Blog Flak

There are many, many different reasons why people start writing a blog. Generally the number one reason I hear is that “It looks like fun, so I’ll give it a try”. This is probably the best reason to start one, but rarely does it remain the #1 reason why they continue writing after a period of time. It’s easy to become hooked on writing a social blog, especially if you achieve some small level of popularity. Eventually though, most people come to see it as a sort of popularity contest to see how many readers they can acquire, or how many comments they can get on a daily basis, often using their hit counter as a measuring tool of their success as a blogger. There’s nothing wrong with looking at it that way but too often I see that they’ve become so caught up in the popularity contest aspect that their writing begins to suffer. You can’t please all the people all of the time!

The best way for the average, beginning blogger to become popular is to be interactive in a community of bloggers. I’ve found that if you give good comment, you will receive good comment. Leaving comments on others blogs is the best way for a newbie blogger to become known, otherwise no one will “find” you. You can’t realistically expect to just start writing and sit back and wait for people to come to you, there are millions of social blogs out there, your’s is just a tiny molecule in a galaxy of other bloggers all seeking the same thing that you are. If you want people to find you, you have to explore the galaxy and find them, take an interest in what they are writing about, then let them know you are there by leaving relevant comments. This is the #1 way to get started on the road to success.

Finding like minded blogs is not that difficult, you can try blog surfing at places like Blog Explosion or Blog Clicker or Blog Mad and search thru their listings, and do a lot of reading to find people that you think are interesting. Become friends, act like a good neighbor, be friendly!

Usually though, you won’t find the most popular blogs out there to be running their site in a blog surfing rotation, because they don’t need to. They’ve already become popular for a variety of reasons. Often they aren’t looking for new friends either because they are having trouble keeping up with the ones they already have. Life interferes! And staying truly interactive within a circle of friends can take a fairly large investment of time and effort, they may not have any left to give to newcomers. It can sometimes be difficult to break into and become popular within an established blogging community because of these reasons. Often it’s best to start your own.

Getting started can be difficult for the beginner blogger and often it won’t seem worth it because no one is reading you. Don’t let that discourage you! Generally within 2 months most people come into their own and if you venture out from your blog and seek out friends by leaving friendly, relevant comments, people will find you! People will track you back thru the comments you leave, follow you back to your blog and talk to you! When they do you may have a backlog of well written posts for them to catch up on, especially if you’ve written about interesting topics. This is what builds great blogging communities!

1. Be Interactive. Get out there and comment all over the place!
2. Don’t be bashful. Speak up but stay on topic.
3. Be friendly. Think about what you’re saying, and say it nicely.
4. Think before you type. Sounding insensitive is very easy in written text. Emotions and voice inflection don’t come thru like you might expect!
5. Write about your favorite subjects. You will come across as well informed.
6. Use spell check!! Misspelling words is just plain bad, you don’t want to come across as uneducated.
7. Don’t get discouraged. Stick with it, perseverance will pay off!
8. Write about fun and interesting topics. Of course people will wan’t to hear about the lousy day you had, but not every day, in every post!
9. Encourage people to be interactive at your blog. Ask questions!
10. And finally, have FUN! If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong!

Technorati tags: blogging, newbies, social blogging, interactive, sport