The direction of my blog posts has changed forever. Yours could too.
This shift in my direction happened during a 2-day course I attended this month, the Art of Authentic Blogging. The purpose of the course is to help people start writing their own blog posts. In my case, it helped me write more effective blog posts going forward.
About the training
The training is incredibly practical. Both days were filled with many helpful writing exercises. The first day focused more on the creative side of things, with foundational techniques to build our confidence and ability to write voluminously. The second day focused more on the analytical side of things, with techniques to help us refine what we wrote. Given my dual interests in the creative and the analytical, I found this structure suited me perfectly. Your experience with the training may vary.
Pros
Well, you learn to write a lot. This helps us get over writer's block. Then, you learn to polish what you have into diamonds. That way, you aren't simply writing lots of rubbish (I've been there...more on that later). Instead, you are writing interesting blog posts that people will enjoy reading.
The exercises were very practical and gave me output I could actually use. Two of the exercises left me with blog posts that I could publish immediately. I would like to practice the refining techniques that I learned, so I won't publish them right away, but you will likely see them within a few months if you continue to visit my blog. The other participants also provided the same feedback, and I suspect were equally happy.
There were lots of great ideas, both from the trainers and my fellow participants in the training. After each exercise, we would read what we wrote out loud to each other. This was not compulsory, but it was highly beneficial. Many of the ideas I received, I will be implementing in the coming months.
Overall, I found the experience really fun. It wasn't a strict course by any means. The trainers were very friendly, as were my fellow participants. We got to know each other deeper than I would have expected going into the training. On reflection, it might also be a good way to do teambuilding, assuming you have people in your team or company who are also interested in attending this training. There were extra fun exercises thrown in, too; I wrote a blog post about chopsticks!
Cons
The price. The training is aimed at professionals looking to express their professional/personal voice. Luckily for me, my company is very nice, so they paid for the training via my study budget. Unless yours is willing to do the same, or you have money lying around to spare, the training may be out of your price range.
If you need an argument to get approval to attend this course, I would say it helps your company via the free marketing you are doing. Let's say you write about cool research related to your work or great experiences you've had at your company; posting incredible blog posts increases brand awareness for your company. This can attract new customers as well as new talented employees. At a company-wide level, the return on investment at that scale might be more interesting to whoever approves your expense claim.
Location. The training is held in person in the Netherlands. Unless you live in the Netherlands, it will be rather difficult to attend the 2-day intensive version of the course. There is, however, an online version spread across 4 weeks. That version was enticing to me because it would allow more time to complete the writing exercises and give the trainers a chance to provide more feedback between sessions, in theory. However, now that I've completed the 2-day version, I will never know.
Theory: nothing new. Most of the theory presented is available online for free. The trainers mentioned this several times throughout the training. I've been writing blog posts for a few years now and have been meaning to research how to write more effective blog posts for quite some time. Does that sound familiar? Yes, lots of information is available online, but it requires time and effort to do the research. For me, the bundling of that information into this training was incredibly helpful, especially when paired with the many exercises and feedback. So, maybe I should put this paragraph under the "pros" section. Then again, if you're a self-starter who prefers to find all the best tips yourself, then it belongs here in the cons, and perhaps this training is not for you.
Personal impact
What did I leave the training with? Four blog posts ideas and a mind teeming with ideas. Oh, and a change in the direction of my blog posts.
I mentioned that, before the course, I had written a lot of rubbish. Well, maybe that's a little harsh, but for the last few years, I have been writing monthly update blog posts about my progress on my various creative projects. However, similarly to my website, I was not quite sure of what to do with my blog posts. The monthly updates I have been writing felt, especially more recently, rather mundane and formulaic. I would work on my 1000 paintings, with not much special to show, and write even more briefly about my story planning. The updates were good proof to myself that I could stick to the project (mostly), but I started craving more.
Now, I will stop with the monthly blog posts that give regular updates. Instead, I will only write blog posts about specific topics I uncover during the process of working on my personal projects. This is because we learned about how important a clear target audience and purpose for the writing is. During the training, I kept thinking, who would read these monthly update posts, and why? I could not come up with an answer.
Another personal impact was the great ideas I received - a fellow participant suggested I present my updates as a drawing rather than writing them. That's something I'm now planning to do for my social media channels.
The possibilities for you
The Art of Authentic Blogging has transformed the way I approach writing my blog posts, and it might be equally impactful for you as well. If you’re ready to start blogging, or take your blogging to the next level, you can learn more and sign up for the course here.
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