3 things House music can teach business bloggers

The dance music community’s bender extraordinaire, “The Winter Music Conference” (WMC), is now in full swing in Miami. Several friends are there, one of whom is throwing a party.

I love House music. Very little surpasses being on a dancefloor with a DJ who knows how to mix beats and create layered, textured music. Moreover, House’s culture is rich, diverse, and thoroughly interesting.

Organizations that blog can learn a lot from House music. Here’s a short sample of some of the main lessons:

• Solid, fixed rhythm is the key to success: House is based on a four on the floor backbeat and tempo. Whatever a producer or DJ layers over top, it’s always there. Some people claim this makes House boring. I beg to differ. There’s beauty in the ever-present tempo and almost ever present kick drum. Uniform constant rhythm is key to blogging. Before you launch your blog, set benchmarks for yourself re number of posts per week and the number of meaningful comments you’ll post on other people’s sites. I’ve seen lots of posts on writer’s block recently. The way around this involves setting yourself up to get into personal rhythm by delineating goals. You’ll ship on time and on target. Goals vary. Whatever they are, take inspiration from House, set that fixed rhythm and keep to it.
• Look to other genres for inspiration and layer them over what you produce: House has many sub genres because DJ’s and producers have looked to other places for inspiration. As such, you get Jazzy House, Disco House, Tribal House, Hard House, and myriad others. If you have writer’s block, exposing yourself to content that is from other realms is a great way to overcome. Moreover, every blogger – and everyone – has different passions in life. Drawing material and inspiration from sources that aren’t part of your blog’s genre can lead to great writing. House music would not be where it is today had it not looked to other genres. Your blog should too.
• Value comes from reading the crowd and interacting: Great House DJ’s have a sixth sense for reading and reacting to the crowd. A dancefloor is very much a two-way street. Blogging, when done right, is the same way. If you want the company blog to be widely read you have to understand the content needs of your community. This also means going beyond simply posting and interacting with readers in the comments sections. Interaction between content producer and the content consumer is critical to both House music and blogs.

Set the tempo of your kick drum, layer things from beyond the genre over it and give the crowd what they need. Your organization’s blog will have a much greater chance of being a winner.