About Blogging:
Building Friendships Through Your Blog, One Article at a Time
I personally know at least a dozen bloggers. Some of them write to get more customers and some blog for the enjoyment of sharing opinions and building relationships. It's amazing how easy it is to tell the difference.
Recently, during a meeting with a customer, I was asked to define professional blogging. Such a seemingly simple question triggered a simple answer, but after thinking about it I discovered that maybe the answer is not so simple after all. There are people who blog an article a day and can earn a living that way. Is this enough to call them professional bloggers?
For me, the word "professional" means someone with amazing skills, one step ahead of the competition most of the time. In the blogging world, there is no competition. Sure, we can invent competition, but what really counts is who really cares about what you have to say. As bloggers we can compete in a specific way, comparing the amount of readers, numbers of comments and so on, but what really counts is how we influence people and how much they get from our writing.
It's like with music bands: they all sell records and some even win awards, but they all perform for the greater good - a love of music. You can't really say which band is better or worse. You can only say which band is better for you!
What is Wrong With Blogs Today?
Nowadays it seems that people blog just to get traffic: a holy grail everyone is ready to kill for. Bloggers earn money advertising to the crowds but that is changing. Believe me, it's coming - the amount of impressions your ad gets and the amount of generic traffic you generate will soon be worthless. It's just too easy to manipulate people into visiting your website.
Social media is changing the landscape of advertising. The impact matters more than the amount of people who glance at your article. From a business perspective it is more valuable to turn one visitor into an evangelist than to flash an ad to a hundred people. It's better to get one customer with a full basket than to get hundreds of window shoppers.
Where Does Bad Blogging Come From?
Bad blogging usually starts with one successful article, which people start sharing on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites. Then a group of copycats shows up to get some of the action and traffic. The effect is simple - you get hundreds of people writing about the same stuff and approaching it from the same angle. No insights, no own thoughts - just repeating the formula over and over again.
There are exceptions. Original and inspiring bloggers exist and for me, they are professional bloggers. They deserve the attention they get, because even when they write about popular topics, they go deeper and discover new currents. Read some articles from Seth Godin,Chris Brogan, or Tim Ferris. They are the elite, constantlysetting new trends - this is why they are popular!
How to Get Better and What to Avoid
If you are here because you are looking for a recipe for success, here is the best advice I can give you - write about the stuff that moves you and makes you tick and approach it from your own unique angle. You are a blogger - a writer - your goal is to help your visitors discover what matters to you. Avoid acronyms, insider jargon and make every one of your articles unique. Try to write about a problem and a solution and the rest will follow.
It really is not important how often you write, how long your post is and whether everyone agrees with you. Your goal is not to have hundreds of nodders but a handful of friends that will challenge you, quote you and help you discover new subjects to write about. This is the only traffic you should care about.
