Every successful blog on the net has flow. The bloggers voice just rolls off the keys and posts magically appear in your reader that invoke feelings and emotion. It is all done effortlessly with a uniqueness that is genuine and not faked. This consistency and effortless appearance is a skill. It is not acquired through osmosis, but through hard work and developing a craft. The the rap world, Snoop Dogg has created a flow that surrounds everything he encompasses. The rhythmical rhymes flow with ease as he attracts millions of fans year after year. So how can you get this same flow in your blogging to attract more eager readers?
Hint: It is not smoking a pound of weed and hitting the keyboard. I take zero responsibility for the outcome if you decide to go that route.
Blogging Tip: How To Flow Like Snoop Dogg
How can you…the blogger…obtain the same flow that Snoop Dogg and successful bloggers demonstrate that breads success?
Be Unique
Expecting to be a copycat blogger and see results? Success is about being unique in an un-unique world. It is about standing out from the crowd with original ideas and something different. Do you want to be the next Snoop Dogg or do you want other aspiring bloggers to be the next you? That is a question you need to answer for yourself before you even get started.
Forget what has already been done. Forget the “magic formula” for success. Uniqueness is still the #1 factor behind most highly successful blogs and individuals. Their listeners, followers, subscribers and reader all want to be the next them…not the other way around.
Collaborate With Other Bloggers
Where do you think Snoop Dogg would be today without Dr. Dre? Remember back in the day (and maybe you don’t) when the two were inseparable? That collaboration in the early days allowed for fast growth through multiple ideas and multiple audiences to combine into a massive empire.
Who can you collaborate with in your niche? Which bloggers can you work with to help grow your blog and theirs by mixing ideas and audiences? You can’t go at it alone and you are going to need some help along the way. Look for ways that you can bring your strengths to the table and find collaborations that are beneficial for both parties.
Ride The Wave
Early adopters have a much easier run at it than the ones that are late to the party. In the early 90’s, gansta rap (yeah…I just said gansta) was building steam and Dr. Dre, 2Pac, Snoop Dogg and a small handful of other rappers were pushing the charge. After a couple of platinum selling albums, every kid from the street and studio was trying to get in on the action. Those handful of rappers were already 10 steps ahead of everyone else by being the original group that lead the push instead of being the ones that were following the trend.
Watch for trends in your niche and capitalize on those trends by being an early adopter. Many of the massively successful blogs you see today are successful because they got on the bandwagon early. Competition is low, risk is a little bit higher but the return on your investment (time, hosting, etc.) is much larger with the decreased competition.
Be Authentic
This is a big one. Do you think anyone would take Snoop Dogg’s songs seriously if he was some kid from Beverly Hills? During the time period where he was really creating a name for himself, he was rapping about his life. That authenticity is a massive part of the equation for success.
Don’t blog about making money online if you aren’t making any money. Don’t blog about successful blogging if you have never had a successful blog. Find a blog topic that you can be 100% authentic on and people will gravitate towards your ideas. You might think you can fake you way through it, but your potential readers will figure you out in a second. It is always better to be yourself and see success than a failure trying to fake it.
Brand Yourself and Your Blog
Snoop Dogg is not just a rapper these days, he is a walking brand that prints cash. This central branding carries into everything he does. Are you branding yourself and your blog? Do you have a central theme that spreads throughout your work? Or are you just winging it to see what happens? You have to create a brand around your blog or you will just confuse everyone in the process.
Blog flow works itself into everything you do over time. It doesn’t come automatically and you can’t fake. Some bloggers have it and others are working on achieving it. When it hits…you will know. Things get a hell of a lot easier and all of the sudden…your lyrical rhymes are ripping up the net as more readers soak up your content, buy your products and sign up for your membership sites. It’s a beautiful thing…
9 comments
Robb,
I really love all the ideas in this post and the way you explained them. Collaboration with other blogger is something that I don’t think people realize is an integral part of how you really grow. What amazes me continually is how many people there are who are willing to collaborate. The other day an aspiring blogger reached out to me and asked if I would mentor him. I thought to myself, what a great way to build good-will and you learn so much by teaching other people.
I also love the idea that you want people to be the next you, not you want to be the next (problogger, copyblogger,fill in the blank). I think the unique voice that people have is what causes me to read their blog.
Absolutely…just like we did with the interview and I do on a daily basis. It is all about forming solid relationships with your community and other bloggers. It is what will grow things above and beyond what you could have imagined.
Snoop is my favorite bloggers… oops, rapper. 🙂
This was one of the most inspirational post on your blog [and I’ve read about 10]
By the way, what riding the wave means to you personally?
If everybody else is using Twitter, should I just jump in without thinking twice?
I think you should analyze the situation and make your own decisions. However…there are a lot of people that did that with Twitter and now they are scrambling to jump on the bandwagon.
First I’d say if you’re smoking a pound of weed and writing about that, then there is probably an audience waiting for you…second point is Snoop Dog never tried to hide the fact that he smokes pounds of weed, so your advice to ‘be real’ rings true here…your point about getting in early is a no-brainer…but with 55 million blogs (stat taken from a Brian Clark interview with Yaro) finding that next pop-culture craze is a tough wave to find yet alone ride…collaboration is king!…just having a guest post on your blog a couple of weeks ago gave me my highest page views in a single day since I started the bog last July…and your last two points about being authentic and creating a brand are golden advice!
Every blogger I follow has a brand, even the brand is the blog not the blogger.
The only aspect missing from your suggestions is tenacity…
Snoop Dog started rapping a long time ago, and didn’t care that his was a small niche at the time. He stuck with it album after album and video after video. Yes he collaborated, yes he built his brand, yes he was authentic and yes he rode a wave, but most importantly, he never stopped!
haha…yeah there probably is. But then you spend all of your profits on snacks.
Glad to hear the guest post worked out well! I enjoyed your article.
I have recently started to connect with other bloggers and work on collaborations with them . It really can help you and them, like you point out in your article. I am still a newbie to the blogging world and I’m very happy that I found it! For me personally it has been hard because I’ve had to step way out of my comfort zone. That was very hard for me to do at first, but I’m getting more comfortable with it.
It’s all about trying new things and stretching what you consider normal. The more you step out of that comfort zone…the better things will go. Keep it up!
Uniqueness is one crucial thing in blogging that most bloggers just don’t take into acknowledgement.