Don’t Know Your Tools? Know Your Gems!

The way Jeff Bullas sees it, “Blogging is a platform for self development,” People start blogs, Bulas says, for all sorts of reasons – to educate, to have a voice, to make money. Content writing drives you to learn , to document, and to connect. It is your passion that will act as your guiding light, helping you find and connect with “your tribe”, even with no technical expertise. In terms of connecting, Bullas emphasizes, you must understand your audience’s fears, dreams, problems, and challenges, learning whom they respect in your niche.

But what about that “technical expertise” piece, including setting up the blog, choosing a domain name, selecting a host, and securing the site? Recalling the beginnings of Say It For You, now in its sixteenth year of content writing, I’m reminded of a favorite saying of an attorney friend of mine: “Don’t know your tools? Know your gems.” In other words, the advice I’d offer new content writers is this: Call on advisers who can help with the technology piece while you focus on the messaging.

Meanwhile, needless to say, the technology piece isn’t standing still, but changing and developing at an astounding pace. Still, as Emily Nix of Nectafy observes, “excellent content requires a human touch”.”Tools are nice,” Danny Sullivan of Third Door Media remarks in a Start Your Own Business magazine piece, alluding to all the buzz about artificial intelligence. “but we’ve had tools for years to build houses, yet we haven’t completely automated house building.”.”Despite the fact that ChatGPT can develop conversational AI tools, it cannot take the place of human content creators”, the Med Responsive digital marketing agency believes.

As content writers, our primary function must be learning all we can, not about the “tools” and mechanics of the internet, but about our target audience (or, in the case of Say It For You content writers, the target audience for each of our clients)..When it comes to the technical aspects of delivering that content, we’ve turned to technology maven “gems” for ongoing advice and guidance, while our writers focus on the message.

“Don’t know your tools? Know your gems,” is the byword.