I received Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers by Michael A. Banks as a freebie at the BlogHer Business Conference last month. Since I was in the midst of rethinking the Downtown Women’s Club blog, I figured it might be helpful to read what the experts had to say.
While there are no “secrets” or “shortcuts” to successful blogging–most of the material boiled down to “write good content and hopefully readers will find you”–it was helpful to learn from others’ experiences. However, much of the material seemed redundant by the 20th interview.
Nevertheless, there were occasional thought-provoking points. For example, PR people are really missing the boat when they assume bloggers are similar to traditional journalists. Bloggers generally are writing in their own voice on topics that interest them. They’re allowed to have biases and preferences. Traditional journalists, on the other hand, are mercenary in that most of the time they’re writing a story their editor told them to write or that they are being paid by a client to write.
Another point to ponder is that almost none of the most popular blogs started out with a goal of being the most popular blog. They were just individuals writing on topics in which they had an interest or expertise.
Some of the blogs discussed in the book were BoingBoing, Scobleizer, LifeHacker, The Long Tail, Gizmodo, and ParentDish. While the bloggers and blog topics greatly differed, there were some consistent themes.
- Good content makes for a good blog. Hype without content won’t work.
- Find a niche topic that you are passionate about and stay focused on it.
- Grow a thick skin because people will criticize you. Be professional in your response (even if it’s a personal blog).
- Don’t put yourself under pressure thinking you have to have a successful blog right away. Take some time to find your voice and focus.
- Don’t promote your blog until you’ve been up and running a bit.
- Blogging can take less time than you think. You can do a little bit every day or write a bunch of posts for future use.
- Don’t write about what you’re trying to sell; write about what you know.
- Most successful bloggers read and comment on other blogs.
- Link, link, link.
- Allow comments; reader feedback is part of becoming a popular blog.
- Unless you have a good reason, don’t hide your identity. People like to relate to the people behind the blogs.
- Blogging is more intimate and conversational than print media.
- Those who have the best writing and work the hardest are usually the most successful.
- Growth does not happen quickly.
- Be original.
- If you go into blogging with the idea that you’ll make a fortune, you’ll be frustrated.
The Top Shelf Bottom Line: If you’re looking to start a blog or, like me, revisiting an existing blog, it’s a worthwhile read to get a gist of what the blogosphere is all about.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.One Response to “Blogging Heroes”
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April 30th, 2008 at 3:03 am
hi Diane,
A few nice points here. The first one seems to be the most relevant i.e. good content and, of course, writing regularly comes a close second.
Bye!