How To Blog And Not Be Preaching

Preaching But NOT Practicing — A Blogger's Ugly Truth

There's a difference between a blogger and an expert. Not all bloggers are experts. And, of course, not all experts are bloggers.

However, over the years, this idea is propagated that if you want to be a successful blogger, you must be an expert on the topic you're covering.

IT IS TRUE… but only up to a point.

The kind of contents that are consumed today has seen a massive shift vs. how it was just a couple of years back.

The consumers don't want to hear "experts" rant and preach. Instead, they want to hear how they did it or are doing it.

They want to hear practitioners and not really the experts.

In fact, so big is this pull that even those who enjoy massive reputation out of their personal brand have to show their real examples and highlight their own experiences to win consumers' confidence.

A Shift In Content Consumption Behaviour

This is very evident in the types of contents that get massive traction these days. Be it…

Brian Dean's How I Increased My Organic Traffic 652% in 7 days
Neil Patel's How I Grew My Declining Google
Gary Vee's I Work 15 Hours A Day
Yaro Starak's I Used to Live In a Caravan: Here's How I Made Enough Money to Live Anywhere in The World
OR my own Black Hat SEO Case Study: Thematic Link Building, which is one of the most read posts on my blog

Today, people don't want to hear why one should get up early in the morning. They want to see something like I Tried Waking Up At 5 Am For a Week.

The narrative has shifted from "how you should do it" to "here's how I did it".

Consumers don't want to hear about success. They want to hear about the process that led to success.

Unfortunately, this shift in the content consumption landscape hasn't reached the majority of the bloggers.

The Truth of "Expert" Bloggers

Many are still tugged to the old propagated idea that to be a successful blogger, they must be an expert. This has resulted in two outcomes:

One, the abundance of "experts" who aren't really the experts.
Two, the 'fake it till you make it' culture.

Needless to say, both these outcomes are extremely toxic.

Because these bloggers aren't only risking their brand image on the loose string of lies (and believe me, people know when you're lying), they are also producing contents with the wrong intent and flawed approach.

Are You A Blogger?

Understand that the way people consume contents has changed… and it's still changing. Why do you think documenting has become more popular than creating?

It's NO more about FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT. (With lies, nobody makes it anyway!)

It's about SHOW IT TILL YOU MAKE IT. And once you made it, show it even then.

Stop pretending to be an expert. Please. You're not. You know it. And your target audience would know it too if they don't already.

With Spell Out Marketing — Insider (this Publication on Medium), I am trying to bring more transparency to who I am and what I am doing as a blogger.

My aim with the contents I produce here is simple:

I am not just going to preach — I am going to practice.
I am not going to publish my income report like many who publish fake earnings — I want to talk about how I made that income (or didn't).

If you're a blogger, I implore you to think about your content strategy and make changes.

Your audience doesn't want to know how much you know. They want to see what you do with what you know.

They don't want to see the "expert" you — they want to see the "practitioner" you.