Better Blogging With Help From Frightened Rabbit

It was inevitable. Eventually I’d have to share blogging tips based on something beyond known hits from the eighties and nineties.

Today I’m taking a chance and sharing my favorite band as part of my Music & Marketing Mondays series. They’re not well known and they don’t have any well-known chart-topping hits.

Swim Until You Can’t See Land

Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith when you’re blogging. Will the topic resonate with your readers? Is it too edgy, too blatant, too controversial? Is it different from anything you’ve published before? Is it a topic that’s new to your blogging repertoire?

You never know what will fly and what will fail. You can’t reap the greatest of rewards if you don’t sometimes take a chance. Sometimes you need to dive in, rather than slowing dipping in a toe at a time. Sometimes you need to start the swim and keep swimming, even when the land disappears behind you and you’re not sure of the way back.

The best bloggers take some chances, hoping to strike a chord, prompt a response or change a mind. It’s never easy and it’s often scary, but it’s these kinds of articles that make the most difference.

Old, Old Fashioned

While your blog can, and should be, the hub of your digital home, not one of us can make the most of our lives and or abilities if we never leave home. There’s more to a successful blog, business and online presence than the online presence itself.

Oh let’s get old fashioned
Back to how things used to be
If I get old, old fashioned
Would you get old, old fashioned with me?

Consider getting old fashioned and going out to network in real life. Be open to real life experiences, relationships and conversations. These will all add to your impact online, too.

My Backwards Walk

In the first song shared, I mentioned taking a leap. The lesson in this song is the exact opposite. Sometimes it’s very important to think long and hard before an implementation, an article shared. Making a mistake with something you publish can be very difficult to fix after the fact.

I’m working on erasing you
Just don’t have the proper tools
I’ll get hammered, forget that you exist
There’s no way I’m forgetting this

While this is a love song of sorts, it’s about feeling the need to erase something, but being drawn back in, unable to escape and start fresh. The singer is knee deep and mired in something less than desirable, yet can’t see any way out.

A poorly written, planned and thought out article can leave you in the same nasty mess. And it can be nearly impossible to pull yourself out of that mess.

Backyard Skulls

Transparency is a term we hear bandied about all the time. When it comes to your brand and what you publish, transparency is tantamount to the trust developed with our audience, whom we hope to make prospects, then, eventually purchasers of our products and services.

We’ve all heard about businesses with skeletons in the closet, skulls buried in the backyard. Consider whether or not you’re trying to keep buried your own backyard skulls. Can you truly keep them buried forever?

Backyard skulls, deep beneath the ground
All those backyard skulls, not deep enough to never be found

Would it not be better to share, carefully, your past failings. To be open and honest about your business past, your product and service future?

The Work

Eventually we’re all forced to make a decision? Are we on the right path with our business, with our brand? Is it time to pivot, pack it in or soldier forward?

When the work stops working
What was light becomes a weight
When the work stops working
Shall we pack it all in
When the work stops working
And the weight becomes an ache
When the work stops working
Shall we pack it all in
Or start again

Sometimes we are forced to contemplate our blogging? Maybe it’s time to change our focus, time to consider new topics. Is what you’ve long been doing still working? Is it time to tweak? Time to take a strong stand? Time to start anew?

Only you can know, and it will not be an easy decision.

So there you have it. A Music & Marketing Monday publish featuring my favorite band. I hope you’ll take a listen to each of the five songs shared and let me know if managed to strike a chord!

Photo Credit:
By Heidi Weber [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons