Jimmy Gilmore – Writer – Director

Some peo­ple love to rant. Even more peo­ple love to rant on a blog. Some blogs were even cre­ated for peo­ple to rant about pol­i­tics, the price of milk, or even their ex’s groom­ing habits.

In the non-digital world, peo­ple find that kind of behav­ior repul­sive. They sim­ply don’t want to be around peo­ple that are neg­a­tive. It’s true online too, don’t believe me? Read this great post by Brian Solis on the sub­ject, he’s got num­bers to prove peo­ple don’t want to hear about your prob­lems. So if you blog or tweet about your brand, your busi­ness, or even your per­sonal brand and you use neg­a­tive lan­guage, you’ve got a problem.

Top 10 rea­sons peo­ple don’t want to hear your rant:

1. Peo­ple read blogs because they’re look­ing for help­ful opin­ions. Rant­ing only helps you vent.
2. You’re read­ers will tune you out.
3. Peo­ple will think you’re a hot head. Do you really want clients or a poten­tial employer to think you’re a hot head?
4. You’re only as  funny as Lewis Black in your mind. You’re read­ers won’t get it.
5. Most peo­ple are put in time­out for hav­ing tantrums offline.
6. The squeaky wheel gets the grease but not page hits or followers.
7. No one respects a complainer.
8. Neg­a­tive adver­tis­ing doesn’t work for a leader.
9. Even your mom hates it when you whine.
10. A suc­cess­ful blog cham­pi­ons solu­tions not problems.

So next time you feel like rant­ing, call a friend instead. Then sit down and think about how you can flip your rant on it’s head and write about solu­tions to the prob­lem that has you so worked up. Chan­nel the neg­a­tive energy and do some­thing pos­i­tive with it instead. You’re read­ers will thank you for it by read­ing the post instead of tun­ing you out.

Be Socia­ble, Share!

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This entry was posted Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 11:19 am and is filed under social media, Web 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.