One refreshing online marketing and blogging trend should dominate 2018.
Thank goodness.
Many new bloggers and internet marketers were led like meek sheep to the slaughterhouse in 2017, being barraged by lies, rented super cars, rented mansions and all types of silliness.
As was the case nearly 10 years ago when I became a blogger.
Watch this video chat between me and my friend Alonzo Pichardo.
We discuss positive trends in 2018.
Telling the Truth Across the Board
The refreshing, enlightening, positive trend I see taking root: telling the truth.
Even more enjoyable: telling the truth across the board.
Buzzwords like honesty, integrity and authenticity often get bandied about. Totally onboard with each word. But sometimes, people new to the online world and those who speak English as a second language may get lost in these buzzwords sometimes.
Goodness knows I was 10 years ago.
Telling the truth across the board means: always telling the truth.
More than that, telling the truth across board means never making claims that you have not personally achieved yourself.
If the most money you have made is $40 per month through your blog this means that you’d be flat out, bald faced, lying if you post an advertisement on your blog teaching readers how to make $2000 per month.
See how folks lie blatantly, without realizing they are not telling the truth?
See how bloggers tend to stray from being authentic?
See how quickly you can go from genuine to not being genuine?
2018 will be the year of authenticity. All you say and do online will resonate with your highest character. No lies. No claims you have not personally achieved. No BS. No promises that you cannot back up through your own experience.
2018 in blogging and marketing will be all about telling the truth across the board.
What This Means
Have you shared some of your worst online failures recently? Do so. Be genuine.
Nobody succeeds as a newbie because nobody has experience when new to blogging or online marketing. You were not a pro blogger before you were a pro blogger.
We all screw things up here and there as newbies. Some, quite royally.
Being genuine means sharing wins, losses, successes, failures and everything in between, today, and in 2018.
The best bloggers freely share their losses, failures and struggles because they know that doing otherwise would create an unrealistic, unattainable, inauthentic, totally untrue version of some perfect blogging being, versus the real, true you, that failed and struggled horribly in the past and that even fails some today.
Don’t Worry
Your blog will not become a sob story, filled with failure and loss and struggles. You get to share your wins too. Successes, high points, achievements, all that good stuff, should be advertised on your blog. Wins and losses.
People want a leader; not someone who talks about losses all day long.
If you are a newbie who has struggled so far simply share some losses and your dreams. More importantly, you absolutely MUST follow the advice of successful bloggers and marketers to straighten your cyber ship pronto. Study. Learn. Teach. Succeed.
Being authentic and telling the truth across the board means sharing how to succeed as well as what to avoid – your failures – if you want to succeed online.
The Only Mental Block
Cowering to your fear of failure, the fear of criticism, the fear of being outed as a fraud, and the fear of being vulnerable are the only energies in the way of you being genuine, going forward.
Feel and release these fears.
This journey feels so much sweeter when you can sleep at night due to working with a clear conscience.
Be authentic now.
Be authentic in 2018.
Share the rest of the story to be human, to inspire your readers to connect with you and to grow your blogging business.