Affected by Connection!

I’ve only written a handful of blogs and generally they are very structured and relevant about my transcription business and when I read back over them, they appear to be informative but pretty boring. I wasn’t quite sure why as I love to tell a story and consider myself pretty good at it but it wasn’t until I went to a conference recently “ConnectNow” and heard two key speakers on the day, that I realised exactly what it was that was missing from my blogs. It was me.

Whilst I was away camping over Easter at a hoe-down (that’s another story), I  came back to several emails and tweets from friends asking if I was coming to ConnectNow. I had no idea what it was but readily agreed as I tend to like going to where all the action seems to be happening. Boy was I glad I went.

ConnectNow “is a marketing and communications conference focusing on the convergence of social media, emerging technologies and enterprise. The three-day event brings together visionaries and specialists in the field of new media marketing, community management and social technologies covering the latest strategies, tools and best practices in marketing innovation”.

The main speaker on the day was Gary Vaynerchuk who seemed to be quite big in the twitterverse – although I wasn’t following him (don’t worry, I am now) and Darren Rowse who I was already following. My week was already pretty full-on but I made the time to squeeze in this one day (out of the three day conference) and carpool down with some Central Coast tweeps (my friends @JohannaBD @marnieb and @jonbergan). Admittedly it was a very early start and I was starting to think that the extra lie in and routine of my normal business day was looking far more attractive than being at my office at 6.30 am to be picked up! And just quietly, I was thinking to myself that this better be bloody good.

After settling into our seats, I didn’t expect to be affected as much as I was by @garyvee. Here was this quite loud, out there, blaspheming American guy going on about his story, his passion and how that drove him to where he is now, successful is an understatement. His underlying message is that if you live your passion, you can’t fail. He also threw in some social media do’s and don’ts but it was the attraction to his energy that got me the most. I could have kicked myself for only following him the day before the conference and stupidly admitting that to him after I introduced myself to him. Luckily he thought that was quite funny, but that’s him.

What was missing from my blogs, albeit the few I’ve done, was my story, my personality, my passion for my business and the years of hard work that I’ve put into it. Already I was itching to start being me in every aspect of social presence. I was totally inspired and thankful that I made the effort to be there!

Now all I had to do was to blog more! So here I was eagerly awaiting @problogger’s talk as I knew I had to get more into blogging but was always stumped as to what to write. How much really can you write about transcription on a continual basis? And more importantly, do people even want to read about transcription?

Darren taught me two things, well more than that but the two main standout points for me were: 1) blog for you and not your audience and 2) blog regularly from all mediums.

My problem was that I was trying to write what I thought people wanted to read about my transcription business so no wonder when I read back over my blogs I thought they were pretty dull and too business-like – I wasn’t blogging for me! For someone that likes to talk a lot and I mean A LOT, I was really surprised at myself. I also spent so much time trying to work out what it I should blog about to the point that I turned myself off blogging hence the lack of blogs.

So its okay to be me and blog from my perspective, my experiences and my life story and incorporate my business into the blog but equally important to do it regularly and perhaps throw in a video or two. Look out!