The New Secrets Of Blogging – Pragmatic Or Cynical?
I read a lot about how to create a successful blog, but I need to tell you – things have changed and we need to clear up some fallacies.
Normally, I am a social media cheerleader and tomorrow, I will continue to do so. However, it ain’t 2004. The secrets to a successful blog are very different now. Same pond, but a lot more water and a hell of a lot more fish.
So here are some ways I believe blogging has changed, especially in the year and a half I’ve been active in the space. How do you think the blogosphere has changed? Are my points below pragmatic or the ravings of a cynic.
Here are new guidelines for a successful blog these days:
- Abandon “good” for “controversial”: A lot of people write very good, very intriguing blog posts. And every day, most of these are ignored, relegated to the bottom of a search engine, and forgotten. Sure, “good” and “controversial” aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s tough to be both. And out of the two, at least controversial posts get read. Don’t just spend your time thinking about what to say; consider also how to say it. Once you have some subscriber eyeballs, you can afford to write brilliant think pieces, but until then, go for something that grabs attention. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it is better to be talked about than not talked about.
- Forget commenting: The conventional wisdom used to go like this – leave worthwhile comments on the blogs of A-listers and eventually they will notice and link to you (hell, I wrote a post to this effect one year ago). This simply isn’t the case anymore. With the proliferation of people interacting on blogs, A-listers can now get over 100 comments per post – what’s their motivation for noticing you in the crowd? (The exception to this rule being Chris Brogan, but that guy is like Superman.) From my experience, change the ratio to devoting a lot of time to writing and reading, and spend very little time commenting on only deserving blog posts. Personally, of the testimonials from A-listers you can find in the right-hand column of my blog, none of those came because of comments I left. They were all pretty damn random.
- Don’t blog, period: Blogging used to be the shiny, new object, but it’s not 2004 anymore. Blogging, especially if it is for a business, may well be a waste of your time. There are a lot of considerations to consider before starting a blog (here are 21 to start with), but the most common mistake is not considering this: does your product suck? If so, reinvest that blogging money back into your product. Think about what Josh Bernoff, co-author of Groundswell (one of my favorite books of 2008 – you do own it, right?), said on the Mediablather podcast with Paul Gillin and David Strom:
“I think there’s a novelty factor in some of these new technologies and there are a lot of people saying blogging is dead – no blogging is not dead – the level of consumer interest in it continues to rise. But, as far as corporations go, the idea of a company doing a blog has become pretty ordinary at this point. So unless your blog is really interesting, it has some twist to it…you’re only going to be effective with it if it actually accomplishes a corporate goal.”
What do you think? Am I a cynic or just a pragmatist?
These points do make some assumptions about blogging, of course. It assumes that success equals traffic, that all traffic is the same, and the goal is higher volume. This may or may not be true in your case.
But I think it does accurately reflect the blogosphere as it is today. I will go back to promoting social media for business tomorrow, but for today, I needed to vent about the changes I see in reactions to my own blog and on blogs that I read.
What do you think: pragmatic or cynical?
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Tags: blogging, blogs, Marketing, Online marketing
You’re being both cynical and pragmatic.
I think you’re being cynical about being controversial. I think the crux of it is not the controversy, but the freshness of voice. There are plenty of people out there who are controversial and have no success, because they’re not also worth listening to. If you try to start unqualified controversy, you end up looking like a troll. But if you know what you’re talking about, can back it up, and still sound controversial — that’s a whole different ballgame, because you’re really adding something.
You’re also being cynical about commenting and blogging, but only sort of. You’re right to be skeptical of the tactics, and I’m 100% with you on the false confidence of jumping on the bandwagon of the flashy new tools without thinking long and hard about WHY… but you can push that too far the other way too.
Commenting and blogging is only as important as the message. There are new tactics, new norms, new technologies… but it’s all the same old stuff at the end of the day. Your suggestion to reinvest in the product is a smart one, but you do still have to communicate; just communicate honestly.
I don’t think your blog needs to be “interesting” or “have a twist” necessarily; the point is that you need to match your tactical execution to a strategy derived from your objectives.
It is totally valid to write a blog for your 12 friends. It is totally valid to write a blog to work on vetting your own ideas, and anyone who reads it and doesn’t like it can just go to hell.
But you’re pragmatic — and right — about a lot of this. Blogging IS totally different now. It ISN’T 2004 anymore.
But then again, what exactly what so special about 2004? Some of the early adopters are doing quite well, but the vast majority are not. Some “famous bloggers” end up working 100 hour weeks and pulling in low 5 figure salaries, anyway. There’s nothing magical or mysterious about any of this … it’s all BUSINESS.
The media business has been shaken up, and is still being shaken up, but the media business IS NOT the be all end all of the business world. The only thing I’m truly cynical about is the number of people who talk but don’t do. Everything else is OK in my book
Blogs are not dead, but it seems like people are gravitating towards big blogs or groups of authors- more in the style of traditional media.
I think blogs are great for people who like to write. A lot of non-writers were trying to blog because it was “good for business.”
I also think Twitter makes it easier for the casual blogger to share links and ideas with out the cumbersome nature of a blog post. I used to blog 3-5 times a week. Now I tweet all the time and do an occasional blog post on a big idea.
My blog audience is sparse, but blogging is a way for me to keep writing and building up ideas for future reference.
The principle of creating content has not changed, though there are more options for distribution today. The better the content you create, the better your chances at success.
[...] another post today, DJ Francis suggests “if your product sucks, reinvest the money you would have spent on blogging back [...]
I think we all go back and forth on these very issues at times. It can seem like the one thing we’ve always held true about creating quality content is true as the only way to get ahead, just to see someone pop on the scene with nothing-posts and rise up the Google search pages lightning-fast.
Small things can cause us to doubt what we’ve always held true, but we can’t let it get to us! Comments are still exactly what they were really intended to be- a way for authors and readers to connect on a personal level. Controversy is still for shock-value— when used as a tool, we have to keep in mind that it’s not real. Let’s not abandon “good” for “controversial”, but how about “good” for “real”.
Don’t be cynical, and don’t look at blogging as a “waste of time”… this too shall pass!
Danelle Ice (Homemaker Barbi)