How to Use Your Personality to Make Memorable Blog Posts

You’re awesome.

It’s that awesomeness that people want to read in your blog posts. This is what makes them so memorable. You don’t need to be a walking thesaurus who always makes a smooth transition and creates a perfect headline to make an impact with your writing.

Your writing personality is your best trait. When you create content, this personality gives your words a certain nuance that burns into the memory of the reader. People will want to read it. Share it. Become part of your community.

Why? Because they see that you’re awesome. They see that your content can make them awesome. It’s a win/win situation for everyone.

Here’s how you can start using your personality to make memorable blog posts starting right now.

#1. Embrace your writing voice.

If you read the average blog post you’ll find today, it feels like it came out of a 10th grade composition class. Much of the advice for writing content today comes from this perspective. You’ve likely encountered some of this advice already.

“You must always write with perfect grammar and spelling.”
“You must remember the proper tense of your words and avoid typos.”
“You must never, ever dangle your participle.”

It is more important to follow your writing voice than it is to follow all of the rules. It’s definitely more important than trying to write with a false personality.

You must find your writing voice. Then you must shape it. This takes time, effort, and probably a few bags of potato chips so you have the energy to keep going. Over time, you’ll find that readers will crave your new blog posts – even if you dangle your participles in front of them.

#2. Have a real point of view.

You have a role in every conversation.

The only problem is that many writers don’t understand what their role happens to be. Are you trying to be a niche expert? Do you want to start a social conversation? Are you a senior executive who is trying to force the board into giving you the open CEO position?

Until you identify what your point of view happens to be, it is impossible for your blog posts to contain a meaningful opinion. A lack of POV means all you’re doing is reporting on facts. A bunch of facts is important if you’re teaching a 10th grade composition class.

It’s less important than having a meaningful perspective for your blog post. People read blogs for the individualized perspective. Readers want their own perspectives justified by your own – or challenged by them.

Plus, when you have a real point of view, it stops the accusations of you being a flip-flopper. You can’t be awesome and be a flip-flopper at the same time.

#3. Stick to your focus.

If this key point was about how to properly put ketchup on a hamburger, you’d probably be like – “What on Earth does that have to do with using your personality to make a memorable blog post?”

And you’d be right to question that fact. Ketchup application is important, but is must have importance within the proper context. We’re talking about infusing personality into your words. If you lose your focus while writing, then you create “Infusion Confusion” within the mind of the reader.

When Infusion Confusion strikes, questions begin to be asked. When questions are asked, your blog post is going to become highly scrutinized. Here’s one fact of life we can all agree upon: if you’re looking for something negative, you’re going to find it.

It might be a simple typo – like giving someone a “peace” of your mind. Those little problems add up to ruin your reputation as an experienced content provider in that reader’s mind. They might even talk about how unawesome you are to their friends.

You don’t want that. So stick to your focus. Have a clear topic for each blog post and stay away from tempting tangents. That way you’re remembered for how awesome you are instead of trying to relate ketchup application to writing concepts.

#4. Sometimes you’ve just got to break the rules.

“I try not to break the rules, but merely to test their elasticity.” – Bill Veeck

When you’re finding your personality for a blog post, it’s important to remember that you can break the rules sometimes. Or bend them at times. Stretch them out until they want to break if you wish.

You’ll find this happens a lot when it comes to grammar. That’s okay to do as long as the rule-bending is about showing off your personality. If your writing comes across as being an uneducated effort at pretending to be awesome, then your personality isn’t going to be respected.

Although every rule in writing can be bent, stretched, or broken at times, here are the 5 rules that have the most flexibility for personality infusion.

• The use of complete sentences. Using sentence fragments at times can reinforce a key point. Seriously. Just like this.
• The use of punctuation. We could debate for ages about the use of an Oxford comma. Let’s. Focus. On. Periods. Instead.
• The use of conjunctions. And this is why you can be awesome.
• The use of word fillers. Ever been in a conversation like this? “So the write way, like, to write a memorable blog post, you know, is to, um, try to be, uh, awesome, like all the time.” We use word fillers in daily conversation, which makes it appropriate to use them in your content. Like not as much in the example above though.
• The use of prepositions. This one is tricky. Many writers actually end sentences in prepositions and don’t realize they are doing it. In some ways, this “lazy sentence” has become acceptable. In other ways, it may be perceived as you lacking awesomeness as a writer. Maybe this is one to avoid using unless you’re grammatically correct otherwise.

Rules are in place for a reason. They let everyone be on the same page so there are fewer moments of misunderstanding. You can establish your personality by stretching out these rules somewhat, but these instances should be the exception instead of the norm to achieve the best possible results.

#5. Make people cry like a hungry baby.

What connects people to words is emotion.

When you’re writing a blog post, you must be thinking about how those who are reading it are going to feel as they consume your content. You must then target these emotions within the context of the post so that you can evoke the proper emotion.

Feeling something when reading a blog post is what makes awesomeness contagious. When you feel strongly about your blog post topic, those emotions will transfer over to the reader. They’ll begin to feel strongly about that topic. They’ll tell their friends, who will also begin to feel strongly about it.

Emotions also bring readers back to your blog to consume more content on a repetitive basis. This is because they enjoy feeling awesome and want to experience it some more.

You can encourage emotions through your writing personality by showing people how you feel about the subject matter being discussed. If you hate something, show it.

“Putting ketchup on a hamburger is like going to the dentist to have 10 teeth pulled. Mustard is the best way to go.”

If you love something, make sure you show that as well.

“I can’t eat a hamburger without putting ketchup on it. The tomato-y goodness melts with the meat grease and cheese to make a culinary experience beyond compare.”

This creates readers who will be “hot” and “cold.” Both will come back for more of what you have to say. Hot readers will agree. Cold readers will tell you that you’re stupid.

What you don’t want to be is lukewarm.

“I guess ketchup on a hamburger is okay. I like to eat them that way. I also like mustard. I could eat one plain if need be.”

Trying to please everyone is the wrong path to take. Everyone will see through your fence-sitting and label your personality as being less than awesome. So take a stand. Defend your position. People may disagree with you, but that should be fine.

After all – if we all thought and felt the same way, it’s a proven fact that everyone would eat a hamburger with double bacon, double cheese, and a gluten-free bun.

#6. Understand what your audience defines as “awesome.”

Back in the day, when high school was the only thing in the world to worry about, a teacher once mentioned that the best way to teach was to define what her students wanted.

“I think of myself like Milton Berle,” she said. “He told a bunch of jokes at the beginning of his routine to see how people would react. I do that at the start of the class to see what will hold my students’ interest the most for that period.”

You might not be a comedian. You might not be a teacher. You might just be some guy who eats potato chips, plays video games, and puts extra ketchup on his hamburger. That’s who you are.

You need to discover who your audience is.

When you’re able to get to know your audience, then you can adapt your writing personality to have the greatest possible effect in each blog post. But how can you figure out what your readership craves when you’re sitting behind a computer screen with a bag of chips sitting on your desk?

• Talk to people on social media, especially if you have a page or an account that is directly associated with your blog.
• Review the comments your blog is able to generate to see how people react to each blog post.
• Research blogs that offer similar content to your own to see what comments they generate if your blog doesn’t get many [or any] comments.
• Go offline and open up a book about the important stuff your blog themes should be covering and then cover them.

#7. Tell your story.

Being authentic will always be the first step toward awesomeness.

When you’re able to tell your own story, then those antidotes will automatically contain your personality. That’s why personal stories tend to make the most memorable blog posts.

If you don’t have a story to tell or you’ve told the same story about how you put ketchup on your burger 1,000 times and people are tired of hearing it, then get someone else to tell their story. Talk to people that you know about their experiences and then include those experiences in a blog post.

Don’t know anyone who meets your criteria of awesomeness? Then reach out to fellow bloggers, freelancers, crazy cat ladies – whomever you feel can put together content that will be on point for your blog. You can invite them to do a guest post or you can interview them over email and put their answers into a memorable blog post.

There’s always a way to tell a story. Sometimes you might have to find it in order to tell it, but the effort will always pay out with traffic dividends for your blog.

#8. Understand what it means to edify within your blog.

It is important to stay focused on the blog reader. It’s also important to make sure that you’re edifying your blog readers.

The definition of edify is this: to instruct or improve someone intellectually.

Edifying is often used in spiritual or religious terms, but there must also be a focus on this action verb when establishing your writing personality. The goal of your blog should be to have a reader come away feeling like they learned something from the experience.

There are a number of ways that you can work on edifying readers within your blog so that many of your blog posts become memorable.

• Focus on the needs of the reader. When your blog post is able to solve a specific problem for someone, then you’ve created value. Whether it’s a step-by-step instruction, a recipe, or a video that shows someone how to fix their car, meeting needs quickly and effectively will always boost your levels of awesomeness.
• Transform wants into needs. Readers might have a certain list of wants that they have. Like “I want a 55” 4K Ultra HD television.” When you can use your blog post to turn that want into a need, then you’ll have created something memorable.
• Make it personal. Most blogs are written in a second- or third-person writing voice. If you make it personal and shift to a first-person perspective [i.e. I want to have a 55” 4K Ultra HD television], you create a blog post that feels like a person-to-person dialogue instead of an instructional manual.

The bottom line here is this: when you put yourself into your words, then it becomes easier for people to connect with you on a personal level. This can only be done if you’re creating content for the reader. If you’re creating content to meet your own needs, then you’ve already lost.

#9. Give your blog posts a consistent level of structure.

A little variety is always a good thing. That is unless you happen to be a blogger. Then variety ends up bringing you criticisms like “you’re inconsistent.”

When you want to create memorable blog posts, it is important to first consider what type of content you’re comfortable creating. To be awesome, you want to stay within your comfort zone so that your personality can shine through. This means you’ll want to stick to what you do best – while throwing in a change here and there to keep people interested.

It’s okay to mix up your blog posts from time to time. This will allow you to format your content in a way that’s easy to consume. Yet you still need to be consistent as much as possible so that all of your content is presented in a uniform way.

How can you make sure you are varied, but still consistent with your blog structures?

• Publish on a regular schedule. Readers will want to know when fresh content is going to be available. You can have limited variety and still have a memorable blog when the new content is relatively predictable in arriving.
• You need to be human. Some bloggers try to shortcut the writing process by using spinners, spintax content, or cheap freelancers. It might offer fresh content, but who {reads|consumes|is interested} in {content|blog posts|writing} that is the same except for a few words here and there – especially when they can create grammatically incorrect sentences? You’re not writing for clicks. You’re writing for influence.
• Format your content so it is easy to read. Whether you’ve written a list post, a step-by-step post, or you went on an epic rant about why ketchup trumps mustard, consistent formatting will add familiarity to the post as the change in structure offers variety.

Structures must be consistent. If they are not, then readers will pay more attention to the structure of your blog than to your personality. That’s most definitely not how you’re going to want to be remembered.

#10. The images of your blog need to reflect your personality too.

So we’ve covered the many ways that you can be an awesome writer who creates memorable blog posts. Now it’s time to talk about how you can add awesome images to your content so your personality can be enhanced.

The image which is uploaded to a blog post will usually be the reason why it earns a click. The headline or title is also important, but humans are visual creatures. We process visual content first every time. This means if your image is not a reflection of the content you want people to read, your blog post will be forgettable instead of being memorable.

#11. Now commit to the changes you need to make.

Many people hate change. You might hate change. Not pocket change that can help you buy a candy bar, but the changes that are sometimes necessary to start crafting memorable blog posts.

Once you find your writing personality, it’s important that you stick to it. Be authentic. If you swear a lot, then swear in your blog posts. If you like to talk about random facts which involve Harley Quinn, then do that – as long as you keep your primary thesis consistent.

Your style really can be whatever you want it to be. You can write long-form content that has a dozen pictures in it and dominate your niche. You can also have a blog that has posts with no images, maybe three sentences of content, and call it good. That’s fine too – it’s your blog. That means you are ultimately the one who sets the rules for your personality.

There will be times when you might feel like a different personality would have a greater impact. If you feel that way, then you’re probably right. The problem is that many writers will change their personality because they think the change will generate more clicks.

Except many people hate change. You might hate change.

So if you hate change and decide to change your writing personality on a whim, what will be the foundational emotion of your blog post? Hate.

And if it feels like you hate to write what you’ve written, then a reader isn’t going to care about your content.

You are the best you that this world has ever seen. There is no other you who is exactly like you. That means you and your personality have a place in the blogging world.

By using your personality to make memorable blog posts, you can generate interest in your own brand of blogging. You can unleash what you do best on the world to offer your own definition of awesome. Whether it’s about ketchup, hungry babies, or a strange word like “edify,” readers will relate.

And when readers relate, your personality shines through. So go be awesome.

It’s what you do.