There are three key aspects to think about when starting to blog: Finding interesting blogs to read, reading blogs and becoming inspired and reactive, and then writing blog posts.
Reading
Comparing blogs to physical newspapers, blogs are analogous to individual columns of a newspaper. Physical newspapers have editors who choose the columns and articles to feature each time the newspaper is published. The beauty of blogs is that they allow for the reader to pick and chose their own preferred columns and essentially take on the editor roll themselves; The reader is the editor.
Newspapers have a rigid submission deadline for columnists’ articles. Bloggers, on the other hand, are publishing articles all the time in a constant stream of content. Feed readers, like Google Reader, allow readers to subscribe to blog “feeds” (streams) and be notified of updates. Feed readers are the tool that allow readers to be editors and automatically build their personalized newspapers in one place.
“There’s an analogy here with every journalist who has ever looked at the Web and said ‘Well, it needs an editor.’ The Web has an editor, it’s everybody. In a world where publishing is expensive, the act of publishing is also a statement of quality — the filter comes before the publication. In a world where publishing is cheap, putting something out there says nothing about its quality. It’s what happens after it gets published that matters. If people don’t point to it, other people won’t read it. But the idea that the filtering is after the publishing is incredibly foreign to journalists.”
— Clay Shirky
Finding
I find blogs by reading sites where people vote on blog posts (and actually anything on the internet, but blogs pop up more often than not) such as Digg and Reddit. To add a site to a feed reader (specifically Google Reader), a subscription must be available. Almost all sites have subscriptions available and they are usually denoted by the pictured orange feed logo. Copying and pasting the sites address into Google Reader’s “Add subscription” box will add the subscription. Google Reader can also look at the current subscriptions and make suggestions for more feeds.
Writing
Sign up at a place like Wordpress for free and just start writing. I definitely use a few tricks to get going, though:
- I write about things that I find myself “preaching” to many different people. For instance, lately I’ve been telling many people how to get started with blogging and now I will be able to point them to this post.
- Read blog feeds to help inspire unique content. “Blog reactions” are blog posts about other peoples’ posts. Building on other people’s ideas is definitely encouraged in the blogging community.
- Get involved with similar bloggers. Competitor blogs tend to share a lot of the same readership. Comment on peer blogs and don’t be afraid to start some controversy!
- Talk to real-life friends about blog ideas. Blogging doesn’t just have to be an online activity. I actively talk to my friends about what would appeal to them and what they think about certain topics.
- Think about the target audience. Most of the time, I have no idea who my target audience is but I have an ideal in mind. My peers in school and at work are definitely the closest I know to this ideal reader. I try and gauge how much I should explain, for instance, technical details based on what my target audience would already know.
Evolution
When first starting out it’s hard to know exactly what to blog about. It takes time and practice to find a niche. I’m constantly starting over as I change what I want in my blog. I’ve had three blogs previously and two blogs now and each is different and helped me evolve my writing.
Many blog posts that I write are never actually get posted. I think of Humanist as a magazine where I publish a select subset of my ideas to a select subset of the internet population. Even if I have a good idea, I won’t post it if it’s not exactly relevant to my readership. Of course, posting anything and everything I can think of would probably still find some subset of the population to appeal to, but part of the blogging fun is finding a binding theme. I’m not writing about myself and thats why I don’t blog at LukeHoersten.com. Jim Whimpey describes it well when explaining why he’s not blogging at his name anymore: “… I feel like I want to write for a publication rather than run what felt like a public consciousness. Valhalla Island by Jim Whimpey feels like there’s an extra layer of editorial integrity and quality.”
Try to think “what unique perspective do I have to write about? What can I add to the internet?”
Motivation & Rhythm
It’s critical to stay motivated to keep the flow of posts coming. Things like reader feedback, money from ads, and even site design keep me interested enough to keep posting. Finding a rhythm is also important. I post about once a week and my post lengths tend to be medium range. Readers come to expect a rhythm. Some people post less often but their posts are huge articles with many ideas. Microblogging is another form of blogging where the writer simply does little one-line updates very often. Either way, I think most authors probably blog about 500 words per three days, give or take.
If you have trouble coming up with ideas, let me know and I’ll try and help tap your brain.
- None Found