Uh oh.
It’s hard, right?
How can you be personal without oversharing?
Let me tell you a tiny story first …
The email confirmation from the hotel looks promising.
Check-in from 2 PM.
Yay!
We’ve been cycling for a few days and are used to hanging around for a couple of hours before we’re able to check in.
This is different.
It’s been blazingly hot, and I’m looking forward to a shower and then a siesta.
Our timing is almost perfect.
We arrive just before two.
Huh?
The hotel still looks closed. The door is locked. Nobody is there.
We wait for a few minutes and ring the bell.
Nothing.
I ring the bell again.
Nothing.
We decide to get a cold drink at the cafe next door.
By 3 PM I am getting fed up. I’ve rang the bell several times, and there’s been no answer.
I decide to ring the phone number printed on a sheet of paper, stuck on the door. In my best French (not good at all), I ask when I can check in.
I get a code to unlock the door and find our key at the reception desk.
The guy on the phone seems to find this normal.
What’s the value of a human welcome?
Maybe checking in by phone makes financial sense. Staffing a reception desk is expensive and it was past peak season.
But that’s thinking about numbers, not people.
The hotels I enjoy most are the small ones, designed with personality.
Above all, the places I like are where I feel welcome. In one hotel, there’s the reception guy who’s clearly proud of the local sights and shows us a fab trip to a lovely beach.
At another hotel we are welcomed by a friendly lady who slows down so I can follow her French. And then, there’s the hotel owner who clearly enjoys welcoming his guests. He asks me how to pronounce my name and wonders where we’ve come from today. All with a twinkle in his eye.
These people made me feel seen. I feel welcome.
In the world of online writing, we often talk about followers, audiences, and email lists. We think of numbers, not people.
But a connection with a reader is never one-to-many.
It’s always one-to-one.
A reader reads by themselves.
They’re having a one-on-one conversation with you. They want to feel seen. They want to feel welcome. They don’t want to be a number.
Leave a piece of yourself in your writing
When I think of the best hotel check-in experiences, they were all personal, and they were all a little different. The lady who spoke slowly. The guy joking about Heineken and my name, and the guy who showed me the way to the local beach.
Sure, they were all friendly.
But they found their own way to be friendly.
Being yourself in your writing may seem difficult at first. When I started blogging, it seemed safer to just share tips. Sharing a piece of myself felt way too scary.
But being personal doesn’t mean you have to bare all. You can choose what to share. Those friendly people at the hotels didn’t tell me their wildest secrets either. They simply showed up as themselves and made me feel seen.
The easiest way to do that in content marketing is to share miniature stories: Tiny stories that you can feature in blog posts, books, social media, and courses.
The first miniature story I wrote was about my experience as tour leader in China. I was only 21 and was guiding 14 tourists through China. On my own. For 4 weeks.
The journey started badly.
I puked on the flight to Hong Kong.
I used that story to explain how mistakes matter less than we think, also in content marketing.
After that inauspicious start of my trip, I had time to make up, to do better. I shared my knowledge of China, organized fab dinners, and I shared simple gifts: I bought a huge watermelon, and we ate it together. In content marketing, we give away valuable free gifts, too.
I don’t think my bosses at the travel agency ever found out about me puking. Nobody told them. Because somehow things got better during that journey.
You can be personal without cringing
Sure, my story about puking is embarrassing.
But it’s from the past and I can laugh about it now.
I tell these stories because they show the lessons I have learned. And perhaps you recognize the lessons, or perhaps you find them useful.
The story about the hotel check-in by phone made me think about the value of real human connections.
I’d like my blog to be like one of those charming hotels—a place where you (yes, you!) feel seen, where you feel welcome.
And I’d like you to be inspired to tell your own stories, too.
To captivate your readers. To share your lessons. To forge new connections.
What are you waiting for?
P.S.
The course Stories in Miniature teaches you how to write captivating stories and use them in all your content marketing: in emails, social media, blog posts, books, and courses …
Recommended reading on being personal in your writing:
How to write a personal narrative
How to write conversationally
How to engage readers
What an interesting article on the importance of personality, to the reader, in writing. Your hotel check-in experience and the link to online connections was enlightening. I do have one more question after reading your article. Namely, I am curious about how you find your balance between sharing personal anecdotes and providing valuable information to your readers. In fact, that’s something I struggle with.
I never share personal anecdotes just for the sake of sharing something personal. There’s always a purpose to the stories, just like here in this post. I’m not sharing the hotel experience to chat about my holiday but because I found it a useful way to talk about the value of human connections—something that’s relevant to writing online, too.
Thanks for your response! I understand 👌
Ah, now I see it! I’ve been wondering about this for a while – that ability to be open and authentic without over-sharing. This explains it nicely. And, shows that we still can use personal experiences – our stories – and when we do, they are more effective. Thanks!
I’m glad you found it useful, Mari. Happy storytelling!
Aha, I knew it’d be France 😉
We had a wonderful time!
I don’t know how you do it, Henneke. In the tsunami of writing advice, your posts are always fresh, engaging and genuinely helpful. A true diamond.
You’ve raised a very interesting point. The different ways people interpret “personal”.
When I learned I have stage IV breast cancer, I was totally open about it from the get-go. I knew I had to write about my experience, hoping it would be helpful to others. Most people were incredibly supportive, but one close friend reacted very differently. He told me it was a private matter and inappropriate to write about. He pointed out that I’m “not Kylie Minogue”.
Here’s the thing. “I have cancer. Cancer does not have me.” (from The Cancer Whisperer by Sophie Sabbage.) When I share my experience and what I’ve subsequently learned to help me heal, I am not revealing deep, dark secrets of my soul. It is not something to hide away. It is not ME.
I find that an unusual reaction. You decide what you want to keep private and what you’re willing to share. That’s not for other people to decide.
I’m glad you’re following your own path, Sue. Even if you wanted to reveal some deep secrets of your soul, I wouldn’t stop you.
Do what feels good to you.
Thank you, Henneke. A very interesting and useful article. I am on my holiday at a sea small town in the middle of Italy, with my wife, and we experienced something similar when we arrived here.
I have a question. In my blog I write articles about crime and justice, about film and tv series and books in a critical way. As a journalist, I used to write in a impersonal way for my newspaper. Do you think that I can be more personal, in my blog, when I write about crime and justice, movies etc.?
Yes, I think you can. Like journalists, scientists are also trained to write in an impersonal manner. But when I think of the memoirs by scientists that I’ve enjoyed reading (e.g., Suzanne Simard, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Peter Brannen), it’s because they share personal stories as well as share their knowledge and wisdom. Those personal stories often explain why they are so fascinated by their topics, and that’s how they make me enthusiastic about learning from them, too.
Hi Henneke,
I love this post.
Short and sweet, but at the same it points the way to a deeper way at looking at ourselves.
I’m glad you’re back.
I am saddened by us losing a great storyteller recently.
“I can tell you that even though writing is a gift, it is not one that comes with a set of instructions or an autopilot. You wonder why a lot of writers go crazy, drink themselves to death, or become recluses? Because it is hard work!…sometimes you look for the story, and sometimes it comes to you.”-Jimmy Buffett, from the novel based a truly weird true story, “Swine Not?” at the start in “About this book.”
Also for your reading pleasure,
“What I learned about writing by listening to Jimmy Buffett”-Roy Peter Clark, http://www.poynter.org 9/12/2023
https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2023/what-i-learned-about-writing-by-listening-to-jimmy-buffett/
Got go.
Dinner’s almost ready.
“Smell those shrimp, they’re beginnin’ to boil.”
I hope this message finds you well.
Phil
What a great quote. I also love this from the article by Roy Peter Clark (another hero!) you linked to:
“My favorite lyric is:
I blew out my flip-flop
Stepped on a pop-top
Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home.
But there’s booze in the blender
And soon it will render
That frozen concoction that helps me hang on.
So much is going on in those 36 words. Look how the details appeal to the senses. We see the flip-flop and pop-top, we feel the cut, we hear the blender, and can almost taste what it contains. And I can still smell the shrimp.
It’s not just the particular details that make this work. His rhymes are worth noting throughout his songs: latitudes/attitudes; adventure/indenture; and, sure, blender/render. Add to those, the usual poetic moves, such as alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds — booze/blender), and we have an artist who is playing with language for all he is worth.
My first college English professor, the great Rene Fortin, made the case that all poets — and perhaps all writers — are always playing with language, even when the topic is dark or even morbid. In journalism, I would apply this immediately to headline writers who often have to play with words that fit effectively into less space than a haiku.”
—
Thanks so much for sharing!
I appreciate your encouragement ….I’m developing the courage to begin a new blog that includes both tools and my personal experience moving through a difficult life change. Your post today showed me where I’m stuck. I want to share and be “appropriately” vulnerable. Thanks for helpful examples. Several times while reading your post, I heard an inner voice say, “oh, I can do that.” By the last sentence and still now, my confidence is growing. Thanks!
That’s such lovely feedback. Thank you, Day. This is why I love writing my blog.
Wishing you the best of luck with starting your blog. You’ve got this. I like how the French say it: Bon courage.
Henneke, I always read your blog posts and always learn something new. This week was pretty packed timewise for me. As I was scrolling rapidly through my emails, I thought I would pass on yours just this once. Something told me to read it and so I settled in. So glad I did. My takeaway from this post was to look for the lessons learned from embarrassing mistakes and work backward to tell the story, landing on the lesson in the end. That was a tasty piece. Thank you.
That seems a great takeaway. It means a lot to me when people read my blog posts, even on busy days. And you even took the time to stop and leave comment. Thank you, Sheila.
Have I got some stories to tell? Indeed, I do. But based on your guidance, I’ll keep them brief and cringe-free. “Years ago, I fell off a cliff and landed in a pile of…”
Oh my. That sounds like it might be a good story! 🙂
Thanks for this post Henneke…this is one of the reasons I enjoy your articles. You always put a bit of yourself in them, making them real and easy to relate with…thanks once again.
Thank you so much, Elo. I appreciate your feedback.
Yes!
The same is true for regular blogging like what I do. I skip over the boring, technical, or impersonal feeling blogs and keep the ones that share part of themselves. It makes me feel like I know them and would even like to meet them, and I want my readers to feel the same way! But you also have to be a bit vulnerable as well…like you sharing the puking part of your story. Sometimes it feels like over sharing, but you are letting us in to a thing that really happened, not some fairy tale. Thanks for this post!
Yes, so true. Being vulnerable is human, and it helps us connect.
I love this little tip. I will start using it because I think that’s what my writing is lacking.
A sprinkle of personality.
And your personal examples are sweet and funny Henneke, especially your name change to Heineken. Brilliant!
I do get emails sometimes addressed to “Dear Heineken” 😂