The blog network Gothamist.com is one of the top local blogs in New York City, with around 9 million pageviews each month. It began in 2003, before the rise of Facebook, Twitter, and the Huffington Post, and grew thanks to the enthusiasm of its bloggers and word of mouth. When I spoke with Jake Dobkin for Yeah New York about what made his blog successful, one key point he made was that staying authentic has always been a key principle in writing every post on Gothamist.
I was reminded and deeply reflected on this significant element of blogging success when I saw Basketball Diaries last Sunday. A film featuring a young Leonardo di Caprio as Jim Carroll, a teen athlete and a gifted writer who was addicted to heroine, eventually pimping himself in the streets of New York to support his destructive habit. That Jim Carroll soon became a famous writer and novelist whose works will forever be adored for it’s sincerity and depth.
The film’s words makes as much an impact as it’s motion pictures, for reasons that every blogger can benefit from. Here’s a few that a beginning or even an experience blogger can take away from Basketball Diaries.
1. Speaking from an “I” perspective is not illegal
As Leonardo DiCaprio (who plays Jim Carroll), narrates his story, he conveys it from a first-person perspective. He owns the story and describes it like it is. His goal was to share his life, not teach, preach or linguistically proselytize the person listening to him. He was just being himself, telling you a story just like it is.
The most powerful posts I’ve read has come from people who blogged from the gut, spilling beans about their life in an artful way that is painted with “authentic,” “real-life,” “natural,” and “tangible” in every sense of the word. Although not be abused, speaking from your own voice, in it’s most real-self reminds your readers that the words they are reading is from a human being who cares about what he/she writes.
2. Being intense is okay
The emotional gravity portrayed in the movie was extremely real. It’s as if your steps away from the heroine addict taking his dosage or eavesdropping from a conversation of troubled teens wondering which drug is a downer.
Being intense and slightly over-the-top in blog posts is fine. Sometimes, it’s okay to over-do it. You don’t need to be too tight or too technically correct or too rigid and structured when writing a blog post, it’s not a problem if you write what you feel, with the depth of that feeling. As long as you keep it professional, on course with your topic and in line with your objectives, being deep and heavy can be seen as being true to your message.
3. Use powerful imagery to convey your message
My favorite podcast on grammar and writing talked about the importance of showing and not telling when it comes to writing. It discussed that instead of stating something as a matter of fact, one should try to deliver a message with as vivid an imagery as possible, sparking the imagination and provoking readers to think about what they’re reading. It’s more powerful when you deliver a message with a picture instead of narrating a fact alone.
The narrated words of Basketball Diaries accomplished this by using images to describe a broken life. The result is a message more clearly received, with the reader’s mind provoke to think.
Engagement is at the core of every bloggers’ objective, but it’s not only in the comments section that such practice could need to begin. It can start from the essence of your post, where you touch your readers’ heart through the power of your written words.