Personal versus Professional Stories. What’s Your Comfort Zone?

September 30, 2015 / in Blogging / by Jason Terry

Post author: Jason Terry

As you tell stories through blogging, you’ll find yourself thinking about the topics or types of stories you should be sharing. I like to call these topics content buckets.

These buckets might include staff profiles, client success stories, community involvement, project updates, company awards and more. You can use these buckets in a rotation every month, and it will help you answer the question, “What should I write about this week?” by giving you topics to focus on.

The next thing you should think about is how comfortable you are sharing personal stories versus keeping things entirely professional.

If you’re creating a personal blog, whatever you decide is the right answer. If your company is blogging, it can turn into a passionate discussion. Some people are comfortable sharing everything. Others don’t want to see anything too personal being shared.

In most situations, we recommend being as personal as you can, because personal stories typically have the most impact.

People are connected to you or your company for many reasons. They like you. They like your products. Your service takes something off their plate that lets them focus on more important things. The list goes on and on as to why, but many times those reasons boil down to relationships between people.

I believe that our success depends on the relationships we have with people and our investment in those people. It’s true whether you’re a sole proprietor or part of a company with hundreds of employees.

Don’t believe me?

If you aren’t convinced yet, it’s time for some real world research. What are your friends, peers, and competitors talking about? Go to their websites and look at their blog posts.

Here are a couple of recent examples from my network:

• Jason Moxness, Director of SBA lending for Alterra Bank, wrote about a church sermon and his peer advisory group. He specifically mentions Kaw Prairie Community Church and the names of the people in his group. (Yes, I’m one of them.)
• Parker Young, COO at Straub Construction, wrote about a company outing to BBQ and Boozin at the Culinary Center of Kansas City. It’s an example of a great team of people spending time together outside of work. It’s not a surprise that Straub Construction has received “Best Places to Work” awards from the Greater Kansas City Chamber.

I’m not saying all of your stories need to be deeply personal and intimate. All I ask is that you take a look at the last five to ten blog posts you’ve shared. If none of them are personal, you’re missing a great opportunity to move people and help them remember their great relationship with you!