Continued from Part 3 (Part 1)–
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.
Assisting Others Through Your Blogging
Relationships are not simply built on the practical “knowing†someone. They are built on intangibles such as respect, trust and value. In a recent entry I read, the blogger spoke of someone who he did not know very well, if at all, who had been reading his blog and through it felt like he “knew†the blogger.
This is not unordinary. Through an authentic and passionate blogger, readers learn to respect the opinions and thoughts written by the blogger and trusts, sometimes to a fault, what the blogger has to say. Some bloggers develop an almost cult-like following in this way. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net is one of these bloggers. As an independent, yet knowledgeable mind who values his readers and helping them grow as bloggers (particularly in earning revenue from blogs), Darren has developed a large and dedicated following of other readers who find ultimate value in what he writes. This is not because he fancies himself as the know-all and be-all of blogging success, but because he has learned, the hard way in some case, what is effective in achieving his definition of success.
This is great for Darren because his readers success as bloggers is his own passion. Through his writing, his famous lists and authentic personality, Darren has developed relationships with his readers.
Respect is Earned, Not Given
The old saying about earning respect holds up absolutely in blogging. So many bloggers begin their blogging careers with lofty expectations of thousands of pageviews, linkbacks, etc. and while this may be true of some bloggers, it is generally not the rule.
It would be great if respect could be had by simply putting a blog up, but for most people, it is necessary to “do the time†first. That means consistency in posting and commenting, interacting on deeper levels with other bloggers in the same niche, etc. As Jeremy puts it in his book Blog Marketing, it’s all about finding your voice.
It’s easy to begin spouting off on issues that you may or may not have any business spouting off about, but it’s a different thing to build a reputation with readers through thorough and quality coverage of a topic. Over time, this builds respect among readers and people will flock to you.
When readers respect you, the opportunity to pass your knowledge on to them grows. Like Darren, you will find that people will begin to take advice and views you make seriously and professionally and you will have inadvertently helped them become better at what they do as well!
Gaining Trust
Trust is another thing that doesn’t just arrive on your doorstep because you begin to blog. Trust is often gained through hands on experience and conveyance of the issue. For instance, Dave Winer has tremendous experience with RSS. In fact, he was the guy that came up with the orginal concept and specification and has played a key role throughout the past 9 years in developing RSS as a medium for syndicating news. Whenever a company or entity releases a new concept version of RSS or a new way to consume RSS, it is not unusual to hear Dave Winer contribute his own commentary on the item.
The reason why Dave Winer can do this is because he has built up a tremendous amount of trust across the internet among folks that deal in the RSS industry. He has earned both the respect of the industry and earned the trust of all who watch his industry. He is often quoted in technical white papers, industry journals and blogs around the interent.
While it is hardly expected that you, or either of us, will end up as a Dave Winer, the example given to us crosses the plane of blogging. Trust among your peers and readers will accelerate the growth and reach of your blog and will help you influence more people who read you.
Give them Value!
Besides trust and respect, the third key ingredient to your helping people through your blog is value. The main principle behind the dialogue in blogs is that if you invest the time and energy in providing readers with quality content, they will value your blogging and continue to return to read some more. This is value. The invest in you with the expectation that you will give them something worthwhile.
It’s this value factor that will make your blog grow. As a new blogger, I encourage you to find your voice – that is, find what is worthwhile to your readers as well as to you. Discover what makes your blog perform and attracts an audience. Be a stat watcher and find out, perhaps to your surprise, what it is that is attracting attention to your blog.
A few years ago, shortly after the release of the wildly famous Halo 2 for the XBOX, I had made an entry about a stats package that I was working on developing. I had posted about it and it turns out the project never went anywhere because of time or desire. Over a year later, that entry continued to be one of the hottest entries on my blog. If I wanted to, I could have rode that wave and continued to post about Halo 2. I’m quite convinced the blog would have performed extraordinarily well, but I had no real passion for the subject matter.
The point is that readers look for value. They want value. They want something that helps them become better people, become better workers; something that adds to their technical knowledge or even their ability to compete in Halo 2. On your end, there’s a lot of work to do. It’s easy to regurgitate information and it’s easy to link to everything and anything but your readers can go to those places and get the value they want. The best way is to add to their value yourself.
