Strategy: Finish blog design. Tactic: Work in the car on the way to the sledding hill.
Last week, I suggested that some folks may be writing blogs that even they wouldn’t want to read, because they’re attached to a particular blogging style that doesn’t suit their audience—or themselves.
But why? Why do bloggers do this?
I have two theories:
1. Because they’re using someone else’s tactics to accomplish their strategy.
2. Because they have no strategy at all—and therefore don’t know what tactics to use.
Okay, I know you’re scratching your head like an ex-president right now wondering what the heck I’m saying with all this quasi-military tactic strategy mumbo-jumbo. Let me break it down for you:
Strategy: The big stuff.
Tactics: The small stuff.
As a blogger, the overarching strategy is simple. Maintain a blog. Your primary blog topic (or niche, if that’s the French word you prefer) is part of your strategy. Establishing a posting frequency, a social network, and learning about the business of blogging are all part of your strategy. For 90% of bloggers, our strategies are very, very similar.
Tactics are where things get interesting. They are the tiny details, the unique ways you follow your strategy. They are the wonky buzz words that your readers like to read, or pictures of monkeys. They are video clips where you could have written a paragraph. They are carefully plucked words arranged where a photo of flowers would have gone. Tactics are advantageous moments to do something out of the ordinary to accomplish your bigger goals—or creative ways to overcome roadblocks to your strategy.
The goal is the meal, the strategy is the recipe, and the tactic is how you still get dinner on the table when one of the ingredients is missing.
So, what are you cooking? Tell me about your blog—its goal, your strategy, and let’s chat tactics!
