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–Continued from Part 2 (Part 1)

In a recent exchange on a blog I commented on, the author had posted an entry on a topic that was somewhat controversial. It was a topic that I had definite opinions, and those opinions seemed to contradict the author’s perspective. I made a comment that was not hostile toward the author, but yet expressed disagreement with the perspective presented. It was quickly met with a comment that indicated that the entry was not meant for everyone to comment on and that my perspective was not welcome.

This example is exactly the wrong method to approach blogging. First of all, growing a blog is akin to growing a marriage. You may not always like what the other person does, but you embrace them anyway. They may have stinky breath in the morning, fart under the covers or leave eggshells in the sink, but behind all of that there is a person you love.

It’s not uncommon for people to have different mentalities and world views in the blogosphere. But in the end, they are your figurative best friend. Without those differing views feeding your blog, you will have a steeper hill to climb.

Open Up to New Ideas

If blogging has done nothing else for me, it has opened me up to new ideas. Rather, it has given me a communications outlet to the world where ideas are consistently batted around. For most people who do not have such a communications outlet, it is easy to become desensitized to what is going on in the world around them. They turn on the television and hear and see what is presented. But to many of these folks, there is no real outlet for speaking, or in this case writing their thoughts.

Some folks over the years have taken the opportunity to keep journals (you know, the old fashioned pen and notebook style), but relationships takes bi-directional communication. It takes the ability for the person to communicate through written or verbal speech and be communicated back to.

Why Communication? I Thought Relationships Were the Topic

Relationships with your readers as well as other bloggers, family, coworkers and friends are why blogs are so powerful a medium. By blogging, an author is forced to take the initiative to verbalize (figuratively) what he thinks for someone else’s benefit. And in doing so, the blogger has the opportunity to be applauded or contradicted by the other person. There is an honesty inherent there that is, by it’s very nature, the dynamic of a blog.

Blogging is a very different kind of communication tool. It is actually quite limiting in the traditional sense. Experts estimate that between 70 and 90% of communication is non-verbal. In other words, in a traditional sense, more is conveyed with body language and vocal intonation than is conveyed with the words themselves. Right off the bat, blogging is at a disadvantage over other forms of non-written communication. This has begun to be circumvented by mediums such as podcasting, but the vast majority of blogging remains constrained to the written word.

As bloggers become more effective in their use of the written word to convey the emotions and feelings that are typically conveyed using intonation and body language, the walls of communication between commenters and bloggers will begin to crumble. And with those crumbling walls comes a sense of understanding and empathy.

The reality is that your readers are a wealth of knowledge and insight and have plenty to contribute if you let them. By actively listening and encouraging dialogue among your entire community of readers, the flow of ideas can begin to flow like water. We will have more discussion of the effect of blogging on ideas in the next chapter, but building a rapport with your readers will go a long way to growing the blog. By demonstrating for them that you can be corrected, that you can offer leadership in the defined area of your blog by speaking with relative authority you become a source for them as well as other writers in your niche.

Blogging and the Social Network

Of course, ideas are not all relationships are built on. Friendships and social partnerships also develop. At b5media, for instance, we have over 50 bloggers who have developed a unique kind of bond. The topics are wide and varied and many do not interest me in the least. But the connection that is common among all of us is a passion for blogging. Some of the behind-the-scenes relationships that have developed between people that are so completely different are really quite amazing. However, it’s not necessary to be a part of a “blogging network” to have social ties with other bloggers and develop a steadfast core of people that exchange ideas, stories and passions.

Social networking as a whole is a trend that is growing fast and furious. Every day, new services and websites emerge dealing with people interacting with people with a common blog-like atmosphere. The giants in this industry are del.icio.us, Flickr and Digg but many others exist as well. Squidoohttp://www.squidoo.com utilizes the concept of the “lens” which approaches social networking from the point of view that everyone views the world through their own unique perspective, or lens. Clipmarkshttp://www.clipmarks.com allows people to capture interesting stuff on the internet (including images, captions and layout) and share the “clipmarks” with the world. Blogmarkshttp://www.blogmarks.net takes social networking a step farther and allows for direct integration of sites that you find interesting and have bookmarked into your blog.

The idea behind Social Networking is really based in a 1960s study that demonstrated that two randomly chosen American citizens were connected by, on average, six acquaintances. This is where the famous phrase “six degrees of separation” came from and it is the basis of the concept of social networking.

The practice of social networking is similar, especially in the sense of blogs, in that it doesn’t take a whole lot to have acquaintances, if acquaintance is defined by being a participant at someone else’s blog. The analogy falls apart when you factor in the top bloggers that everyone reads.

To gain a more accurate perception of degrees of separation, those top bloggers would have to be removed from the equation. As you blog longer, you’ll likely be amazed at the connections you make with people that you had no expectation for.

–To Be continued

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Written by Aaron Brazell on January 31, 2006

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