What is your blog really about?
This question drives Day 1 in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge. I am participating in the challenge to improve this blog. You can read more about the plan here.
Day 1’s assignment is to write an Elevator Pitch for your blog. The Elevator Pitch is a way “to communicate what you do and entice the person receiving your pitch to want to know more,” according to Darren Rowse’s eBook.
It was not my first exposure to the Elevator Pitch concept. It’s one of the initial concepts I learned as a Ph.D. student. A professor encouraged each of us to think about our professional and research goals and develop an elevator pitch to deliver at academic conferences when introducing ourselves to potential future employers.
Developing my personal Elevator Pitch and the one for my blog was easy. I’ve always had a clear understanding of my mission. The focus of this blog has not changed since 2004 when it launched. Prof KRG’s objective always has been:
To create an ongoing educational dialogue between media students, educators and professional journalists.
It was, however, a good idea to put this objective in writing and be able to refer to it as I blog, as suggested in Darren’s book.
For more tips on writing an Elevator Pitch, read How to Craft a Killer Elevator Pitch and The Art of The Elevator Pitch.
The more difficult part of the Elevator Pitch for me came after I wrote down my blog’s objective. Darren suggests that your blog’s objective should be apparent in whole or in part on:
- Your blog’s tagline,
- Your About page,
- Real life conversations,
- Your business cards,
- When pitching to the media or other bloggers,
- In your email signature, and
- On social media profiles.
I had a difficult time turning my objective into a tagline. If I’m being honest, I spent more than a week on Day 1.
“A Practical Resource for Student Journalists” has been this blog’s tagline since its launch. I still want this blog to be a practical resource for student journalists, but that tagline never fully articulated the conversation-creation mission.
Here are a few of the rejects from my week of brainstorming:
- Teaching Watchdogs New Tricks – this one was a fan favorite, but it doesn’t support the mission. Clever, but a “no go.”
- Guiding Mediated Conversations. Ugh. What?
- Linking Media Professionals and Learners – this one articulates the mission, but it’s boring. It doesn’t fit the site’s tone or my personality as an educator and blogger.
- Where Journo Nerds Unite – I like this one, but I still don’t think it fully supports the mission.
I finally settled on “Talkin’ Nerdy with Ya!”
The tagline mirror’s the site’s objective and reflects my personality as the conversation host.
My “sounding board” does not like the tagline. I’m still not entirely sure if I’m sold on it, but I felt like I was getting bogged down in the process – on Day 1 no less. The tagline still may change, but I had to let go of perfection at this point so I could move forward in the process.
Let’s Talk Nerdy about taglines.
Does your website have a tagline? If so, what is it?
What do you think of Prof KRG’s new tagline? Is there something you think fits better?
