Today is the first of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge, as presented by Problogger.net, and I’m really excited to see how much better I can build my blog in the next month. Today’s assignment? Write an elevator pitch for my blog.
Doh! Is it a good or bad sign that I’m already stuck on my homework, and it’s merely the first day of class? Regardless of the answer, I’m going to hammer this thing out. My first method of attack is revisiting the Cynthia Heimel quote that was the impetus for this blog’s title:
When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.
Frankly, I think this is a great start to an elevator pitch because it sums up my blog quite well. Yes, I do tend to make a fool of myself. Yes, some of what I write is brilliantly creative. Yes, some of what I write makes me look like a gigantic idiot. My audience determines where the microscopically thin line falls. I try to leap once a day, or at least several times a week. And I enjoy a little profanity with my coffee.
Darren’s ideas for writing an elevator pitch suggest that my blog should have a niche (i.e. solve a problem, meet a need, ask a question, etc.), but what do I do when the niche is me? I call upon Akhila Kolisetty who wrote Forget All the Rules and Write What You Love today at BrazenCareerist.com:
Just write for the hell of it. Write whatever comes into your mind at that moment. Hit publish whenever you want, even if it’s 3am and no one’s “listening.” Write what you love, what you care about and are most passionate about. And most importantly, be yourself. Don’t confine yourself to a “niche” or a “brand.” If you’re itching to write about something outside your brand, just do it. Stop worrying what others will think of you. Because people want to learn about and debate the issues, but also they want to get to know you – who you really are. So if you’re not yourself, and if you’re not writing what you love, you’re definitely not going to enjoy blogging or make the most of it. And what’s the point of spending so much time and effort on something that you don’t genuinely love?
Truly, this is what I do on AFOM. It’s just that I love writing. Gloria Steinem said it best when she said, “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” Sometimes my love of writing manifests itself in loves for blogging or the latest movie or a good book or running or videos of kittens on YouTube, and my readers never know what they’re going to get. Regardless, writing is my cathardic out; it’s how I purge all-consuming musings, so I can make room for more thoughts. It’s how I make sense of myself and my world.
Here’s what I have so far:
Hi, I’m Sarah Jo. I write A Fool of Myself, a semi-personal blog that allows me to make a fool of myself on a semi-daily basis. Sometimes I’m brilliantly creative. Other times I’m a gigantic idiot. My readers determine where the microscopically thin line between the two falls. I write about what I love, and on any given day that can range from blogging to running, from good books to kittens.
I definitely like that I’ve used the foundation quote to shape the elevator pitch. I also like how I’ve given my readers the job of deciding where that thin line falls. I have an image of a Fool-of-Myself Meter at the bottom of each post that allows readers to rate the post as brilliantly creative or gigantic idiot. That would be hilarious.
Darren is correct, having this pitch written down gives me direction for my blog and will help me continue to shape it. I can already think of a few places I need to implement this pitch or some version of it. It’s definitely going to show up in this blog’s tagline and on the About page, and I’m thinking I’ll change the pure-genious category to brilliantly-creative and the w00t category to gigantic-idiot because that’s sort of how they’re already functioning. Thoughts anyone?
