Did you ever feel that blogging is for extroverts?

I used to think so.

I saw it as a medium for people with too much time and too much to say.

Well, I was wrong.

Turns out a blog is a great way to get your message across, no matter what your personality.

And what if I told you that blogging is not only powerful but takes less time than you ever thought possible?

Let me first say why I think it is so effective.

Blogging gets around one fundamental problem in communications: the urge to convey too many messages at once. Websites are the best example for this. They have a lot of information – information that nobody reads.

It‘s a bitter truth: people don’t spend time on our sites and there are two reasons for it. The first is boring third-person language. The second reason is the Paradox of Choice: confronted with too much information, we end up reading nothing at all.

A blog breaks through this paradox:

For one, it is more personal and more engaging. But most of all, you can focus.

Instead of inundating readers with a flood of messages, you publish one article at a time, breaking things down into digestible portions.

And making things digestible for your readers doesn’t mean that you have to be super short like on Twitter or Facebook. On a blog, you can talk substance.

Blog and e-mail: a killer combination

Good, helpful content is what makes a good blog. But it is not enough to reach your readers. You have to invite them every time you publish a new post.

And the best way to send your invitation is by good old e-mail. You can also use RSS, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, of course, but be aware that these channels will only reach a fraction of your audience.

E-mail is different.

It’s where we deal with the important stuff. It’s where we check every single message and that is why we don’t give our e-mail address away easily.

If people give you their e-mail address (by signing-up to your blog), it’s because they trust you. They trust that you treat their data confidently and that you won’t swamp them with useless information.

The prize of their trust?

Your invitation gets right into their inbox. In all likelihood, they are going to read your invitation and, if you publish good content, they will look forward to it. It‘s a prime example of what marketing guru Seth Godin calls Permission Marketing: marketing to those who want to hear from you.

Is there a downside?

Whilst the combination of a blog with e-mail invitation is highly effective, it also means work. Not only do you have to write good content, you also have to manage your e-mail list.

So how can you make it time-effective?

The answer is simple: you don‘t have to post all the time. Just because others do, doesn’t mean you have to publish every day, nor every week and not even every month.

After all, the great potential of Social Media is to reach people when you have something to say. And to leave them alone when you don’t.

It’s in your interest, and that of your readers, to concentrate on what‘s important: the few articles that really matter.

And this leads me back to the title of this post. A blog is not just for extroverts.

In fact, it is a great way for non-extroverts to express themselves because it gives us the time and the space to develop our very own style. If you don‘t feel comfortable to talk about your credentials in person, a blog may well be the way to exhibit them nonetheless.

What do you think? Does blogging seem more attractive to you now?

And should you have wondered why I define a blog as Social Media: the comment section in blogs is where many of the most interesting discussions on the Web are taking place.

You can leave a comment below.