Unfiltered
In my own voice
Two different kinds of writing: what I think about the work, and what I write when the work isn’t the subject.
Short form
Writing about the work
Posts from LinkedIn on ghostwriting, content and building an audience, written the way I’d say them.
In my own voice · Tofunmi Balogun
Finding My Way Back to Writing
Read →Aug 2026
Finding My Way Back to Writing
In 2015, I emailed an award-winning author after meeting her at a book reading, and her reply devastated me. I hadn't expected a response at all. I was in uni and finding it hard to go to class. I didn't really understand why. But I could find solace in my writing, the way I had since secondary school, filling little Ankara-wrapped notebooks and passing them around to my friends for their opinion. I actually had peop…
In my own voice · Tofunmi Balogun
Ghostwriting Is a Partnership
Read →Aug 2026
Ghostwriting Is a Partnership
Having a book makes ghostwriting for you this much easier. The thing I sometimes come up against when working with clients is that they don't always understand it's a partnership, not at first anyway. Having me on retainer doesn't mean I think for you. If I did that, I'd be inserting my personality, and I promise you don't want this weird, culture-infested brain vomiting all over your LinkedIn with quotes from whatev…
In my own voice · Tofunmi Balogun
Your LinkedIn SSI Score
Read →Jun 2026
Your LinkedIn SSI Score
Your LinkedIn SSI score probably isn't something you've checked. LinkedIn calculates your Social Selling Index from four things: - Your professional brand on the platform (profile clarity + what you publish) - Whether you're finding and connecting with the right people - How you engage with relevant posts and conversations - Whether you're building trust with the decision makers in your network People talk about hook…
In my own voice · Tofunmi Balogun
Post Less
Read →Mar 2026
Post Less
Your goal this year should be to post less. Hear me out, it's not that you don't have a lot to say, in fact if you're like me you often have way too much to say and you're not sharing the half of it. We have this client at Brandspire Digital Limited and when I met with them at the beginning of the year, I told them I wanted to go down from 5 posts a week to 3. Not just that but I eked a commitment from them to intera…
Long form
Personal essays
Writing outside the work: faith, feminism, film and identity. Published on my Substack, and readable in full here.
Personal essay · Substack
Am I Other?
Read →Jul 2026
Am I Other?
Am I Other? Maverick, because I always arrived at the same place via a different route. Stubborn, because I thought before I acted and questioned the ask more often than not. Intimidating, because I wanted conversation beyond banter and small talk. Awkward, because my silence frightened them as much as their loudness scared me. High maintenance, because I like what I like. Repellent, because I looked too put together…
Personal essay · Substack
Call of My Life Is the Romcom Nollywood Owed Us
Read →Jun 2026
Call of My Life Is the Romcom Nollywood Owed Us
This is coming a few months late, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. Nollywood is historically associated with morality tales, wealth fantasies and heavy-handed drama rather than the kind of wistful, whimsical romance Hollywood was churning out in the 2000s. And I could start on the crop of YouTube movies that are suddenly everywhere and touted as the latest and greatest, I don’t begrudge the idea of making money in a…
Personal essay · Substack
Does Our Faith Make Room for Nuance?
Read →Jun 2026
Does Our Faith Make Room for Nuance?
Religion away from the Spirit of God is just oppression oh. That was my first thought while talking to a friend recently. We were discussing a lot of things, Christianity, feminism, the way the two are so often treated as incompatible when they should not be, and one thing led to another. Somehow we landed on the topic of a couple who had recently made the decision to terminate a pregnancy after a Trisomy 21 diagnosi…
Personal essay · Substack
Feminism Is Not A Cult. And No, I Won’t Calm Down.
Read →Apr 2026
Feminism Is Not A Cult. And No, I Won’t Calm Down.
Let me start with what I know.CNN published an investigation last month that has become the basis for highly polarised views, and it didn’t even really catch fire until this last week.Thanks for reading Tofunmi’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.It documented an online Telegram group where men shared techniques for drugging their partners, filmed the assaults, and traded the video…
Personal essay · Substack
Count to 7
Read →Jun 2025
Count to 7
The mouldy patches on the damp ceiling are gazelles today, they’re running around in a field full of lilies with the sunlight streaming just enough and a cool breeze blowing. I can almost convince myself of this scene, except for the smell. I clench my fists into the sheets and close my eyes as I begin to count 1…2…3… the pace picks up and I press my face into the pillow to silence my grunts. I have learned they will…
Personal essay · Substack
Alone
Read →Dec 2024
Alone
She was utterly alone. Her eyes parsed the empty town square, hoping, despite all odds, that someone would see her. Her mouth moved silently at first, but she managed to make a few sounds “Hel….help me,” she said finally, shocked at how strong and clear her voice was. And then she was not alone. It was sudden and bright. Very quickly, she was warm, healed and in the arms of her beloved. Her beloved She had no beloved…