4 Things That Happen When We Engage A New Blogging Client

May 3, 2016 / in Blogging / by Mic Johnson

Post author: Mic Johnson

We’ve been helping companies execute their weekly blog strategy for the better part of the seven years we’ve been in business and four things generally happen when we engage a new client and their team in the process:

1. Initially, people have fear and anxiety about writing.

I certainly understand why the fear and anxiety is there. I had some of that too in the beginning. There are several reasons it exists. For a lot of people, they haven’t written anything of substance since college or maybe even high school, so it’s a muscle that hasn’t been flexed in awhile.

For others, it’s the fear of their thoughts being “out there” on the internet and on social sites for the world to see. And for most, it’s the fear that what they write won’t be good enough, that people won’t care about it, or that they just aren’t a very good writer.

Anxiety around things that are outside of our comfort zones is normal. But I’ve got good news for you…

2. Those same people quickly get over the fear and anxiety of writing.

What I’ve seen consistently is that once people write that first “rough draft” and I get a chance to review it, what they’ve written is actually pretty good!

I often say… “People think they’re a horrible writer or a great writer. The truth is usually somewhere in between.” And that has proven out time and again over the years.

People think they're a horrible writer or a great writer. The truth is usually somewhere in between. Click To Tweet

The good news is that we’re able to coach people along the way to become better writers, to realize that the magic happens when they get outside of their comfort zones, and we edit and proof their content so it flows better for readers.

It’s a partnership and we’re there for our clients every step of the way to help them become better, more confident writers.

3. Other people in the company want to write and the blog team expands. 

As people in the company start to see the content that the blog team is creating (and hearing about the success stories that have come out of those efforts), we typically see others in the company who would like to take a stab at writing. The “early adopters” on the blog teams we create help break down the fear and anxiety walls for others within the organization.

And there’s nothing better than when you get a group of energized, engaged and creative people together once a month during a blog meeting to brainstorm on ideas and topics, support one another, and help share the stories that happen every day within the company.

One of my favorite business quotes is one I heard when I was in an Organizational Communications class in college:

In organizations, people want a voice more than a vote. Click To Tweet

Blogging is a great way to give employees a platform to share their voices.

4.  Cool things start to happen for the company and for the people who are doing the writing.

Routinely we hear about our clients being surprised by how many people are reading their articles, about people who they haven’t talked to in years reaching out to them because they saw a blog post, about how many “LIKEs” or “COMMENTS” they got, about how clients, prospects and friends have mentioned that they read their posts.

We had one client who got a $27,000 opportunity after only blogging a couple of times a month. Now of course that doesn’t always happen so quickly (and for him it happened in only about 4 months of blogging), but it definitely wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t sharing his stories through blogging.

We have another client we’ve been working with for nearly 4 years, Alterra Bank, whose President and CEO Pam Berneking wrote about all of the benefits that blogging has brought to their organization. She talks about the benefits to the culture, to recruiting, to retention, to leadership and more.

Finally, sometimes we run into situations where people absolutely don’t want to, or can’t commit to, writing. We have a solution for that too if the process above doesn’t work for a particular client.

At the end of the day, we just want to give companies an accountability partner who will help them consistently share their stories. It’s better than the alternative, right?

To learn more about how we can help you get your blogging effort going, call or email me at 913-645-6650 or mic@bluegurus.com. I’d love to help you get your blogging strategy up and running!

Click here to see a video of me and Jason talking about our blogging effort!