Your client just emailed you to say that the check will be late (again), your dog ate your only copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and your significant other stomped on your last nerve hours ago. It’s enough to make any blogger hit the rant button. But if you’re thinking of venting your spleen on your professional blog, stop for a second and reconsider.

For starters, what will ranting actually accomplish? Probably nothing, other than to make you feel better. On the other hand, you could alienate your readership if your tone, content or language seems too harsh or critical. Venting on your own personal blog is one thing, but when it comes to your business, you need to stay cool, calm and professional. Here’s how:

1. Step away. Take a time out from the computer and let the rolling boil in your brain come down to room temperature. Then, and only then, should you consider blogging.

2. Figure out what’s really bugging you. If it’s just random incompetence or other issues outside of your control, there’s probably nothing to be gained from ranting about it. Sometimes life just blows and there’s no way to avoid it. On the other hand, if there are valuable lessons to be learned it’s time to separate the useful wheat from the emotional chaff.

3. Go panning for gold. Figure out what, specifically, could have been done differently. If the dog ate your reference material, maybe you need to think about reorganizing your office to be dog safe. If one or more of you clients are perpetually late with payments, maybe you need to rethink your billing strategy, or consider “firing” them. Once you have a hook, start writing down your raw ideas about how to fix the situation.

4. Translate into workable action steps. Take those raw ideas and turn them into something useful and actionable. Using a “Five Steps,” “Top Ten Tips” or “How To” approach is usually the easiest way to do this.

5. Spin it into a blog post. Once you have your information laid out, consider how to spin or angle them into a blog post that works for your overall theme. For example, if you write a parenting blog and the resulting article is about dog-proofing your stuff, you might spin it as “5 Ways to Baby (and Pet) Proof Your Office.” If you run a cooking blog, you might spin that as keeping your cookbooks and other easily destroyed supplies out of Fido’s reach. Or you could simply leave it as a “personal lessons” sort of post. It all depends on the style and tone of your blog.

In the end, letting it fly on your blog may feel good, but it’s a destructive habit that over time can damage your connection with your readership. Sure, everybody has to blow off a little steam now and then. But it’s much, much better if you can teach something, learn something and laugh at yourself in the process.

Copyright 2008 Dina Giolitto, Wordfeeder.com Copywriting and Marketing. All rights reserved.

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