The caution that marks our speech must also mark our texting, our emailing, our commenting, our blogging, & our tweeting. @Challies #socialmedia.
If you have been following my blog you would have hopefully picked up by now that I am a big advocate for thinking through what we post online. I am passionate about seeing my generation, myself included, grow in wisdom in the use of our tongue on social media. Though it was not until more recently that I started to apply those same principles to blogging. I have observed many bloggers out there that see the platform as a means to communicate every thought that rolls through their brains. Blogs actually make way more room for this then the 140 characters allowed in a Tweet. Though if you believe, like I do, that 140 characters is a risky medium how about 400 words? Seeing this topic is one I commonly write about I thought I would stick to simply sharing a few practices I have found helpful in blogging. I also desire your input so please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below.
Have a trusted friend or colleague look over what you have written. Make sure they are someone who will not be afraid to be brutally honest with you. It also helps if that person has some sort of expertise or wisdom in the topic you are writing about. This process will help you understand how someone may interpret your post. In the end your message is only valuable if understood and applied by those reading it.
I do this with all my blog posts. Including this very post. So much of our writing can come out of a moment of passion. Maybe some grand revelation or a frustration. While some of these thoughts can be good, it always helps me when I let my post sit for a few days. Then hopefully when I come back to it I can catch errors I never saw before or remove parts that in the end were not really that important. This is holding your blogging tongue.
Most of what I write never sees the light of day. That's because not everything I write is good. Surprising right? Some of them don't make it past my accountability person. While others fall down after being left for a few days. I do this because I care about the message I am sending and about those receiving it. Often I look back on my posts and realize they were more of a rant about someone or something I found frustrating. I never want my message to be motivated by that. I only blog because I love helping people. I don't gain anything from you reading this. This is simply because I care about you.