Five years ago, Guy Kawasaki wrote about three word mantras. It’s a good post, you should read it. Why am I rehashing this antiquated article? Because communicating more with less is becoming ever more important for bloggers. With only 140 characters to spend, every word needs to be worth its buck – and the right combination of words may just be your goldmine.
My goal with this post is to get you thinking about a mantra for your blog and convince you why you need one. With an effective mantra in place, visitors and readers will better understand the value your blog offers, and it becomes easy for them to share your work with friends.
Guy suggests a good mantra for Wendy’s would be “healthy fast food” – pretty clear, right? Perhaps more importantly, with a mantra you will always have a guide for your writing.
Having trouble starting a post? Read your mantra and it will inspire you. Write something that doesn’t really fit your theme? Read your mantra and consider sending it off to Draft purgatory. By having a go-to mantra that guides your theme and your work, you will be better able to get and stay on track.
So how do you go about generating your blog’s mantra?
Imagining three-word catch lines for these well known blogs might help:
- PerezHilton | spread more gossip
- Lifehacker | do it yourself
- I Will Teach You to be Rich | earn more money
- Problogger | make money blogging
- Mixergy | inspire more entrepreneurs
- Famous Bloggers | build better blogs
- I Can Has Cheezburger | post about cats
- The Blog of Tim Ferris | experiment your life
- Seth’s Blog | make something happen
- SEOmoz | white hat works
Are these the perfect three word mantras for these blogs?
Maybe not – but I bet the writers who live and breathe through their work could do better. At WriterViews (the web show I produce) our mantra is “Help More Writers”, because that is exactly what we want to do. What’s your mantra?