What’s something most people don’t understand?

dailyprompt-1890

Blogging is something non-bloggers do not understand. They might ask,

Is blogging still a thing?
You write a blog?
Why?

What happened to storytelling, to writing a narrative?

With short form social media posts supplanting introspective lengthy blog posts, it is instructive to look back at the following – a post that engaged more comments and views than any other over the past 16 years.

Yes that is how long I have been blogging!

In a question about the direction of blogging, five years ago, one blogger recommended others attract more readers by offering useful advice:

…figure out what our unique niche is and paint ourselves as an authority, offering them something every time you ask for something back.
thesnowmeltssomewhere

List Format Blog Posts and Finding Your Blogging Tribe

Do you write advice posts or entertaining ones?

Is the goal, for the reader, to find info that makes life a little easier for them? After all, home hints and time-saving tips are generous, giving and sought after by many. And yet, Snow suggests list-style formats are not so dissimilar from TV reality show: repetitive, unoriginal and uninspiring, proposing there just might be, “too many self-proclaimed experts out there.” She’d prefer a blog that is just for entertainment, or storytelling.

Thinking about this, I wondered whether a story is more valuable than a post dispensing advice? I think that might depend on what kind of person the reader is. Perhaps we need both kinds of posts? Sometimes one and sometimes the other. Diversity is a good buzzword for that, isn’t it?

When I want information – the list format of writing a post helps me find salient information faster. However, posts titled, ‘The Top Ten Places to See in Europe,’ is a style of post I’d read once, but hardly another in the same vein. It is becoming a trite and hackneyed format, short on meatier content, and meatier content is what I personally seek, as a reader.

It seems that if we want, (or for monetizing bloggers, – need), people to read our blogs, we might write in this way early on in our blogging life, to filter and find our blog tribe; our community; those few like-minded souls who follow us and begin to comment regularly so that a fulsome discussion or blogging friendship might develop. Without a few of those list posts to begin with, how can we build that community so many of us enjoy? Would we still find a tribe of like-minded blog readers another way?

Don’t we want any or all varieties of readers?

Diversity dictates that we need differing opinions and readers from all walks of life.

Blogging Stats and SEO and LLMs

Whilst I don’t read list posts anymore, I do try to use headings when writing a blog post, supposedly it is good SEO. The number of tags that are desirable can vary from time to time, and SEO is not so important anymore.
Why?

Because LLM’s Large language models are scraping your information in their attempt to provide users with more information.

And not everything on the internet is true, right?

Can LLMs judge or infer?

No, only they can only follow instructions that they have been trained on, and detect patterns.

Do you analyse your stats and levels of engagement?

I remember a blogger who posted about getting back to the real reason why she blogged and not looking at stats, or checking for new followers. Great, I thought.

To my surprise, she stopped blogging shortly after! I never found out why.

Likes and Comments

I dislike the thought that someone would write to receive likes alone. Fixating on that could render our blogging platform meaningless. You’d do better to mutter a few grudge sentences on Facebook – that will give you ‘likes,’ and save yourself some time.

What would change if I disabled the like button on my posts?

Nothing?

Would there be fewer signs of engagement? Perhaps.

This begs the question: would I still be blogging if I had not received any comments? Perhaps. I hazard a guess I would still write, but not post as frequently.

The Blogging Audience

Diarist bloggers who inform about the week that was, have a niche. They are learning what works for them and how they wish to write their posts. That level of self-expression, in Marie Kondo style, must bring them joy and could be all they need from writing?

We’re all different and we all seek out and write different sorts of posts.

One Blogger reported she seeks friends in blogging, not an audience.

Another thought all bloggers are looking for an audience for without it, they reach no one. This highlights a divide between the intentions of bloggers.

Some bloggers are out to make money and need that audience to do that. That is not always art. Others – those who have an urge to write or tell stories, through photos or words, enjoy their art, interact with their audience and along the way, make friends.

Monetizing a Blog

Am I interested in making money off my blog?

No. I never have followed that path. I won’t put my focus in this direction and spend time and effort chasing it. On three occasions, I have promoted a product. I have been upfront about it and the benefits I received and very much appreciated. But,

..how could I write impartially when I receive a kickback from the thing I am writing about? Certain readers that do value and appreciate reading product reviews. Thus, I tapped my inner Buddha and sought the middle path.

Becoming a Writer

Many bloggers have the goal to publish their own book, but that’s not always on my to-do list either. I do have a book idea, or two, rather lofty ones, but writing my blog posts with that intention does not form part of the reason I am here.

Writing a blog post feels innate, it’s in my blood. For around four centuries that I know of, there have been writers in my family, not famous, nor polished, but writers nonetheless. I could say it’s tradition, but my writing doesn’t come from any sense of historical obligation.

For me, writing just happens when the mood hits or I should do so. It might come out as rubbish, but it is my rubbish and not contrived just to receive ‘likes.’ I once tried to write ‘like’ that (to suit an audience), and the result was bland and boring.

Writing comes from both my heart and my head. I write when I feel inclined to do so, but more often than not, as I sit at the keyboard, words erupt like the meltwater in a glacial stream at Springtime.

The words tumble and run out, splashing around obstacles in their path, anxious to appear on the computer screen lest they be washed downstream and away, (i.e. before I forget what I was intending to say).

Finding More Readers for a Blog.

But aren’t we skirting around the crux of this issue? If we only write for ourselves and from our hearts and heads, why do we want more exposure and more readers? Only to find more like-minds and interesting conversations via comments? Surely there is more to it, than that?

For me, the reward of blogging is the joy that comes from robust self-expression.

Any friendship that arises from that, is a bonus and the result of two people connecting. The internet is not constraining of geographic boundaries; connection is what blogging gives back to us.

Fundamentally, I am here to learn, and to express, with a little bit of entertainment thrown in. I might find an interesting blogger to read or follow and if I wasn’t here, I’d miss that opportunity to further my knowledge and discuss topics via the readers’ comments.

Blogging is not wasting anyone’s time, it is the best classroom in the world, and the sky is the limit.

I ‘like’ that.

With much thanks to Snow for inspiring this post.