by Tope Olofin

You may not be a great writer, but the ability to get your message across to your audience is the key. Mean what you write and write what you mean.

Human beings are creatures of pattern. Without it, we will live in a world of chaos and total anarchy. Like we don’t already have that, still it works, whether applied in the negative or in the positive. I got thinking about all the successful bloggers in our community, the likes of Linda Ikeji, Omojuwa, Olori Supergal and so on. I noticed certain patterns which all of them posses and it is not attributed to their place of birth, the colour of their skin or the clothes they wear, rather it has to do with the state of mind and other factors that can be acquired. Catching my drift? If you want to be effective in blogging, then I suggest you read the next couple of lines.effective in blogging, then I suggest you read the next couple of lines.

What do you want: Do you want to go into fashion or entertainment or politics? Study all the successful Nigerian bloggers. You’ll discover they have chosen audiences that they write for. For example, Linda Ikeji is entertainment, while Omojuwa is politics. How will you learn how to write if you dont know who you are to or for? Be specific, chose a target audience and then you can begin to write.

Be prolific or not?: I read a couple of places where it is said that you have to be prolific, in other words, you have to be a good writer. I am tempted to say this is not entirely true. You may not be a great writer, but the ability to get your message across to your audience is the key. Mean what you write and write what you mean. Take Linda for example, heck the lady writes in pidgin sometimes, and her message is passed. So develop the art of being understood by your audience, it’s that simple. The catch here is, the more you write, the better you become. While you are at it, make sure you are yourself. Again Linda Ikeji invented her own set of rules. Who says you can’t write in pidgin? Successful bloggers are self starters. They spell out their own rules and leave room for others to follow. And heck if you can’t type it, there is always the option of video blogging. Jump in front of the camera and just spit it out!

Consistency is the name of the game: This should have been the first point. As the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and “you have got to learn to do something poorly until you learn to do it well”. “Practice makes perfect”. I can go on and on with all the quotes. All the successful Nigerian bloggers didn’t just hit greatness by accident. it was done one day at a time. In Linda’s story about her journey to success, she said it took her about 4 years before she actually started making money from her blog. I am not saying you have to wait 4 years, but you need to give it time. Giving it time means investing and expanding your knowledge about blogging. How are you going to develop if you aren’t creative and daring enough to try out new things? Try it out by writing a post every day for the next 1 month. Creativity is in you, I bet you after the first 4 or 5 post, you will have the knack to try something new. Keep at it and watch the depth of your creativity emerge. Don’t forget consistency comes with a lot of self discipline and accountability.

Take Advantage of Current Trends: Successful entrepreneurs are known to make a mark in the market, because they study trends and based on that, they provide goods and services that makes them a fortune. A very good example is the “Oga at the top” craze that swept over Nigeria in the past month. Entrepreneurs cashed in on the trend by creating T-shirts, some even created music tracks. The same goes for Successful bloggers. Some may differ with me on this, attributing it to the fact that it is cheap trick, well they can like to put a sock in it. If leveraging on current trends helps get you more traffic to your blog, oh boy, you better take advantage of it. The word here is working “smart“. Many times hard work doesn’t cut it! It is no secret that all search engines thrives on how best you optimize keywords in whatever content you create.

Mental attitude: The only way you can get to the top is this. In your mind you must see yourself there. If getting to top isn’t a dream, you have nurtured until it became a vision, then please don’t even start. If you are going to run at the first mention on you exchanging money for value that can upgrade your blog, then don’t even venture into it. All successful Nigerian bloggers are able to maintain that status because they don’t recoil at first sight of a challenge, be it financial, monetary or time bound. Is it a wonder that so few get to the top? Need I say more?

That’s is for now and like all successful bloggers with thick skin, be open to criticism. Let me know if this rant makes sense. Till then, I remain yours truly.

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Tope Olofin loves to rant. She is a boisterous and hilarious English graduate from the University of Lagos. She believes life’s experiences are priceless and the best way to capture it is by writing. She blogs atwww.toperants.com and tweets @toperants

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.