Pros & Cons of Being A Confident Blogger
To a point, confidence, even a bit of conceit is a useful tool for bloggers for hire. It can also sabotage your blog. There’s a balance when it comes to confidence and blogging. It can be beneficial for you to find that balance in yourself.
Pros of being a confident blogger:
It can help you land jobs. Clients want to hire bloggers who spout confidently about the blog topic at hand. You telling a potential client, “I might be able to do a decent job writing about auto mechanics,” is not good enough. In my former writing life I wrote a lot of work and college resumes for folks. I saw people play down skills often because they didn’t want to sound cocky. Super cocky and confident are different. If you’ve got the skills to write about a topic don’t hide behind modesty during the application and interview process.
It can help you set proper pay rates: Confident bloggers ask for, and expect to get paid what they’re worth, or at the very least the going blog salary rate. Modest, unsure bloggers sometimes take lower wages because that’s what they feel they’re worth.
It can help you get over rejection: Actually it can help you to avoid rejection woes altogether. For example, at the right job I know I can bring in traffic, I’m confident in my specialty topics, and I know I’m a nice person to work with, so I tend to think if a client picks someone else; that’s their bad. Being confident helps me to almost entirely avoid rejection issues. I’ve been down exactly twice about a gig. Once for a query I sent to my favorite magazine on the planet (rejected but nicely, which only made it worse) and another time for a blog gig with super questionable hiring practices so the process pissed me off. Being upset about rejection twice isn’t bad. However, if you get upset every time you apply for and don’t get a gig, you’re going to spend a lot of time upset. Confident bloggers know another gig is around the corner and get on with it.
It allows you to say no: Along with avoiding rejection, confidence can help you learn to reject when necessary. I used to have issues saying no to a writing or blogging gig. Even if I had no extra time for a new job, I made time. The market is unsteady, it could be my last chance! Not true. With time, confidence in the blogging world as a whole allows you to see that no job is the last job. My stress is lower now that I feel fine turning down jobs.
It can make your blog better: When you’re confident about a topic your posts will sound confident. You’ll be more likely to make bold statements that draw comments, and have the ability to interact well with readers. Wishy washy blogs are dull to read and leave no reason for anyone to comment. If you’re confident in your blog topic say so, don’t do a lot of “Maybe this is the way it is” posts. Say how it is. If you signed on for a topic you’re not confident about, I’d say you should get some research going so you can learn confidence in your topic.
Cons of being a too confident blogger:
It might lose you a job: I’m not above telling a client that their blog has a negative issue that I can help remedy with so and so solution, but I don’t tell clients that their blogs or job postings suck. Even when I want to. Be confident, but not so much that you lose basic client – employee manners.
It can make you forget that this is an unsteady job market: You might feel like the best blogger you know, have lots of steady work, and receive a nice paycheck each month, but blogging is an unsteady career. Your blog could get earmarked as a baddie by Google for no apparent reason, your one super high paying client could jump ship, your company may go semi-bust and still offer work, but at a lower wage. A lot can happen. It’s smart to be confident and comfortable in your work, but not overly comfortable. I always have a few alternate gig ideas in the back of my head.
It can make you ignore your blog duties: I have this one blog that I really like. It’s one of those blogs that’s a steady grower. I worked really hard at it in order to get some nice traffic going, and now it just keeps on growing traffic wise no matter if I post twice a day or just five times a week. That said I’m pretty confident in it’s ability right now. I’m also not working at it as hard – mistake. I should continue to give it the same careful attention as I have in the past. Actually, this is something I just realized this week, so I thought I’d bring it up. No matter how successful your blog is becoming, you should still post often, still respond to comments, and still network.
It can make you obnoxious: I’m what I would call a confident blogger about 90% of the time. We all get down, myself included, but mostly I love what I do, and think I’m good at it. That said, it’s not like I got here all on my own. When I was a new writer lots of people offered me advice. In fact, I still get advice from others, and I think I should pay it forward. When new bloggers email me with a question, I try my best to help if time allows, somtimes even if time doesn’t allow. I’ve read posts where experienced bloggers do refer to newbie bloggers as a negative issue, people not to bother with because all they want is advice, but can offer nothing in return. That’s really not cool and in my opinion completely obnoxious. Everyone was new once. Plus just because someone is a new blogger doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from them. Don’t let confidence or success make you forget that you were new once too.
What are some other pros and cons of being a confident / too confident blogger?
