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I first wrote about starting a blog and what you need to do a couple of years ago. I am re publishing this as I have recently been asked about this topic, so thought I would bring my advice up to my latest thinking.

Blogging is not always a natural thing for people to do. “To Blog or Not to Blog!” that is the question you need to ask yourself. Should you pick up the mantle and start to write?

Blogging is a medium that has formed a bit part of the internet and in more recent times allowed a platform for the expression of the masses.

Whether you are reading them or publishing them, you will read blogs at some point. Your reading this one, so why not start one yourself.

One of the biggest issues with starting a blog is what content should you be writing about. Having an idea about what your blog is going to be about is the first step. Its not always easy to come up with topics. I have always found great inspiration from “Watercooler Conversations” which don’t always happen at the moment.

A blog is a great way of building your Social Media presence and identity, so the choice of topic and areas covered will play a big part in forming this. Here are some topic areas to help you:

  • Work based subject area
  • Re-enforce your learning areas by blogging about them
  • Hobby or interest

The main key points to blogging for me are:

  • Be Authentic
  • Be yourself
  • Don’t be afraid on posting that idea or thought
  • Don’t be afraid of posting different opinions
  • You learn things doing research for your blog posts
  • Post regularly
  • Blogging helps build your confidence
  • Blogging helps build an audience

The next stage is to choose where to host your blog. There are many different blogging platforms available that you can choose from. I have listed two Free Blogging Sites below, but there are many more that you can find using an internet search. There are already lots of reviews on which blogging site to choose and it really depends upon your needs. I’ll leave the choice down to you and your own research:

I myself have chosen WordPress as my blogging platform as it is well established and has a set a great features available on the free tier:

  • Sharing with Social platforms
  • Scheduling posts to be published at a later date
  • Good site usage statistics
  • Search indexing

When you publish a blog, you should use other social platforms such as Twitter, Linked-In and Facebook (to name a few) to share the post which will help build your audience. I do split how I use social media and where I publish to as I think it is important to keep some boundaries between personal and work based output. I cover how I do this in my post about a Personal Knowledge Management System.

Make sure you keep in mind to watch out for the Echo Chamber Effect to keep a balance on what you are communicating about.

Here are some other related posts that you may find relevant:

Your Digital Exhaust – The data we share

Digital Fit in 2018: Balancing the Noise

Digital Fit in 2018: Build up a Readership

Digital Mindset

Digital Fit in 2018: Start Blogging

Digital Fit in 2018: Get Social

A-Z of Digital – K is for Knowledge

A-Z of Digital – S is for Social