Blue Ribbon Blogging
The blogosphere is a powerful place. Pushing its way into the lives of nearly everyone interested in news, scandal and community, the blog world is built around John Stewart Mill’s theory of free discourse. On the Internet everyone is entitled to an opinion. Everyone else is also entitled to determine whether or not those opinions are relevant. With all of this information, however, it can be difficult to distinguish the good information from the bad. Some blog entrepreneurs, however, have become quite successful at doing just that.
The article, “29 Ways to Keep me coming back to your blog again and again” by Darren Rowse highlights many of the strategies these entrepreneurs use to distinguish quality content everything else. Two of the best blogging tips from the list are featured below, along with an actual blogger making a living by following these rules.
1. Teach me how to do something.
Teaching a reader something new is probably one of the most popular reasons for blogging today and thousands of popular and wildly successful bloggers are making a living by doing it well. Whether blogging about how to blog or blogging about how to solve a calculus problem, bloggers teach their readers how to do just about anything these days.
Being a photography enthusiast in my spare time has led me to find a particularly helpful blog site called Strobist. David Hobby (seems like a fitting name) is an American photographer and has become somewhat of a guru by writing his extremely popular blog about photographic lighting. By blogging mostly about technique and practical knowledge, rather than pushing products, David found success, and his blogging venture was named one of the Best Blogs of 2010 by TIME magazine.
10. Make me feel like I’m not the only one who…
Personal experiences and interest blogs are another huge draw for bloggers and blog readers alike. Unlike teaching blogs, personal blogs help people all over the world feel like they are not alone in their daily lives. By reading these blogs, many people struggling with similar problems can find comfort and community among people with similar interests and issues.
While some people argue that all of this personal information floating around the web is just TMI, the blogging site PostSecret has made quite an impact. Created by Frank Warren in 2005, the blog centers on the idea of anonymous post cards submitted to the site by people from all over the world portraying a deep and sometimes dark secret. The idea behind this anonymous confession is to empower both the author and the audience, finding comfort and healing through an anonymous community of acceptance and empathy. The blog began on Blogspot with 10 new secrets uploaded each week and has grown to encompass multiple books and a traveling art exhibit featuring submitted work.
By Lauren Aylworth
socialmediablogette 