Attention Bloggers - Is Your Blog A Community Cubbyhole?
Every blogger has his or her own reason for starting a blog, but in many cases their hopes for the blog are similar. More exposure to your business (if you have one), a decent level of traffic, plenty of inbound links, a steady flow of visits from the search engines, a significant income, and in some cases, the development of a community.
The latter appears to be something on the rise, and I for one encourage it. In fact, I’d love there to be an ever-growing community on this blog. People we become familiar with, who we share ideas and thoughts with, and are able to encourage in whatever way possible.
As I have spent some time around various blogs, I have observed some bloggers placing a heavy emphasis upon building a community. Good examples would be Liz Strauss and Saman Sadeghi.
Now, as much as a community around a blog is a good thing, there is a danger that you ought to be aware of. Blogs are powerful mediums. Even traditional media sources are having to accept that fact. The blogosphere itself, (although you have to pick the meat from the bones) is a huge resource of information, to such a degree that you very rarely have to buy a book in order to find concentrated information in any particular subject or topic.
The Danger - Are You Excluding Visitors?
However, there is a danger that large portions of the blogosphere could turn into a world of chat rooms. Here and there as I’ve visited different blogs, I’ve found dialogue within the comments section that has made me feel somewhat, left out.
Whether it’s because they’re talking about the staff dinner ‘they’ went to at the weekend, or dialoguing about their friends recent blog launch; information has been left out that excludes the newcomer from the conversation. If you’re going to talk about what you think of Dave’s recent blog design, make sure to include the url of Dave’s blog somewhere along the line, so visitors understand what’s being said.
Although many of us tend to forget because we live in the UK, America, or Australia; not everyone in the world is online. However, everyday hundreds and thousands are just entering into the online world, and as such there is an expanding audience, and your blog might just be the blog they’re looking for. Therefore, don’t exclude the newcomers by ‘exclusive’ converstations. If people feel left out when they visit, they are unlikely to even leave a comment informing you that they don’t understand what you’re talking about. Because of that, you don’t even get the opportunity to address their ignorance; they just leave…possibly forever.
Observe the ‘air’ of your blog community with wise discernment, and make sure it doesn’t become a community cubbyhole.
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5 Responses to “Attention Bloggers - Is Your Blog A Community Cubbyhole?”
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That was a good post. My blog is indeed supposed to build up a strong community. We’ll definitely keep your advice in mind.
I don’t think that having a somewhat closed community is always a bad thing. Any successful blog will invariably be a niche blog, and thus aimed at a particular audience. If you always attempt to explain everything, you end up catering to the lowest common denominator, alienating those of your readers who are “in the know” and diluting the quality of your writing.
Also, I wrote a post about how to create a community you might be interested in reading. It’s written primarily for Web 2.0 startups, but many of the same principles can apply to blogs. The crux of the argument is that your early users or, for a blog, your early posts will to a large degree determine the direction it takes and the niche it fills- even if that means excluding some newbies.
CoI - Thanks.
Ilya - Within every niche, you’re not going to popular with everyone, I know that. What I probably should have made more clear, is that there ought to be an inviting ‘air’ for those that could contribute to the niche community. This is important.
I have used Liz Strauss as an example in this post. Every Tuesday evening she runs an Open Mic style post where dozens of people come and contribute to the conversation in the comments section. A large number of those people are regulars, and many of them know each other well. However, Liz still gets ‘newbies’ because of her what she says in the post, “EVERYONE is WELCOME” and “There are always first timers and new things to talk about.”
This is a great example of keeping the air of the blog inviting, and I believe this to be important.
If you’re blog is about PHP, then obviously you shouldn’t have to explain everything about PHP to every visitor. You should be helpful, but ultimately your audience will generally have a knowledge of PHP, already, or a keen desire to learn; but you need to make sure these people feel welcome.
Thanks for helping me to clarify that.
Oh, boy… I get to use your suggestion to “deep link!” I really liked this article of yours, because I’ve tried hard not to create a “closed community.” Sometimes I’m answering comments so quickly that I forget to add a url so that newbies will know what is going on in the conversation. I’ll remember that excellent advice. Thank you!
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