A few words I’ve said before that I want to share on my birthday …
Something blogging has taught me a lot about — not just the beauty of paying attention to one thing at a time — but the fulfillment of offering other people a chance to talk.
Half the show is in the comments. Thank you HART for saying that!
That was one of the first things we discovered here.
When I first started blogging, I often tried to do too much. I’d write a post that carried the load of too many thoughts at one time. Those blogging posts went both deep and wide. They were so complete, I left no room for readers to add their thoughts.
It’s not a conversation when all a reader can say is I agree with you, Great post. or You covered that subject really well. There’s just nowhere for a conversation to go, if I don’t leave room for a reader’s thoughts to squeeze in between my own. Now I know to think about the conversation when I write.
Here are a few things that I do differently now. What they add up to is staying in the mind of a beginner.
- I ask more questions without answering them.
- I don’t try to think through every possibility as I used to do. I write what I know and I let other folks add what they know to that.
- I’ve backed off on holding myself accountable as an expert on the what I write about and instead, think of myself as one of the audience talking to another reader about an idea, waiting to hear his or her point of view.
The result? This social media beginner is having so much more fun than any teacher … and feeling so much more authentic.
What do you do to stay a social media beginner?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
