Remarkablogger

Guest Blogger Week continues on Remarkablogger, with Naomi Duford of IttyBiz

Recently, I spent an incredible sum of money on the PlayStation game Rock Band. While this new addition to my living room has probably caused both my business and my blog to suffer — like Twitter, Rock Band shares many traits with crack — it has also taught me a few things about my business blog.

Take the Damn Tutorials

In Rock Band, in blogging, in business, and in pretty much every other facet of life, there are handy and free tutorials available to help you get started. Don’t be a hero and say you’ll figure it out on your own. You won’t. OK, maybe you will, but you’ll take about five years longer than you need to. Subscribe to Remarkablogger, Problogger , Copyblogger, Skelliewag, IttyBiz, and follow their — OK, our — advice. Honestly, we know what we’re talking about. We wouldn’t lie.

The System Works for a Reason

Rock Band is incredibly simple. All you have to do is play the notes it tells you to play, when it tells you to play them. Not exactly rocket science. The same is true for business blogging. There is a system. Social media activity, interacting with your readers, offering valuable advice, being consistent — these are all the things that turn a boo into a cheer. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. The wheel is just fine the way it is.

Don’t Pay Too Much Attention to the People Around You

Because we don’t live in Rock Band Communist Utopia, some band members are better than others. My husband is a mean guitarist and vocalist, but neither one of us could drum our way out of a wet paper bag. If you base your guitar strumming on my drumming, you’ll be booed off stage before you can say ‘Blitzkrieg Bop.’

In blogging, in business, and especially when you combine the two, your esteemed colleagues will lead you off a cliff if you give them a chance. Don’t give them a chance. If you’re going to start doing what the guy at the blog next door is doing, make sure he has a clue. How many subscribers does he have? What’s his comment section like? Is he doing better or worse than you are? Focus on what you’re doing, and ignore the rest of the noise.

Play What You Know

There was a time, many years ago, when I sat watching one scene in Wayne’s World, rewinding my VCR over and over for hours, just to memorize the lyrics and intonation of the song ‘Ballroom Blitz’. (Please don’t ask. It involved a guy I was trying to impress. I don’t want to talk about it.) Anyway, because of this, I learned to sing the song really, really well. It’s the only song on Earth that I can sing, but I can sing it.

Because it’s the only song I can sing, it’s the only song I do sing.

If you’re not funny, don’t try to be funny. If you’re not poignant, don’t try to be poignant. If you’re not an expert, don’t try to be an expert. People will respect you much more for doing your thing and doing it well than for trying to be something you’re not just because it’s trendy, or popular, or in-demand, or a potential money maker. If you don’t know shit about productivity, please God, don’t write about productivity. Write about plumbing or knitting or deep sea diving instead.

Start On A Small Stage

In any endeavor, you will always fail in the beginning. Always. You will fail brilliantly and boringly. You will fail in ways that make a great story later and in ways that you’ll never want to think of again. This is a guarantee.

However, the effects of your failure are mitigated by the size of your audience. If you start small and allow yourself to grow naturally, you’ll fail in front of a much smaller group of people.

Always Remember Who Has the Power to Boo

The crowd is your boss. That’s all there is to it. If you do not give the people what they want, they will leave. This doesn’t make you a bad person or even a bad blogger, but it does mean you’ll have a blog with no readers and a business with no, well, business.

When I started blogging, I gave a lot of marketing tips. While those were the posts that got the links, they didn’t get a lot of reader participation and they certainly didn’t get me fan mail. Then I did a piece that was really embarrassing and made me look like a total idiot. People loved it. I got comments and emails and even a couple of presents in the mail. (I’ve since removed my address from my website.) People were throwing their virtual panties onto my stage.

It changed the way I blog, and it should change the way you blog, too. Not that you should tell hilariously embarrassing personal stories involving emergency room visits and drinking wine out of a bag — there’s a limited market for that. But listen to what your fans want, and then give it to them.

Playing Guitar on Rock Band Does Not Make You a Guitar Player

It’s pretty easy to blog, and it’s pretty easy to play Rock Band. Blogging about the business you’re in — whatever business it happens to be — is the Rock Band guitar version of the music industry. Nice, but pretty far removed from reality. You become an expert by doing, not by blogging about doing.

Any moron can hook themselves up with a domain name and start shooting their mouth off. They might even find some poor suckers to read what they write, but that doesn’t make them gurus. You are what you do, not what you blog about.

It Gets Harder As You Go Along

If you’ve read the tutorials, you’ll know what to do. You’ll respond to each commentator. You’ll send personalized emails. You’ll participate in group writing projects and network on Twitter and maintain an active profile on StumbleUpon and Digg and God knows what else. You will be The Perfect Blogger.

It is very easy to master the beginner’s level of anything. But as you get better, it gets harder, sometimes faster than you’re prepared for. The Digg requests and the review-my-ebook requests and the sheer volume of comments will become overwhelming. You will start to forget what you’ve committed to whom. You will find yourself going to bed later and later because the things that you used to get done in a couple of hours are taking you until two in the morning.

When that happens, you have to rethink your strategy. It’s scary and a pain in the ass and it hurts to let some things go. Get over it. Realize it for what it is — a sign of growth — and rock on into the future.

Naomi Dunford runs IttyBiz, a blog and marketing company for very small businesses. Very, very small businesses. The kind of businesses that are so small they number their pets among their employees. Click here to subscribe to her blog. Remarkablogger does, and you obviously read that.