The Often Neglected Part of Blogging… Caution!

Blogging should be about interaction not just shouting into the void from your virtual step ladder.

Which means? Which means commenting on other blogs and generally interacting with relevant parts of the blogosphere. But be careful what you say and how you say it.

Well. You might be thinking: often neglected=posting, in my case. True in many other cases too…

Get the Word Out With Comments on Other Blogs

But while I haven’t been posting much lately the never ending quest to keep on top of what works online continues and I have felt compelled to offer an opinion or two as I worked my way through my feeds.

A comment here, a bit of related experience here, a bit of unsolicited advice on a landing page in that forum… It’s all about sharing your experience with others facing the same online marketing challenges. Or sharing your take on whatever challenges you might be blogging about.

Picture a man walking briskly across London’s Hyde Park towards Speaker’s Corner*. He has a two step ladder, a resigned look on his face and a sign that reads “I know better!”

At his destination, a crowd is gathered around a man with a shiny new 6 step ladder. A buzz of heated conversation emanates from the crowd. People excitedly offer the man who stands above them opinions and words of praise.

Our hero ignores the excitement. He sets up his ladder and climbs up the two steps. He takes a deep breath and begins to talk loudly. But not loudly enough for the crowd to take notice…

Introduce Yourself to the Relevant Blogosphere Community

Checking my analytics I was pleased to see that my opinion made enough sense to prompt a few people to check out who this Hamish guy was by clicking through to my site… We might not be talking about lots of traffic but we are talking about essential engagement with a relevant online community. If you don’t venture beyond your own blog you may find blogging a lonely experience…

• People find blogs via other blogs — commenting on other blogs is a way to proactively introduce your blog to people with relevant interests.
• There is no point in demonstrating your expertise and exploring your opinions if nobody is listening — if you blog and nobody reads your blog you don’t make a noise.
• The beauty of the blogosphere is the ongoing conversation that helps build people’s understanding of the subject at hand — comment threads concentrate this learning rather than it being distributed across blogs commenting on other blogs.
• But try to contribute meaningfully rather than just giving the blogger a virtual pat on the back — the odd “well done sir/madam” comment is ok but the real value in commenting comes when you have something to add the discussion around a blog entry.

But Join the Blogosphere Conversation with a Little Care

Be sure to join the conversation at the blogs that gather crowds in your part of the blogosphere as well as referencing them in your own posts.

But exercise caution: Being a bit of a word guy, I know the difference between “there” and “their”. Well, duh… Thing is I have a habit of typing the later when I mean the former when typing at speed. So here I was rushing to share my recent experience with evaluating security logos^ and their impact on conversion on a recent Get Elastic blog and my regular typo demon strikes…

Who is going to hire a Web content specialist that doesn’t know the difference between “there” and “their”? Be careful out there!

Bottom line:
If you are blogging, you should be spending some of your blogging time commenting on relevant blogs, joining the conversation and demonstrating your expertise. But make sure you read your comments twice before submitting them.

* Stretching for a location people will recognize and failing to find a US or more local example.
^ Now there’s an idea for a blog…