Build Your Brand By Writing: Learnings from 100 Blog Posts

Photo by Toben Dilworth

This is my 100th blog post since I started writing about my career transition from a design leader to running my own business as a leadership coach, speaker, teacher, and writer. Writing weekly started with helping me process my own journey and my learnings in this transition. It’s become a pathway to a new identity, as a writer. It’s helped me hone my ideas and publish my first book. And most of all, it’s a way of developing my unique perspective and point of view on the world, AND getting feedback on it from readers.

From writing 100 blog posts, I’m sharing two of my biggest process learnings and four tips for what types of content has worked for me.

1. (Process) Writing is a muscle; You get better with practice

I’ve been writing regularly for 2.5 years, mostly publishing a blog post every week. For the first 6 months, here’s what worked really well for me to establish this rhythm:

  • Topic. Each week I’d write about what I learned the most that week or a challenge I was grappling. Sometimes it was a problem that multiple clients were facing.

  • Accountability. I posted on some leadership slack groups asking for an accountability partner who also wanted to write. When I found one, we would exchange our writing and provide feedback each week. It was valuable to have another pair of eyes on my writing and to know that I had a piece “due” to someone else.

Writing is a muscle. The more you write, the easier it gets. In the first 3-6 months, it would take me 2–3 days to write a post — perhaps a day to consider the topic, and maybe 4–6 hours to write it, broken up over several days.

Today, it might take me 5–10 minutes to find the topic. It’s a rhythm where I continually think about what I have to say this week and what would be relevant to others. I often still look at what’s topical this week, for me or my clients. The writing itself will take 1–1.5 hours. Then I step away from it, sometimes for half a day, sometimes overnight. When I come back, I give it a 10-minute read, make the edits, and post. It’s become part of my muscle memory from the years of practice.

Also, my major push last year on top of writing blog posts, was to write a book. The process was quite different, but working weekly with an editor gave me more confidence in my writing style and the muscle to produce many pages of content.

2. (Topic) Be in service; Solve needs and problems for others

I publish my articles both on medium and my personal website. Sharing your writing provides a valuable feedback loop for what others find relevant and interesting. When coming up with topics, think about what might be most valuable for others to learn or read about.

Some of my top articles have been how-tos to solve specific pain-points for people in my community — leaders in tech. For example:

It helps to know who your audience is. And you can get more readership if you submit your article to medium collections that have a similar audience to you.

3. (Topic) Have a Unique Perspective; Be contrarian

As humans, we’re naturally drawn to what’s new and different. You don’t want to read the same cliche story. I’ve learned over time that people are interested in articles that present a contrarian point of view. It helps when that POV matches your brand. For example:

4. (Topic) Write for What’s Timely

We all have a rhythms and contexts in life. If your writing can tap into a collective psyche of what’s happening right now, it will resonate more with someone who’s experiencing this context. I’ve especially learned this by writing for publications (Business Insider, Entrepreneur) who use both enticing topics and borderline-clickbait titles to get people to read. The takeaway is that what’s timely and present can be what’s most interesting.

So during performance review / annual review cycles:

During the start of the pandemic:

5. (Topic) Share YOUR Story

Most leadership books and many articles rehash a lot of the same teachings and concepts. You might fear that you shouldn’t write because everything has already been said about the topic. However, this is simply not true. Your perspective is unique because no else else has lived in your exact shoes. So share your story with vulnerability and honesty. People want more of that.

My top-read article had nothing to do with work or technology, but instead was an examining of my own privilege during #BlackLivesMatter.

Sharing my personal values and North Star lets people peek into my life:

6. (Process) Feedback is a Gift

It’s really hard to share our creative work and writing. It feels vulnerable to put something out into the world. What if it’s bad? What if nobody reads it? What if people hate it?

However, the best part of sharing your work is that you get feedback. I can see what articles resonate with people and which ones don’t. My instinct is sometimes right, but equally often it’s wrong — some articles I think will be the most-read are a flop, and others are a surprise hit. You’ll never know what resonates for others unless you keep sharing. All feedback is a gift.

These are three gems of articles which have languished. I still don’t know why, though over time I’m sure I’ll keep learning more. Some of these are also quite recently published and may pick up readership over time.

I’m sharing the “failures” because I can get so attached to the outcomes. I want to write so I can reach thousands of readers. But most importantly, I want to write to express my opinion and share my thought leadership to help others. I CAN control my writing process… I can’t directly control who will read (or not read) what I write.

Bottom-Line

Writing will help you become a thought leader and develop a unique point of view. Working on both the process and topics will create this writing rhythm. What I’ve learned from the process of writing 100 blog posts is: Just keep sharing and keep experimenting. You’ll learn what works and what doesn’t.

Trust the process. You will become a better writer and hone your ideas through it. You’ll learn what topics resonate for your reader. I can’t wait to read more of your stories.


Tutti Taygerly