Blogging

The Key to Outstanding Blog Posts: Quality

By Mark Evans in Blogs No Comments Tags: , , ,

Having shifted my blogging approach this year to offer more perspective than news reporting, a post on Social Media Today entitled “5 Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Outstanding” caught my attention.

The suggestions are fine but there is one crucial element missing: high-quality content that enlightens, engages, entertains or educates. Far too often, blog posts are whipped off for the sake of having a blog post each and every day. As a result, there’s little of substance being offered other than perhaps a tidbit of information. The post fills a void but it is not adding much to the conversation.

In many respects, this is just the way the blog game is played given volume (aka most posts) is as important as quality. It can be one of the most frustrating parts of blogging to see something offering different perspective or insight be ignored while a post on a service going off-line for a short period of captures enraptures everyone.

At the end of the day, most bloggers should focus on quality because there is no way they can compete for attention on volume. When blogging is not your job and it doesn’t generate enough ad revenue to buy more than a cup of coffee each day, why would you focus on not writing posts that display your insight and perspective? When someone reads your blog – even if doesn’t get a lot of traffic – there is an opportunity to make an impression.

If I’m riding a theme in 2011, it’s going to be quality versus quantity. One of the pitfalls of the social media toolkit now available to everyone is the barriers to entry are minimal. Creating content is easier than ever but just because you can create content doesn’t mean it has to happen, including blog posts.

A New and Different Approach to Blogging

By Mark Evans in Blogs, Social Media 7 Comments Tags: , , ,

As we look back at 2010, perhaps the biggest change as far as my use of social media has been a different approach to blogging. Rather than focusing on quantity or, at least feeling the the need to blog every day, I decided to embrace quality.

Part of it had to do with the realization that trying to compete on reporting on the news is a fool’s game given the blogging powerhouses such as GigaOm, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, etc. Any attempt to report on what’s happening feels like joining a party that’s already in full swing.

At the same time, my digital marketing and social media consulting business became very busy and there just aren’t enough hours in the day to blog and do work for clients, who are paying for my time, energy and services. These clients include Sysomos, for whom I write their blog. I could be bold in saying my posts on social media have been high quality and well received, including a ranking within the AdAge Power 150.

It meant having to take a different approach that featured perspective and context. Rather than jumping into the fray, I’ll wait a day or so to think about what things mean. Then, I will write a blog post that may not be timely but, hopefully, offers something of value.

Another theme has been writing away from the news, which has meant exploring different ideas and topics that may not be particularly newsworthy. It has been posts such as suggesting that Facebook make all data public that have been interesting to do even though the thinking may go against the grain.

While this new approach may mean writing three or even two posts a week, it feels like the right approach to balance work, life and blogging. When business is less busy, there’s more time to think and more time to blog. When business is crazy, work usually rules the day. Sometimes, it has meant not blogging but, instead, using Twitter to put the spotlight on idea that capture my attention.

The alternative – and something that many bloggers struggle with – is giving up blogging completely because there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to make it happen. The problem with giving up is it can be very difficult to get back in the game. Once you step away from blogging, your audience can quickly disappear. On the other hand, if you continue to blog at a slower pace, you are still playing and, as important, have the option of gearing up again.

So, for now, blogging takes up less of my digital pie but that’s okay.

Six Tricks to Happy Blogging

By Mark Evans in Blogs, Social Media No Comments Tags: , , ,

Last week, the Sysomos blog (which I write as part of my role as director of communications) became a member of AdAge’s Power 150, which features the leading marketing blogs. It’s great to be recognized for creating blog posts that you hope provide information, insight and value. At the same time, it’s also important to realize that blogging isn’t sexy or easy; it takes a lot of work and effort – and I’m not even talking about the “pro” bloggers at places such as TechCrunch, GigaOm or ReadWriteWeb that pump out multiple posts a day.

When I look at my own blogging activity (I also write a blog about Twitter called Twitterrati), here are my personal “rules”:

1. Be true to your interests and passions as opposed following the crowd or the hot news of the day. While it’s great to be in middle of the biggest story of the day, it’s also a noisy place with lots of competition for eyeballs. While playing in this sandbox is fine from time to time, a better place is sticking to topics that interest you.

2. Forget about trying to compete with the professional blogs such as TechCrunch, Mashable, etc. They’re online publishing machines with a mandate to generate lots of posts to attract readers and provide real estate for ads. These blogs have writers who post around the clock, which means they easily outgun the rest of us. While it used to be sort of easy to go head-to-head, those days are long gone, which explains why there are so few individual bloggers on the Techmeme Leaderboard.

3. Don’t force it. Sometimes, ideas for blogs just flow like water; sometimes, ideas are few and far between. If a blog post just isn’t happening, walk away from the keyboard. In fact, the best ideas for posts come when you’re doing something else other than being online. While Seth Godin or Chris Brogan would likely shiver at the thought, it’s actually okay not to write a blog post every single day.

4. Focus on quality, not quantity. This is related to points #2 and #3 but make sure whatever you do – whether it’s a 750-word opus or a 100 mini-post – offers some kind of value. For mental “burps”, use Twitter.

5. Don’t worry about the numbers. Sure, it’s great to have a lot of readers but “success” for most of us has more to do with who reads our posts as opposed to how many people read them. For most people, blogs can be a terrific vehicle to be part of the conversation, and show your insight and perspective. Unless you’re into blogging for the money, this is as important as having lots of readers.

6. Have fun. For most of us, blogging isn’t a job; it’s a passion. Enjoy the ability to write in a public forum with few barriers to entry. It wasn’t that long ago that writing and being able to reach a large audience was limited to journalists. Today, anyone can do it.

What are your secrets to happy blogging?

Why I Don’t Miss Being a Reporter

By Mark Evans in Media 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

According to a new CNW study, 52% of bloggers now see themselves as journalists, compared with 33% in 2008.

You can count me among the 52% because in many respects I don’t see much of a difference between what I do now when writing blog posts, and what I did when I was a newspaper technology reporter with the Globe & Mail, National Post and Bloomberg News.

These days, I write stories that interest me and get to talk with all kinds of cool people. For example, I wanted to do a blog post on Prezi.com, the new presentation tool being used by a growing number of people at conferences these days. So, I sent an e-mail the CEO, and within a couple of days, I had done an interview and published a blog post.

The ability to “report” is one of the reasons why I don’t miss newspaper journalism. In many respects, I can eat my cake and have it too. With blogging as a user-friendly and popular writing vehicle, I still get to write and report about what I want, and have a modest audience.

This is a contrast to 2000 when I left journalism to co-found Blanketware, a natural language search start-up. It was really before blogging became popular so I missed writing and reporting. In many respects, it meant I had one foot in the start-up world and another still in journalism. For an entrepreneur, this is not a good place to be.

Today, I see myself as an active and engaged member of Canada’s high-tech journalism landscape. It’s not something that makes me any money directly but it’s definitely something I enjoy.


Reality Check: Blogs Haven’t Lost Their Mojo

By Mark Evans in Blog Services, Blogs, Social Media 4 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

One of the downsides of the hype about Twitter (aka the glamor girl) is how it makes blogs look downright dowdy. It’s easy for everyone to get all hot and bothered about 140-character (or less) messages because anyone can do it fairly well. Blogs, however, require time, a nugget of an idea, some work and, hopefully, solid writing.

In other words, Twitter is easy; blogs are difficult. Twitter is dessert; blogs are dinner. Twitter is paint-by-numbers, blogs are a canvas, some paint and an easel.

Nevertheless, millions of blogs continue to be created every day because they’re a low-barrier platform for anyone to ruminate, pontificate, speculate, opine and babble about anything and everything. Unlike Twitter, there are no arbitrary restrictions on the length of a post. You can go long, you can go short (a la master blogger Seth Godin), you can post a photograph, or comment on someone else’s blog post.

As Peter Kim outlined in a recent blog post, there are plenty of reasons why blogs appear to be losing their mojo. But I believe Kim’s thesis ignores some basic truths – the blogosphere continues to expand, and blogging continues to be the social platform to demonstrate insight, and the ability to create a community around it.

This is the reason that I encourage most of my clients to seriously consider writing a blog to show customers and potential customers who they are and what they think. To me, blogs are the perfect business card, white paper and marketing brochure in one tidy package. It also helps that Google loves blogs so blogs are a great SEO tool.

Sure, blogs aren’t easy because you’ve got to work them on a regular basis. (Note: “work them” means staying committed, which could mean one post/week or several posts/week). But in the long run, the rewards from blogging outweigh anything you’ll get from Twitter.

For more counter-thoughts on Kim’s blog thesis, check out the Future Buzz. As well, the chart below that shows how WordPress.com and Blogger.com have grown over the past year (27.7% and 28.2% growth respectively in unique U.S. visitors).

Blogging Continues to Rumble Along

By Mark Evans in Social Media 1 Comment Tags: , , , ,

blogTwitter is sexy and Facebook now has more than 300 million registered users. But what about blogging? Blogging isn’t sexy anymore and it is being assailed as a passing fancy, especially by the mainstream media.

The truth, however, is the blogosphere is doing just fine: the number of blogs, blog posts and people reading blogs continues to grow. Meanwhile, the mainstream media continues to launch blogs as part of its mad scramble to embrace the social Web.

What became obvious during BlogWorld Expo is that blogging is the solid citizen of the social Web, while Twitter and Facebook are the wild children. Another reality is that Twitter and Facebook are, in many cases, complementary tools used by bloggers rather than tools that replace blogging.

Before anyone writes off blogs, think again.

More: Here’s an audio clip from social media maven Robert Scoble on whether blogging during tech conferences such as BlogWorld Expo is dead.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
1 2 3