand out above the noise of the internet, harness the power of storytelling. This is what we meant when voice and identity were mentioned earlier. It may seem like fluff on the surface, but it will have a big impact on your business. Storytelling may bring up images of a parent reading a bedtime story to your child, or hours of storytime during your elementary school days. Our childhood was filled with stories that taught how to interact with the world and be good people. However, storytelling is more than just for kids. The National Storytelling Network defines it as the interactive art of using actions and words to reveal images and elements of a story while stimulating a listener’s imagination. Stories are not only transmitted through writing. Video games, movies, television series, and your favorite brands have stories behind them. Plus, your startup blog doesn’t have to be text; you can share your stories through video, images, and audio.
Here’s how you can start using storytelling to set your startup blog apart from the rest.
Storytelling Elements
The most basic way is to use storytelling elements. You may remember some of these from your high school English class or college English courses. • Narration: You need to tell what happened. For a blog post, this could be in the form of a bio, interview, or case study. • Description: You need to appeal to the senses by describing tastes, sounds, and colors. • Explanation: Provide facts, definitions, and statistics to explain your positions. • Argumentation: Use persuasion to convince a reader to buy your service or product.
Personality
Create a persona by finding an identity and voice for your blog, and then base your posts on this voice. Voice is one of those vague and elusive things that everyone talks about, but few are able to define it. Here are four ways to find a voice for your blog that readers will relate to.
1. Get into the flow. Every day, you should do a three-minute writing warm-up. The goal is to be smooth and to produce as much text as you can in three minutes. Some of the best writing you can produce can come from these three minutes. By removing the pressure to focus on quality and quantity, you are free to flow. What comes out can be quirky, natural, and authentic. What comes out has a voice.
2. Write how you talk. Read your writing out loud and ask yourself if it sounds like you. If it doesn’t, challenge yourself to talk about the topic in your post for a moment and write down some of the phrases and words you use. When you put some of these snippets into your writing, you have a voice.
3. Forget conventions. Most people have been taught by a previous teacher to stifle your voice by writing in standard English. Most people don’t even know what that means. Writing is supposed to communicate a message, and writing in proper English is encouraged, but in most instances, these rules hinder your ability to create a realistic voice. The rules of your language have evolved over time, and if breaking a rule will increase your clarity, then you should break it.
4. Write about what you know. This is a big one. Bloggers fall into the trap of trying to find a topic that is popular or sounds smart, even if that topic isn’t really close to their heart. The result is that there is no voice. So try to find something you enjoy.
Identify the main characters
Once you’ve created a persona, ask who the protagonist is. It should be you! And the antagonist is the problem your business or blog will solve. Like every good story, this tension gives blog content a wow factor.
Be consistent and authentic
Despite this chapter being about storytelling and crafting stories, you can’t overstate how important it is to be yourself. Be authentic all the time, not just when you feel like being authentic. A great story is a true story because readers are able to spot inconsistencies. Truth is defined as being believable, not factual. You want people to believe what you promise them.
Insert yourself
Great brand stories aren’t objective. The most successful ones are very subjective. You’re not a journalist, so there’s no need to be objective. It’s easy to confuse yourself with your voice or your personality, but there’s a slight difference here. Here, we’re talking about dislikes, likes, opinions, and biases. These are details that will reflect your blog’s worldview and its positioning.
Being vulnerable
This is a tough one and an element you need to use in moderation. While having an air of professionalism, don’t be afraid to let your sensitive side come out every now and then. It’s part of your story. Divulge into failures and setbacks to connect with the audience, but be prepared for a potential backlash. Transparency and honesty can build trust, but be careful about oversharing and turning people away if you’re too negative and open.
Conversation
Stop talking to your customers and start having a conversation with them. Even though it’s storytelling, you should still listen and ask for feedback from your readers. This can be as simple as a call to action in the post or encouraging them to leave feedback and comments. You can apply any of these tips to visual content, such as an infographic or a photo gallery, and create the same type of emotional bond that will make your blog something they won’t forget anytime soon.
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