4 Crucial Blogging Lessons from Felix Baumgartner’s Skydive from the Edge of Space

On YouTube, almost 7.5 million people watched Felix Baumgartner's skydive from the edge of space – a new record set on October 14, 2012. There's so much humankind can learn from people like Felix who push the limits of what we may think it's possible.

According to Mirror, nearly “7.3 million viewers were watching as Baumgartner sat on the edge of the capsule, moments before the jump” on YouTube. Moreover, after he landed “Red Bull posted a picture of the daredevil on his knees to Facebook. In less than 40 minutes, the picture was shared more than 29,000 times and generated nearly 216,000 likes and more than 10,000 comments”. A tremendous day for science, Felix, Red Bull, and social media.

Here are four blogging lessons that corporate bloggers can learn from yesterday’s record breaking jump.

1. Do Not Rush, Plan Carefully
The skydive was patiently planned for 5 years. Nothing was left to chance.

LESSON: don’t rush into anything. Just because you have an idea or somebody whispers it into your ears, it doesn’t mean you must do it the very next day or month or even year. Think about it carefully, plan in details, so when you’re ready to launch your business blog, you WILL BE ready. Be patient! In the end, it’ll be worth your time.

2. Build Clear Structure
During the entire flight up and almost 10-minute jump, the only voice Felix heard was of his predecessor and confidante Joe Kittinger. This was done deliberately; Felix wanted to exclude any communication noise and misunderstandings.

LESSON: Build a clear communication structure within your company. Make it clear who’s responsible for your corporate blog and what his/her/their exact responsibilities are. Is it clear where and who you can get content from for your blog?

A clearly defined communications structure is crucial in small and even more so in bigger organizations, otherwise your blog can turn into a total mess.

3. Checklist
If you watched the Felix skydive from the edge of space, you might have noticed a checklist of steps that needed to be performed as written. They looked like three big pieces of paper with instructions.

LESSON: For your blog to be effective, you must know every single necessary step: before, during, and after – that is what to do when planning content ahead, how to write and edit posts, and what to do after an article is posted on your blog. Checklists are a great and very helpful tool, so you don’t forget anything. Believe me, you will not regret the time you spend putting together a check list.

4. Transparency is Key
We all had access to the record breaking skydive. Millions of people listened to every word Joe and Felix said during the entire time, we even watched them thanks to all the cameras. They didn’t hide anything. Just moments before the jump, we all heard Felix say: “This is very serious, Joe.” As Baumgartner went through last-minute checks inside the capsule, it was found that a heater for his visor was not working. This meant the visor fogged up as he exhaled. And he sincerely and openly expressed worry about this.

LESSON: Bloggers, especially those who blog for business, should always be 100% sincere. Be genuine. Don’t hide, or even worse, lie. Self-censorship has no place in blogging! You have to catch hearts and minds of your target audience in an honest and open way.