My objective with this post is to share my experiences with those of you who are considering posting and haven’t yet. Hopefully you’ll find value in my experiences getting over my fear of publishing.

Although I’m heavily invested in digital business development and digital marketing, I wouldn’t consider myself an expert. There’s so much change and so much to know. However, I do consider myself an “expert” in procrastinating in not setting up a blog or publishing on LinkedIn Publisher. I have listed all of the reasons behind my fear and how I overcame each obstacle, allowing me to finally write my first post on LinkedIn Publisher.

1. Procrastination and Fear – “Read A Lot and Write A Lot”

I’ve procrastinated publishing on LinkedIn Publisher since it was introduced back in early 2014 – almost three years ago. Sure, I have posted more than my fair share of updates on LinkedIn and other social platforms, but on LinkedIn Publisher… yikes… I don’t even have a blog.

My intent was sincere, but I always found an excuse to not take that next step and get down to writing. My justification was that I wasn’t sure what to write or who to write for, and which voice to publish in. At the time, I was in a contract role that was continually being redefined. The other reason was that I wasn’t confident that I had anything compelling or different to say other than what my peers or the marketing industry were already writing about.

My writing was usually focused on business proposals, internal business communications, and responding to Request for Proposals (RFP) or Request for Information (RFI) for clients or future clients. I had very little focus on external writing.

“Read a Lot and Write a Lot”

Early in my technology career, I was fortunate to sell to a popular author of horror novels. He was actually my first computer system sale. He and his wife invited me to their home to set the system up, which I did, and we enjoyed a nice dinner together afterwards. We fostered a friendship from that point, and I remember him telling me about a discussion he had with Stephen King. He told me that Stephen said writing all comes down to “reading a lot and writing a lot.”

How did I get over this fear? To be honest, I haven’t. It’s still a concern…but my first step? I just started writing to get past that fear, and I asked for help. I have resources available that could help me edit and condense my writing. I can get verbose, but I knew that already.

My first few go-rounds at writing this post, although edited and ready to be published, weren’t. I just didn’t feel they were on-target or strategic, but I gained experience writing them and my confidence increased. Plus, those first pieces of content still have value for future posts.

2. Confidence and Imposter Syndrome – “You Know More Than You Give Yourself Credit For”

After seven plus years in the digital sector, I was reading and learning non-stop. I was (still am) an Amazon book junkie. I was regularly attending digital marketing and marketing technology conferences, continually taking online courses from leading digital marketing authorities, in addition to pursuing on-site certifications from leading educational and Ivy league institutions. I was growing and expanding my knowledge and gaining credentials within the digital sector… yet I couldn’t muster the confidence to start writing… Why? Even with this knowledge and my experience of 25 plus years of business development and over 7 years in the digital sector, I couldn’t get past that fear.

My industry peers and colleagues encouraged me to write and start a blog. They told me that I was more than qualified, with expertise that people would learn from, and readers that would be interested in what I had to say.

But what would I write about?

3. Topics – “Eat the Elephant a Bite at a Time”

Over-analysis paralysis. I’m a bit, maybe a lot, analytical and detailed. I didn’t want to write something of low value or interest to my audience, which added to my procrastination. I knew that I didn’t want to write about topics that were being over-blogged about, and I still have an issue with that. But the more I thought about it, the more granular I found the topics. Instead of boring subjects, I just started focusing on smaller elements… like this post. I was going to write about much more, but will leave that for another post, segmenting this into smaller pieces.

4. Edits and Proofing – “Ask for Help”

As I started writing, I first wrote all my ideas down and tried to adhere to a writing framework:

• a strong headline
• knowledge I want to share
• information my audience would find of value
• ideas I am trying to help my audience with
• being thought-provoking
• writing in a story format about a truth

… and leaving the readers with a lesson learned or a thought-provoking conclusion.

Although there is more strategy to writing on LinkedIn Publisher, I started from this vantage point. My first attempt was based on this framework and I became a bit better with my subsequent edits and content.

Hitting Publish – Be strategic, but “Just Do It”

Sometimes good enough is perfect and trying for perfection isn’t. I’ve learned that posting original content that is interesting and of value to your audience is important, however there are many people that don’t have the expertise, insights and experience that we have who could find value in what we have to say. Over time, as we create more content and share more of the tacit expertise within us, we will add value to our audience.

Future… Seeing that that I’m now past the fundamental, but important milestone of publishing my first post, I am now working on new topics to write about and doing research about them, while fine-tuning my content and post strategy… All of which I hope to share in future posts about what my clients, future clients and my peers would find of interest.

Robert (Rob) Burns is a digital business development specialist in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Rob prefers to discuss a business strategy with his clients before talking about any technology, marketing or digital tactics.  Once Rob understands a client’s business objectives, he will then advise them about gnooko services and solutions: including Digital Marketing Strategy, Audience Segmentation and Persona Development, Website Design and Development, Search Marketing and SEO, Social Marketing and of course Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation, and Marketing Technology.