Because of what I do, I spend a lot of time talking with people who are new to blogging (like “Can you tell me what blogging is?” type new). Let’s be straight here: it’s hella confusing to navigate this whole blogging thing successfully if you’re completely new to the concept. All you know is that you want to make money online and (apparently) you need to have a blog to do that. And you better “do it right” before you completely mess up your chances of having an online business.
Right? Wait – that’s not right? Huh. Could have fooled me, because it seems like that’s what people are telling you (when you boil it down).
The first thing most people do when they come to me and say they want to start a blog or add a blog to their site or whatever is send me a list of links.
“I found this online. We should do this.”
“This person says I need to be active on all these sites.”
“According to so-and-so, you have to write this many times a week and posts should only be this long.”
And the link list and commentary goes on.
I spend the first portion of my email exchanges telling people that everyone is different, and everyone’s market is different, and everyone’s blog is different. So thanks for the links, but who the hell cares? We’re still going to have to start from the ground up and see what’s going to work for you. You can’t just copy and paste someone else’s business plan.
The problem is that everywhere you look in this market there’s a list of do’s and don’ts. Labels and rules galore. I say – buck the labels and rules. They’re more like opinions anyways.
Labels and rules put a stop on creative thinking. That’s pretty much a historic fact. Some of the greatest minds in business are those who disregarded the standards and the rules. You can’t hand me a list of duplicated do’s and don’ts, then tell me you want to be unique and stand out. It just doesn’t work that way.
Labels and rules help you play it safe. It’s easy to look at someone successful and copy the way they did it and what they’re doing. That’s safe. That’s not trying something different to see if it’ll succeed and taking the chance of failure. When people fail doing this they often realize they failed because you can’t really copy the biggest contributor to someone’s success – who they are. It’s not the business portion of an online business that fails. It’s the “you” portion. You weren’t dedicated enough, or didn’t want to work hard, or didn’t put in the time and effort.
Labels and rules help to trap you in a box and create internal conflict. The rule says that you should only have one topic per blog so you don’t alienate your audience. But what if your experience and logic and wishful-thinking tell you that phasing in a new topic into your blog would be a success? Hello, internal conflict. I’ve felt this a lot throughout the past couple years, in various ways. Every time I’ve decided to go with what I think is best. And every time it’s been a good decision. Literally, every time.
See labels and rules as examples of one successful method. There are always 100 ways to go about any 1 thing. It’s about finding the way that works for you.
What are some of the labels and rules you hate the most?
I’ll go first. I hate that people feel like they need to choose between the “blogger” label and the “Internet marketer” label. I’ve gone with “blogger”. Simply because I think it sounds better. I know what I do.
And I hate when people try to outline rules for social media engagement. I don’t need guidelines on how to communicate with others, thank you very much. I’m a woman. I’ve got the communication thing down.
Your turn. 
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