Everywhere you turn, we bloggers see?articles?telling us how to stand out from the crowd.
“Write great comments.”
“Publish epic content.”
“Read and follow that handsome Kevin Duncan guy from Be A Better Blogger.”
It’s good, well-meaning advice.
With so many bloggers out there, you have to stand out if you want your blog to be noticed. Right?
So, that’s what we try?to do. We try to be unique. We try to be memorable. We try to go the extra mile.
There’s only one problem…
Everyone else is standing out from the crowd, too.
And when everyone else is standing out from the crowd, you find yourself right back where you started: in a crowd.
It’s a challenge isn’t it?
How can we stand out when conventional wisdom is telling all of us to do the same things?
Defying Conventional Wisdom
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking there is only one way to be successful. When it comes to blogging, believe these truths:
- There are no shortcuts to success.
- You need to know your purpose for blogging, otherwise you will fail.
- There is no one right way to do anything.
To that end, I’ve been doing something different here at Be A Better Blogger the past month. While conventional wisdom says I should publish infrequently, I’ve been publishing daily. While conventional wisdom says my posts should be epic and long, I’ve been publishing short, compact blog musings.
Since everyone else is doing their thing over there, I’m doing this other thing over here. If they are going to zig, I’m going to zag. 🙂
My challenge to you is to do something that goes against conventional blogging wisdom, too. Find a way to zig when everyone else is zagging. Find a way to mix things up.
Start using a social media platform your competitors are ignoring. Maybe sprinkle a little humor into your writing. Maybe do something others will think is crazy.
It doesn’t have to be big, and it shouldn’t be something you believe will be detrimental to your blog’s mission.
But if you hope to stand out from the crowd, you need to find something that goes against the crowd.
Originally published September 4, 2014. It has been updated. Creative Commons Image via Crystal.
