The perfect blog post

I received an interesting email from one of my clients last night who is just starting his business blog. Before uploading his post, he asked me to read it and give it a critique. He had written a short history of the company in a welcoming manner that read very well.

I wrote back to him saying, "Looks perfect!"

Well, he wasn't very happy with that response! As a member of the public speaking organization Toastmasters, my client was used to being critiqued heavily on his performance. "Looks perfect!" was hardly a helpful response to him for improvement.

Instead of backpedaling and finding something to creatively criticize, I explained a bit about the philosophy of blogging.

"Blogging is not about writing brilliant pieces of literature or journalism," I told him. "It's about getting information out to your client while using your natural voice, and doing it in a way that doesn't take a lot of time from your normal schedule."

Good grammar is helpful, but perfect grammar is not expected on blogs. Short posts are almost always better than long ones. I suggested that he tell stories in short chapters no more than 500-700 words long. Not only are they more likely to be read, but adding a "chapter" to a story every couple of days brings readers back again and again.

My point was that while the writing in the post could be improved grammatically, stylistically, or creatively, for the purpose of a blog it was, indeed, "perfect."

Comments

[know.to_alex.duggan]

Very well said. I am just starting a blog myself and will put this advice to practice. I have a tendancy to ramble a little, I'm going to try and be more concise, thanks.