7 Great Blogging Tips From the Beatles

Last night I happened to catch Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr on Larry King Live. It was a special episode of the show to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the Cirque de Soleil show featuring the music of The Beatles: Love.

I’m dating myself big time, but I’m actually old enough to remember The Beatles and, granted I was a very musically progressive 8 year old, to have purchased Let It Be when it first hit the store shelves. The interview was actually quite emotional for me as it recapped the amazing power that these 4 guys had to affect the world around them through their music.

Later, reflecting on the interview and the questions Larry asked Paul and Ringo about their success with The Beatles, I began to wonder what it would have been like if John, Paul, George & Ringo were bloggers.

Here’s my list of blogging tips that I transposed from those thoughts:

Blog For Yourself First

The Beatles considered themselves, first and foremost “artists.” Their niche would definitely not have been: “make money with music.”

Their measure of success was how fantastic a song was when they played it. After that, if anyone else liked it, that was a bonus, but not at all necessary.

I remember when I was studying to be a writer, we were taught the same thing. Find a measure of excellence and quality inside of yourself and strive to always get to that place with your writing.

Strive for Continual Improvement

Larry asked, “How did The Beatles get so big?”

Paul’s answer, was something to the effect of, “We always wanted to get better.”

In blogging “getting better” is often defined with things like: higher earnings, more readers, more page views. But do those things really measure anything real?

The Beatles would have defined better as something like the ability to touch your Soul, or inspire you to experience Love.

To Hell With Search Engines

I’m pretty sure if John Lennon was a blogger, his attitude would have been that if his post didn’t come up high in the search engines, then let Google fix their algorithm.

Value Integrity At All Cost

The Beatles would only put out a post when it was great. No crap because they hadn’t posted in 3 days. No copy and quote from another site. Only original ideas that pushed an edge or touched a new area of thought.

In 10 years The Beatles released only 12 albums which totaled about 120 songs. Those songs changed the world.

Go Deep & Have Fun

In my opinion what made The Beatles so fantastic was the way they explored the absolute depths of human existence in a totally profound way, and did it with a sense of humor and childlike exuberance.

Even on TV last night, you could see both of those qualities as they joked around in their sneakers and business suits in one moment and then brought tears while talking about holding the hand of George Harrison as he was dying.

The Beatles had range. Musically and in their personalities. In blogging, we are mostly all playing it safe. I include myself in this observation. Trying not to be vulnerable and yet somehow stick out from the crowd enough to make a couple bucks.

Constantly Break New Ground

The Beatles innovated tirelessly. The kind of sounds that appeared on Beatle albums were completely new at the time.

What can we do as bloggers to break new ground in the cluttered and tired world of online publishing?

The whole concept of linkbait is really based on this premise. Newness is incredibly attractive and it is rewarded with links, and profits.

Ask yourself before each post; how can I break some new ground with the ideas that I’m presenting?

Dream Big – Change the World

The Beatles were trying to change the world for god’s sake! They wanted to right what was wrong and get us all to be a little kinder to each other.

They thought that was important (and they were right), more important than their own comfort as they often confronted authorities and police to spread their message.

What is it that you’re trying to accomplish with your blog? You’ll never achieve more than that, so make it worthy of the hours of you life that you’re going to spend on it.

And never forget…

all you need is Love!

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