2. First Person vs Third Person
While there is definitely a place for third person writing in blogging – I know that I am much more drawn bloggers who place themselves inside their posts by writing in the first person. Don’t just report on the facts – let yourself engage in them and talk about how they impact you, what you feel about them, how you discovered them and how you’ll respond to them and you will find your readers respond in a similar way.
For example – next time a story like ‘Google buys YouTube’ breaks, rather than just reporting on the sale and talking about the details of the deal (like thousands of other bloggers), tell your readers how the sale could impact you (and as a result them), talk about your own feelings about the deal etc.
3. Using ‘You’ to create a more personal Blog
In a similar way that using ‘I’ language adds a personal touch to a blog – using ‘you’ language can also draw your reader into your blogging.
Brian from Copyblogger has a great post on the importance of ‘you’ in your copywriting which says it better than I could.
“When it comes to writing engaging content, “you” is the most powerful word in the English language, because people are ultimately interested in fulfilling their own needs. It may sound harsh, but the fact is your readers won’t start to actually care about you at all until you’ve repeatedly offered them exceptional value with your blog.”
When you start using ‘you’ in your blogging and you immediately force readers to consider how what you write impacts them. This means your writing leaves the realm of ‘theory’ and becomes personal.
