How a Personal Rant Can Engage Your Readers

I have a confession to make: I love to rant.

I love to really get on a tear and get it all out. I love to give voice to everything that is making me crazy – raise my blood pressure, turn the air purple, be irrational (right, but irrational) and get really loud.

The only people who get to hear these012015-Rant rants, however, are my three awesome dogs, fantastic man, and best friend. (And if I’m being really honest, my long-suffering parents get to ‘appreciate’ them as well.)

There’s just something so liberating about letting it all out. Getting it OFF my chest, into the air, where it can blow away. And yes, I do sometimes worry that the negativity of ranting just breeds more things to rant about. I’m more positive than I am rantful. (I know that isn’t a word – it should be!)

I think it’s those rants that allow me to blow up and then let it go.

I’d love to be that type of person who can just smile and let it roll off her back. Truth is, I’m not. I take it personally, I get offended, I think about it – and I rant. Let’s just say that stuff DOES roll off my back but that I just have to jump up and down, stomp my feet, and maybe yell a bit to help it along.

But today, ah, today I took my rant to Facebook.

I typed it all up – felt I was being more rational than normal – and hesitated over pressing the “post” button. I wasn’t calling anybody out by name or attacking anybody. But it is clearly a public rant.

Even though my Facebook profile is completely public, I keep a lot of my personal life, well, personal. I’ll bet my newsletter readers know more about my personal life than my Facebook “friends”. I try to keep Facebook 95% positive, 95% neutral, and 5% personal.

See I wanted to start something… There’s something that’s been bothering me in my personal life for a while and I wanted it out there. I want to not-so-gently educate a group of people about manners. I wanted to stir the pot.

And yes, I wanted the comments: who commiserates with me, who jumps straight to the “not her fault” bandwagon, who happily slings mud on my behalf, and who calls me on my own crap.

It is, after all, a rant.

012015-FBRant

But part of me was really craving the “look at me” syndrome. I want to be able to report I got a ton of comment and likes – that I ENGAGED people with my drama. I wanted an audience for my rant!

I even thought about turning this week’s article into the rant. About sharing it with the folks on my newsletter list and see what happens. I’ve heard that sharing a rant can really get a lot of engagement.

But there’s the thing…

I’m already calming down.
I’m not sure how much more attention I want to give this situation.
It has NOTHING to do with business – or writing.
I want to appear classy to my readers.

Will a #rant help you engage with your #readers? Click To Tweet

And I’m just not sure a public rant is my style.

Sure it the Facebook rant felt great in the moment. I got likes and comments – reinforcement that nope, I’m not off base here. But for me, I think I’ll keep my rants to just the people who will listen and love me anyway.

Have you ever posted a personal (non-topic related) rant on your blog? What happened? Leave me a comment!

Kim Galloway
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