So you Want to Write a Blog Post: The Normal Person's Guide to Great Sterile Processing Content

You don't have to be as prolific as William Shakespeare or as funny as Mark Twain to write a great blog post. In fact, no one even has to know your name at all. You just have to sit your butt down in front of that keyboard, get some creative juices going, and hit "enter."

Okay, maybe there's a little more to it than that. In addition to butt + creative + keyboard, the most important thing about creating great content is that you'll need to be willing to give away real value to your readers. Yep, for free. That good idea, that valuable insight, that thing that someone else could use to improve their own business, department, or team -- you have to become comfortable (and even excited about) sending it out in cyberspace with no strings attached.

This idea of publishing our ideas with no apparent or immediate benefit to us is one of the biggest barriers to many of you killing it in the content creation space. We've been trained to guard our ideas, to use content as bait & switch for marketing, to think that a story about the features and benefits of our new product is the same thing as value-added content creation. But how do you feel when you click on an article title that looks interesting only to see it's a rehash of a 3-year old marketing slick you've seen a thousand times? Disappointed? Yeah, welcome to the content audience, sucka. Folks are hungry for something tangible, something engaging, something more -- and if you give it to them, they will love you for it.

How to write

So you're convinced. Now what? Some of you may not have written a full length article since high school or college, which could be thirty, forty years ago by now. Well, there's good news. Unlike other contexts, you can write your blog post in any format you feel comfortable with -- to heck with AP, Chicago style, or MLA. Your blog is yours to do with what you will.

But here are a few important how-to concepts to consider:

• Length - You'll get more readers (to the very end) if you keep your initial posts to a manageable 500-1000 words. That's not written in stone, but it's a good target to shoot for.
• Style - Be true to your own style. If you're not a technical, scientific kind of person (which I'm am NOT) -- don't pretend to be one on your blog. You don't have to write the same way as you talk, but you do want to accurately communicate who you are in the style of writing you use. You could be funny, somber, passionate, inspirational, thoughtful, irritated, professorial, and a million other things. Who ever you are, let that show in how you write.
• Format - As you get started, keep in mind that most folks don't like to open up an article that is one long 800 word paragraph. Nothing about that screams "read me!" Try to break up your content into smaller sections with subtitles, headings, bullets, numbers, etc. This will help you think through the flow of your content as you write, and will help your readers track with you as they read.
• Generation - Don't feel like you have to finish an article in one sitting, or that you can't be working on multiple articles at once. At any given time I have 15-20 different article drafts sitting around, most only have a title, some have two or three points that I want to write about, and others just have a cool graphic. If you get stuck, take a break and come back to it another time.
• Graphic - Even though we are talking about writing here, don't underestimate the power of a good graphic to feature at the top of your content. Folk see it long before they have time to read your title, so spend adequate time finding one that is just as engaging as your article. More on that in another post.

What to write

Since this is a post about Sterile Processing content, the answer to this is kind of straight forward -- write about something you are passionate about in SPD. But to get the biggest bang for your content buck, you'll want to do what I call "slice it small." This means instead of writing an article about decontamination in Sterile Processing, you take a step back and narrow your topic within that broader category. What in particular do you want to tackle about decontamination? Is it the water quality? Is it proper cleaning brushes? Is it the safest chemicals? And then -- slice it AGAIN! What about water quality? The filtration process? Proper install of RO/DI systems? Adequate testing processes?

The smaller you can slice your initial content topic, the easier it will be for you to provide real, tangible value to your readers -- and the more content you will have to choose from as you continue writing future articles. Instead of one article on water quality, if you slice your content small enough, you could write 50. This type of content slicing takes practice, so don't stress about it too much at the beginning, but always ask yourself, "Is this as narrow as I can go?"

What to do next

So you sat down, wrote it, and now you're ready to send it into the world. Before you do so, I've got one more piece of non-inspirational advice for you -- expect hardly anyone to read it (at first). I know, sounds kind of counter-intuitive, but hang in there with me. When someone stops to read an article online, they are giving you their time -- however long it takes them to read it. If they've never seen an article by you, they may not trust that it's anything more than the same old marketing clichés they've seen a million times before. It will take time for your potential audience to discover the real value that your articles hold -- whether it's insight, humor, education, etc. Don't quit after the first two or three or twenty. If you commit to giving something of value away every single article, folks will eventually catch on -- and so will your content.

Now, I've got a feeling there is a cold office chair somewhere with your butt's name on it.

Let that content roll, and let's see what you got...

Hank Balch

Beyond Clean ? 2019

Hank Balch is the Founder and President of Beyond Clean. You can follow him on Instagram @WeFightDirty, and find his Fighting Dirty video series on YouTube. He has written over 100 other Sterile Processing articles and commentary here, along with published articles in Becker's Hospital Review, Infection Control Today, AAMI News, AAMI BI&T Journal, Outpatient Surgery Magazine, and contributions to Healthcare Purchasing News. Hank's CS/SPD team in Louisville, KY was named the "2016 CS/SPD Department of the Year" by HPN, he's served as the founding President of the South Texas Association of Sterile Processing Services and President of the Kentuckiana IAHCSMM Chapter, and was nominated for the 2017 President-Elect & 2018 President-Elect of the International Association of Healthcare Central Service Materiel Management.