One of the interesting parts of running a blog is meeting and communicating with lots of different people from all over the world. But something that does seem to unite bloggers and blog readers is a genuine desire to learn and understand what makes a blog work. As a marketer, this is a very interesting phenomenon, because it means that bloggers are constantly working to engage, understand and respond to an audience.
Even more importantly, the bloggers are also (mostly) willing to share their knowledge, their tips and tricks. Often this takes the form of blog entries, but can also include email correspondence or even phone calls. This "community engagement" is what the web has been trying to become since its inception.
So in the spirit of sharing, and for the benefit of my new readers who may not have seen this post, here are the 5 things that I have learned about blogging.
- Just because you write something doesn’t mean that it will interest anyone (no matter how much you love it)
- You have got to share the love in order to get some lovin’ yourself (ie don’t think that others will read your rantings if you don’t read those of others)
- Keep focused, because your readers are interested in the TOPICS you rant about … not necessarily in all the tangents that you throw up (unless your blog is about tangents)
- Don’t take it too seriously
- Don’t just "report", analyse and add perspective
- Anyone still reading? Yeah I know this is six, but the final one is keep trying to surprise yourself AND your readers.
Also, have learned that it can be a delight to correspond and engage with people around a topic either on my own blog or on someone else’s. Keep having fun!
S.
Very true! Number 2 is often not obvious to new bloggers, but in reading other’s work you learn a lot. In commenting (contributing to their blog) you build relationships and two way conversations. I find that only a small percentage of those that read tend to comment. It may be because they have nothing to add for a particular post (I only comment on a small percent of what I read), but sometimes I think they like a little annonimity. What do you think?
Spot on. It’s incredible how many interesting conversations we’ve had and people we’ve met that have been sparked off by a blog. Number 3 I find the hardest. Some days you just want to write something different, and quite often you can, but it has to be kept within the overall context of your blog. This is why it’s vital to be massively, obessively interested in what you write about – anything else and you’ll lose interest.
As for number 1. Man, the amount of times we’re simply fascinated by a topic, and type out what we believe will be a stunning piece of writing, only to have no interest at all. Other times though, you write about something you feel a little less passionate about and your readers just lap it up. You just never know… 🙂