So many lessons, (in) so little time

And by that I don’t mean I have a heavy class load this semester (though it’s certainly going to feel like that if I keep procrastinating with these new-fangled social media tools…)

What I really mean is that in only a week of blogging, I’ve already learned some valuable things. They’re probably all very obvious to anyone who’s been blogging for more than seven days (and may well have been said elsewhere before), but I thought I’d share some of them anyway in the hope of being useful to the #NYUSM1 crew (and to myself in the future).

Here goes:

• Don’t be scared – This is a really obvious one, but worth mentioning again anyway, I think. I was (and still am) pretty scared of the whole “your thoughts are out there forever, you’d better sound clever” thing. Reassuringly, it seems I wasn’t alone in this, and already I’m feeling better about it. Being afraid of what your readers will think can make you sound stilted and weird (I have a feeling my post last week might be an example here), and so makes your writing much less interesting and credible. Plus, if you’re constantly worrying about sounding clever, you’ll probably come across as full of it, so best to avoid.

• Be yourself. Really. – Some of the best blogs I’ve read this week have all sounded like real people talking about things they’re interested in (how very Cluetrain), rather than ‘experts’ trying to advance their careers [Update: the self-proclaimed experts I refer to here aren't my classmates, all of whose blogs I enjoyed, but a tiresome few of the many other social media / PR bloggers I checked out this week]. Don’t be afraid of putting your opinions out there and saying what you mean (within reason). For me at least, sounding like an intelligent, inquisitive person is a much better advert for you than sounding like every other PR blogger and saying things you feel you ought to to ‘enhance your personal brand.’ I’m still struggling with this one (mainly because who I am is a difficult mix of irreverent and shouty…), but hopefully I’m getting there.

• Add ‘subscribe’ widgets – At first I decided not to add a subscription widget here, for fear (there it is again) of looking presumptuous, as though I was assuming what I was saying was interesting enough for people to want to subscribe to. But having had to manually copy-paste lots of my classmates’ blogs into Google Reader this week (surely there’s an easier way?), I realize a ‘subscribe’ widget isn’t pretentious at all; it’s just useful.

Told you they were obvious, didn’t I? But something else I’ve learned (or remembered) this week is that…

• Learning by doing is much more valuable than learning by reading – If I hadn’t started this blog, these lessons (if you can really call them that) would just be another list I could agree with and recite, but that wouldn’t actually mean much. ‘Doing’ blogging is a much better learning experience than reading about blogging, so I’d recommend anyone who might have to write a blog for a client at some point in the future (which is basically every PR person) to start blogging, fast. (But please, blog about something interesting, not just the latest from the echo chamber.)

Any other lessons, obvious or not, that you’d like to share? Or do you disagree with mine? Or think this whole post is a waste of time because people have to learn for themselves? Thoughts, please!