Commonalities between bloggers who make it and those that do not
When you look at group blogging web sites like BoingBoing , Gawker, Techcrunch, ITToolbox and other web sites, they all have different niches, but they all have things in common. These things in common are community, interest and uniqueness, the number of times each day they blog, and a host of other things that separate the blogs who continue to grow, and blogs that do not continue to grow. Depending on why you blog, following along with the lessons from the top bloggers in the world could help you bring your blogging up to standards that people expect from blogs today.
A strong sense of community, people go there because they end up caring about the people writing, or the issues that the blogs are covering. The community is important, answering back comments are important, learning what is important to your readers is vital. Most blogs have the ability to comment, back track, links, blog rolls, or other ways of sharing “link love ” with someone. The community builds upon itself, and can be a major key to success.
A strong sense of identity, for those that visit the sites often, you already know what you are going to get, or your friends and yourself can talk about the whole experience that these web sites offer. It is often not just about the “news” or the “scandal” value is added by paying attention to the comments, back links, and rebuttal that revolves around each post. The identity of the blog is built around two types of “brands,” the writer and the web site. In some cases, the blog and the brand are the same, in the case of Gawker Media, ITToolbox and other group blogs, the blog brand often surpasses the individual contributors, but the contributors also add to the blogs brand.
There are strong characters or leaders in each group, either in management or as writers. These strong personalities helps guide the direction of the group, or provides support for the group effort. Individual blogs have to be not only their own guidance, but their own manager as well. These good collaborative environments in many ways are just as important for the writers as they are for the readers. While there is a money motive when there is a solid business model to be considered. When the business is about writing, where it is not “vital to be first” there often is a supportive environment for writers. Writers talk to each other often, and share their own experiences with each other. When the motive is readership , and money , sometimes issues become clouded quickly .
They are unique in one form or another, or they have successfully figured out a way to “dominate a niche” or add to the niche in ways that are unexpected and unique. Individual bloggers like Louis Gray, Robert Scoble, Chris Pirillo, and others have all talked about the same thing, yet find interesting ways to add to the conversation. What they add to the conversation as individuals helps form opinions for many people as to what they will buy, what they will use for technology, or how technology, culture, and people intersect in often unusual and interesting ways.
They do this either as a solo effort on their own blogs, or they do this as part of a system like Robert Scoble’s blog that is an extension of Robert Scoble and his current employer. Other ways of reaching the audience and adding to the conversations is that they have also taken on the part of an evangelist that people can believe in. Chris Pirillo runs the very popular “Gnomedex” series of conventions that discusses new media, while larger organizations like O’reilly media use their own blog as a corporate blog to hear what the head of O’reilly media thinks is important. As individuals, they all have made a success of blogging in relationship to what they do, and who they are. The blog is an extension of the social landscape that they exist in at the time. If Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer blogged, they would also immediately become some of the most read blogs in the world, because it would be as both an individual and as a corporate leader or thought leader in what is happening next.
The social landscape that would support the CEO of Apple and the CEO of Microsoft would also add to the discussion about how those companies can reach more people with their respective audiences.
They are passionate or “true believers” in what they are talking about on their blogs. They want to be around people who are building the things, products, ideas, and social fabrics that we live in, and they blog about. The passion is not faked, it cannot be, they honestly believe in what they are writing about as a solution to a problem, or someone to emulate, or an idea that is worthy of pursuing. Their blogs, and in many cases their lives reflect that infectious enthusiasm for how to use new media, blogging, video blogging, pod casting, and a host of other technologies to unite and bind people together. All blogs to this to a point, they talk about things they believe in, but the truly successful blogs all have a thread of undeniable passion that runs through them.
They write every day, and in many cases, many times during the day. All the successful blogs have more than one entry per day. The output on some of the individual blogs is amazing in its context, content, and frequency. Team blogs are easier to manage with the continual flow of information. Nevertheless, even in a team blog, it is important to blog every day. Bloggers who blog once a week, or once a month often fail to gather an audience. Bloggers who are out there every day, many times during the day often have a much better change of building an audience. There are some that state that blogging every day is a misnomer , that it is more about the participation every day, however at some point, the blogger needs to intersect with their audience every day in one form or another, usually writing a new blog entry, and answering comments will help drive readership.
The threads that bind the successful blogs from the non-successful blogs, from passion, community, identity, leadership, social involvement, and uniqueness are the compelling reasons to read their blogs. They state things that may be out of line with our thoughts, and as we blog about the ideas, we find the social threads to tie these ideas together. We reformat the data, ideas, thoughts, and technology that help drive those changes into a unique solution that works at the time, or does not work at the time. The key to success in blogging is to be all those things, and be consistent in their application within your writing and the social obligations you undertake with blogging. You can blog once a month, but if your goal is to become a professional blogger, then emulating what other bloggers have learned, leaning how to write and believe in what you are doing is a good start.
tags: success, failure, blogs, bloggers, blogging, news, commonalities, successful, data, news
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