To Blog or Not to Blog?

This is a topic that I’ve touched on before, but it is worth mentioning again, because it is one of the things most commonly asked of me by those who are just getting started in voiceover.  Looking for a good way to gain some exposure and market themselves, they wonder if blogging is the answer.

While it isn’t going to be enough on its own, handled correctly, a blog can be a tremendously effective tool for a voiceover artist.  I’ve made that claim here before.  However, this won’t be a good fit for everyone, and I try to be very honest about this.  In truth, I suppose a blog could work against a voiceover professional if not managed properly.  Here are a few signs that blogging may not be a good idea for you:

❖    You Are Bad with Commitment As I mentioned above, blogging is a great marketing tool.  When a regularly maintained blog is combined with several other marketing tools, a voiceover professional can build a strong following relatively quickly, while boosting the SEO of his or her website.  However, all of this depends on your willingness to devote time to the blog.  So, if you know you have a tendency to fail to follow through with things, and are apt to stop what you have started, a blog is probably not the best tool for you.  It may actually harm your reputation, if potential clients find just a few out-of-date posts on your blog. 

❖    You Are Not a Strong Writer Another thing that could damage your professional reputation is poor use of grammar or spelling.  A voiceover artist is supposed to have command over the language.  The potential client isn’t going to believe that you are capable of doing so, if they find numerous grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in each blog post.  There is, of course, the option of hiring an assistant, an editor, or a ghost writer to clean up your posts.  So, if you don’t feel that you are a strong writer, but do feel that you have something worth saying, consider those options.

❖    You Can’t Define the Audience You Would Be Writing For  Originally, blogs were seen as a sort of online diary and that’s how many people treated them.  However, when being used for marketing purposes, there should be a clear underlying theme that links all of the posts together.  This also means that, if you hope to build a following, you'd better know exactly who is most apt to read posts on that theme.  If you can’t define your audience or find a topic on which you are happy to write at least once each week, then blogging likely isn’t a great fit.