6 Easy Places to Start Blogging Now (Even if You Don’t Have a Website)
Have you been wanting to share content, but seem to keep coming up with excuses? Maybe you even have a stash of nearly finished posts but you never finish them because your biggest problem is… you don’t have a blog or a website where you can place these treasures, so why bother?
Several people have asked me about this lately, and I just went through it myself. I have a Wordpress site, but I can be very spontaneous (my project manager has a nastier word for this) and honestly, I didn’t have the time or desire to putz around with putting a blog on there. At least not for this moment. I also have a very bad habit of wanting to do things myself (Sigh).
Not having a website, however, is no excuse to hoard your content all to your safe self or not write it at all. Au contraire, you have a number of options (that I’m giving you below), and with many of these options it’s quite possible that your content reaches more viewers than if you posted it on a newly created website of your own.
I am not saying DON’T have your own website or blog. I actually just got off a call with a web developer who gave me all the reasons it IS a good idea to have one, and I’ll share that in much more detail another time, but let’s not get left brained out for now. Just be aware that it takes a lot of work to keep a site functioning as it should while also driving traffic to it.
So if you’re not in a place where you can create a website yet, or if you don’t ever want to create one, you can still share your genius with people by creating and sharing great content.
This article is intended to stop the procrastination, confusion, or overwhelm you feel when it comes to the idea of blogging. But first, take that idea down from the very high reach you’ve placed it and see what it feels like to hold it in the palm of you hand for a while.
A quick word to the non-believers: I stand by the fact that content is the best and most authentic way to get your message out there. But this does not mean you have to WRITE. Video is the best way to create awareness and expand your brand, so post videos with a small blurb if that’s your thing. Or are you a talker, and find yourself in lengthly self-conversations in the car? Podcasting may be your thing. There are so many ways to put content out there but for this post, I’d like to help you find a platform where you can share your voice and vision… any which way you choose.
I’ve done a fair amount of exploring in these spaces, and there are certainly more opportunities that what I’m laying out here, but I’m focusing on what I know from experience.
Whether it’s in the form of articles, videos, photos, journal entries…
Here are 6 easy ways to start a blog right now. As in really… today, tonight, this moment:
(And I’m betting there’s something here for everyone)
MEDIUM
This is a great platform to get your writing somewhere, grow your brand, have a link to send your followers to, and get you into the habit of publishing your content. And it’s super easy to use. You just create an account.
There are many good things about Medium. My three favorite are: It’s free, easy to use, and a great platform to grow awareness about you and your business. It’s also what I call a very democratic space. No I’m not talking politics here. What I mean is that it is a “for the people” space, and I do have a soft spot for that. (If you want a great “for the people” space, check out my private Facebook group, Marketing for the People. It’s a growing group of conscious business owners who want to learn about online marketing without the BS, creating an authentic brand, and creating smart content that attracts your people. See how I did that? :) )
If you choose to use Medium, simply share the link to your article on your social media platforms to start the flow. You’ll also find that people you don’t know begin to highlight a few lines of your content (which is a cool, easy functionality on Medium), or they start following you. This is why it’s a good first step to getting discovered.
You don’t need a domain name. For the newbies, a domain name is an original space where your website, blog or any unique content can live — for example, my domain is www.IndigaMedia.Com. You don’t actually need that if you’re going to roll with Medium. And you can easily connect Medium to your Facebook and Twitter pages.
Ideally, getting to the point where you use Medium as a secondary content platform is what I’d recommend. Meaning you will end up with a few places that you’re posting your content, not just your own blog.
The big challenge on Medium has been to find ways to bring people back to you (aka, convert them as subscribers). This makes your calls to action essential… But that’s marketing, people! AND I just figured something out (yes, as I was writing this post). There is a way around this. There is now a way to add a sign-up form and embed it in your Medium post. Check out Upscribe. Tah Dah! You can do it free and if it’s working for you, then go ahead and spend the $20/month to customize it a bit more. Whether it works, is to be seen, but I’m testing it out right now!
Download the Blogging Platform Cheat Sheet where I’ve included Medium pros, cons, and how-to’s.
FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATES
These days I am wondering if we need a blog at all. If you know your audience is on Facebook, then something to consider is posting your content directly to your Facebook page.
It’s unconventional way, but something I believe worth testing is to simply write your article directly onto your status update. Yes, not kidding. I’ve seen it done and done well.
But there is a thing here that is a big potential downfall….
If you are just getting started and don’t have a huge following, this could fall flat. At the end of the day, whether you’re posting the article directly onto Facebook or if you’re sharing a link to your content within a regular Facebook post, you still need to give it a little love by running ads on it (at least giving it a boost).
This also works well if you have content that you just want to spout out without thinking too much, which I’m all for. So often we hold onto great ideas and things that would benefit our followers only because we feel we have to make this long, drawn out post (Ahem, yeah — I’m guilty).
Some people who I follow that do this really well are Elizabeth Gilbert, Glennon Doyle, and The Angry Therapist. Here’s a sample post from John Kim (The Angry Therapist), which is a regular practice for him and a way in which he has built a large, very engaged audience on his Facebook page. (Note the number of reactions!)
FACEBOOK NOTES
Also in Facebook but more refined than a status update, is making use of Facebook Notes. This is a tab on your business page that you can put to use, and it’s come a long way in that the design it offers is pretty decent.
Here’s a sample of one of my posts when I gave it a shot here:
Not too shabby, really. It looks and works a lot like Medium and LinkedIn Publisher.
What I like about this is that if your audience is on Facebook, this keeps them there, making it easier for them. You always want to make it easy for your reader to access your content. Plus, since this lives natively on the platform, the Facebook Gods give it more love and reach… supposedly. You can share easily, and people can comment right there below the note. Kind of a tidy little package.
I also like that Facebook and Google are good friends, so if you’re posting smartly and consistently here, it’s getting picked up by Google, and that is one of the ways you can be building your business.
This is really a way of using Facebook as a one-stop-shop and almost as your website. Which is controversial, but I believe is totally okay, especially if you’re in start up. Remember, though, you do release control when you are using a platform you don’t own, so I would make sure to keep all your articles safe and sound on Google Drive where you can access them when you need.
This is a beautifully growing space, and has been for a while. But here’s what I know first hand, I’m a forty-something year old woman and it seems that my Facebook friends are flocking to Instagram because they are fed up with some of the exhaustion and negativity that Facebook can bring. So, this is no longer just a millennial space at all.
Here, however, you can’t really go full on blog post style. What you can do, however is microblogging. Which really just means posting short bits of information, posting it often, and posting it on a social platform. Yes, you can do this on Twitter as well, but I’m not including that one here because I don’t do much with Twitter and I’m liking the Instagram trend.
This gives you the ability to post things like recipes, tips, how to’s, even short tutorials. Basically it’s the same as how you can do longer Facebook status updates. The difference? The image takes center stage and your audience has to be on Instagram.
This is very much a creative space. If you love hashtags and coming up with fun twisty themes and names, you can get a lot out of this.
Here are a few samples:
Danielle Laporte
Mel Robbins
And go ahead and use video for a punch here. This means you can do a quick video, much like Facebook Live, add a blurb, and you have just accomplished like 10 things. Click below and hit the play button and get a dose of Gary Vee…
One of the best things about this is that Facebook owns Instagram. This means they make sharing between these two platforms so easy. A smart move is to post to Instagram and you get the option to post to Facebook and other social networks all at the same time. Job done.
Seems simple, but also remember, there’s much strategy behind all this, so it’s not just about putting content out there. Each piece of content you put out there has more possibility than you can likely imagine.
If you do it right, Instagram it is brilliant, and you can get followers, opt ins, and really grow in a cool way.
Download the Blogging Platform Cheat Sheet where I’ve included Instagram pros, cons, and how-to’s.
SQUARESPACE
Okay, I admit I get easily distracted… and easily bored. But I really liked a blog I was reading last week, and I asked my Project Manager to figure out what theme they were using — I automatically figured it was Wordpress. I was surprised to learn it was Squarespace. And it was just beautiful.
First off, Squarespace is a website building platform that is much easier for “regular,” non-techy people.
And I’m in the midst of “playing” with it right now. So I’ll share what I’m seeing.
I love words, clean design, and beauty, but functionality is a of the utmost importance here so big note to self is not to ignore that. So far, I’m liking what I see.
You can set up a whole website on Squarespace, but you can also start small with a blog. That’s one of the things I like about it. Right now I’m starting by setting up a blog and will be linking that from my Wordpress site. But I’m fighting the urge to go completely to this platform. (Check back, because I’ll be interviewing a brilliant web developer friend and colleague and I’m sure she’ll have a lot to say about this.)
But fair warning, I’m going to say this isn’t something you can do right now and go live. So think before you leap here, and make a plan to rolling it out.
Download the Blogging Platform Cheat Sheet where I’ve included Squarespace pros, cons, and how-to’s.
LinkedIn has a great publishing platform, but I do find the space itself quite limiting. And, as all of these, it really depends on your audience and what you do. For some people, especially speakers and those who have a professional and/or corporate audience, LinkedIn is a good idea. If anything, I always say to use LinkedIn as a secondary platform.
Publishing here is great if you’re audience consists of professionals and corporations, or organizations that will hire you for workshops or speaking. This platform can truly position you as an authority and give you credibility.
And if you write a great article that makes it to LinkedIn Pulse, your views multiply like crazy because you now have viral content. To get that to happen, it usually takes a great title and image.
Here’s one of my clients blog posts that we placed on LinkedIn — and because it made it to LinkedIn Pulse, it got 2,929 views (compared to her norm of 129–175):
Look at how this number of views impacted the likes and comments. She also got 740 likes and 44 comments. This served to position her as an expert executive coach, gives her exposure, and helps her to bring on new corporate clients, as well as getting booked for speaking gigs.
Download the Blogging Platform Cheat Sheet where I’ve included LinkedIn pros, cons, and how-to’s.
So here’s what to do now before your writing mojo escapes you:
- Download the Blogging Platform Cheat Sheet I made you with the pros, cons, and how-to’s for each of these platforms.
- Read through it.
- Choose one or two that feel right for you and explore them for a few minutes.
- Schedule a chunk of time to set things up on your new space — make it fun!
- Write it and post it there.
