The Rules Of HR Blogging? Are There Rules?

People ask me a lot what it takes to be a blogger (fancy people say writer).  They want to know what the rules are to write great posts.  I have a four word answer:

Be authentic and consistent. Other than that, there aren’t any rules. 

• Write what you want.
• If you mispell a word — unless it is a post about spelling, who gives a crap
• If you can paint a picture telling a story from your life, childhood, therapy session or conversation with the customer service rep at Publix – go for it.
• If you hate mushy therapy talk and are more data driven — write a 700 word post with algorithms only.  If that is your jam, go for it.
• How many words should a standard post be?  Who cares! Whatever you want it to be! I’ve read blog posts anywhere from 10 words to 1000.  If the content is compelling, I’ll read it.
• Be authentic.  If you are authentic your audience will find you no matter how long the post, how grammatically incorrect it is, or how many times you talk about how your kindergarten teach f’ed you up.
• Be consistent.
  •  The more you write the more quickly you’ll build an audience.  But if you can only write every 2 weeks — great.  Just prove to your readers you will post every two weeks.
  • Also, you want to be fairly consistent on overall message.  If you swing to far with competing messages, it can be confusing.  But, again… who cares!  Perhaps that is your style.  Or perhaps the blog is supposed to show the yin and yang of it’s topics.
  • It’s OK to change your mind on a point of view.  So, consistency, in this case, be damned.

Lastly, if you learn blogging is a crap fest and you hate writing — take up fly fishing!  It’s all good. Life is short. Enjoy the ride.