After commenting on colleague’s post reflecting on why he will continue to blog, I realized that both his blog and my comment were worth sharing here.
If you’ve been in the situation where you’ve started a blog but felt you couldn’t get the conversation going, or if you are trying to get people in your institution to continue blogging rather than get discouraged before establishing it, I have the same encouragement and advice I posted as a comment on “It’s Been Awhile…”
Here are three reasons to continue blogging even if you don’t get the number of comments you expect:
- Some of the best advice on blogging I’ve ever heard is “Blog for yourself”. Even if you have no other followers, a blog serves as a chance for you to commit your thoughts to writing, to reflect on your work, and build your own personal philosophy of what you do. From there, you may build a strong, interesting and unique voice that may interest others…
- Some people are listeners and not commenters. I comment more than most, but well over half of the posts I read and enjoy, I never comment on because rather than post a bunch of “Hey, me too. I agree,” posts, I wait until I find one where I can add more to the conversation. But, I may file a good post in my memory and reference it later, in another post, comment, tweet, or even casual conversation. That brings me to my next point…
- Even if you post immediately and you are in people’s feeds (as you are mine), they may not respond immediately. We can be shameless self-promoters (like me) and tweet out new posts, add our feeds to Ning and Facebook, and the like, but the Internet is still a time-shifted place. People may not find your post until word-of-mouth spreads, or until a topic related to your post leads them to you. What you write today may not be found until next week, next month, next year, or even several years from now.
Keep blogging, encourage others to do the same, and share your blog. If you have have blog you’d like to share with me, drop me a line!
This is a post every blogger needs to read regularly. We all get the feeling that we just aren’t getting heard every once and a while.
I began a higher ed focused blog late last month. While viewership has been much lower and slower than my previous blog (which was much more accessible content wise), I don’t worry about it. I don’t expect to have huge amounts of traffic given the relatively small population of higher ed web workers. All I hope to achieve (especially after our new site launches early next year) is to write some interesting posts that get people to think about higher ed sites in a new light.
That said, I’ve just recently begun to jump into the existing world of higher ed blogs and have found them to be smart, interesting and well worth my time.
Hi Nikki,
Thanks for the post. In regards to number 2), bloggers should make sure to implement analytics into their blog. That way, you’ll at least know if someone is even viewing the post.
Now here is the ‘rub’. Everyone says to ‘keep blogging’ even though you may not have a strong readership or commentorship…and you may try many different eMarketing Techniques to drive traffic… but when do you decide ‘enough is enough’? After all, blogging isn’t for everybody.
Your thoughts?
-Brad
Yes, I agree with this. I myself run a blog that honestly does not get a-lot of readers sad to say, but I keep at it everyday because to me it is a way to let our some inner feelings and sort of like my online diary per say.
I really liked this entry it shows a-lot of people that you shouldn’t just blog for traffic or money, but blogging is more of a personal thing to help communicate with people and help get others to realize how you are feeling and your views on whatever topic you are blogging about that day.
Agree with you …..but I like writing so i just do it. Write and type and there is no fees for that. So simple………
i couldn’t agree more, every blogger needs to read articles such as this and ESPECIALLY this one. note the first reason stating “blog for yourself” its fun to read comments from readers as they express their view on different matters and subjects but first you must consider that the blog you posted is for expressing yourself.
@Stephan & @Friend: Thanks, and if you know other bloggers who need encouragement, pass on this advice.
@Brad: Great advice! Even if the purpose of the blog in particular is a personal one, implementing analytics may provide you with the feedback you are not getting from comments and trackbacks.
As far as when “enough is enough”, I would say that the questions you need to ask yourself are the same questions you would use to assess any implementation (including blogs): What is the purpose of the blog? If the response I get is low, am I still achieving this purpose? What can I do to promote my blog? Should I consider another tool?
@Mike, @Shawn @PDua: I enjoy blogging for myself. It’s much more comfortable when you work with what you know and what interests you. If you’re lucky, the Web is big enough to draw in enough people who have similar interests. The flip side is it’s also big enough that it takes awhile for them to find you.
Hi - I’m in charge of web content for a University career center, and I want to do a blog on our website, but I can’t see me writing it “for myself” and still make the information interesting, relevant and educational for viewers. Maybe it’s because I haven’t really started the process yet, but I’m having a hard time envisioning it…
All advice welcome! Thanks and Happy New Year!
Hi Jeff,
In your case, your blog is for an audience other than yourself. Have you considered, then, recruiting bloggers other than yourself?
What I’m saying is, if your blog is aimed at services to students, why not partner with students and create content with a more authentic voice? Student bloggers (under your oversight) would provide you the student prospective, allow a select group of students the chance to become intimately familiar with your services to champion them to other students, and provide resume-building experience as bloggers for them. Additionally, blogging is a task that is easy to delegate to student workers as you can preview their work before publication and you can hand-off to a new team of students from semester to semester without excessive training.
Check out Kyle’s advice on student workers to consider your own interns or work-study staff. Or, if you don’t have the resources to pick up student workers, try to partner with student writers elsewhere on campus. Perhaps you partner with the student paper.