I wrote this blog post in 2008. I’m glad to say that 8 years later I’ve gotten the hang of blogs, I’ve written hundreds of posts, I’ve turned some of the posts into several books… So… even though this post represents how I felt in 2008, I can report that boomers can blog.
I actually have two blogging coaches and one twitter coach. I’m trying to get the hang of this blog thing. I really am. It’s a slow road. I’m a baby boomer and I just don’t think we boomers are good at this blog/twitter/viral marketing thing. But I’m trying.
One of my blogging coaches says that top ten lists are good. That people like to read top ten lists in blogs. And my twitter coach, well, I haven’t even begun to figure out what she is trying to tell me to do with twittering. I might be able to master blogging one day, but I’m not sure at all that I’ll ever be a master twitterer.
So here is my top 10 list of things that prevent boomers from easily blogging or twittering:
#1 — we have a really hard time saying things concisely. In a blog we have only a few paragraphs to say something pithy. That’s not enough for us. We tend to ramble. And twittering gives us only a few words! It’s daunting!
#2 — we feel that if we say something it has to be really profound. We’ve got an ego the size of an elephant.
#3 — we are acutely aware of the fact that most people that are possibly going to read the blog or the twitter message are NOT boomers, and we fear that we have nothing to say that younger generations are remotely interested in.
#4 — we are awed by the internet. To publish something on the internet is a BIG THING to us.
#5 — we think that blogs are like columns in newspapers and we have the old-fashioned idea that it is journalists and writers that write columns. We don’t think of blogging as a job.
#6 — we don’t understand any of the twitter messages we get from others, so we can’t imagine sending a message like that out to anyone else.
#7 — we are afraid that we will write a blog and no one will post a response. It’s like checking your mail box and no one sent you any letters…
#8 — we’re afraid of using outdated and anachronistic examples like #7 above. I should have said “it’s like checking your inbox and no one sent you any emails…”
#9 — we’re afraid that people will actually read our blogs and then we will have to defend them.
#10 — we’re afraid that we’ll obsessively go back and read our own blogs and twitter messages and realize how dumb we sound.
Oh well, time to go twitter about my blog (?)
Thats so true, each and every point reminds me of something that I daily feel when people around me try to ask me about blogging, and self branding through blogs.