aspects of successful blogging

I've been asked to give a presentation later this week about "blogging successfully". First of all, I'm not so sure that my blog is all that "successful" but I think I have figured out a few things in my time as a blogger that might be helpful to the people writing blogs at work. Things like:

* acknowledging and engaging with the world of content that's all ready out there
* facillitating and encouraging discussion and debate in your comments
* seeking the "conversation" that happens off-site on other blogs and linking to it, incorporating it and resonding to it
* using approriate third party tools to help find (or deliver content to) new audiences

I know that many, perhaps even the majority, of cybersoc.com readers have blogs so would like to enlist a bit of help in expanding (or fixing) this list.

What type of things do the blogs you read regularly do that makes them stand out? What can bloggers do to engage with their audience?

If you were about to stand up and tell a group consisting of a people who get it, as well as people on the other side who think that a blog is an editorial column with comments at the bottom, what would you talk about and show them?

Thanks for the help!

Comments

[Blog Bloke]

Good luck with your presentation Robin.

I wrote a couple of posts that might be helpful...

http://instabloke.blogspot.com/2006/03/blokes-tips-for-successful-blog-part-1.html

[Graham]

It really depends on your definition of successful and that is totally subjective. Is it just creating a thoughtspace? A linklog? Number of hits/comments? Amount of linklove coming in? Is it just getting noticed rather than nattering into the void? All very different from one blogger to another.

I would say, from my almost equally humble blog experience, that the easiest way to get noticed is to find a narrow subject, maybe unique, possibly localised and blog your bollocks off. If you 'own' a niche, any niche, you'll get noticed. Others may come and try and own it too, but it'll be harder if you're already sitting on all the prime real estate in the area.

Oh and whatever you blog about, make sure you are VERY passionate about it. Even the most ardent bloggers get bored at some point. Passion will see you through the dull days.

[RobinHamman]

Thanks both! I'm finding that most people either say write short, to the point posts, make lists, and ocassionally post a really definitive post. The niche thing and passion also come up time and time again. I did notice that many of the blogs in technorati's top 100 list are group blogs but I'm not convinced that being in technorati's top 100 is necessarily a measure of anything other than one's success at getting blogs to link - it doesn't in any way say your content is good, or better than the next person's, innovative, or whatever.

[Graham]

On a Technorati 100 related note and I don't know if this is indicative of other's evolving blog behaviour, but here goes. I ditched all my 'A'list/T100 subscriptions recently. Instead I subscribe to keywords I'm interested in, not people, not individual blogs apart from folk like you in the Long Tail, ones I read because I enjoy, not because I think I should be following one particular individuals thoughts. Jeff Jarvis is probably the only 'A'List exception to this rule.

Another habit change is using Co.mments - http://co.mments.com/ - I use this a lot to track conversations I am part of, like this one, and ones I am interested in. So, topics, not people seems to be the way I'm going.

Thinking about it, that has absolutely nothing to do with your original point, oh well...

[Robin Hamman]

I'm trying co.mments out now Graham, thanks for the suggestion. I've also tried blogpulse (http://blogpulse.com/conversation), which seems pretty hit and miss. I like their explanation of "the conversation" that blogs start:

"When a blogger publishes a post and other bloggers link to it, the original post ( or "seed") becomes part of a conversation. What happens next is fascinating. From those seeds sprout other links, and so and and so on, until it creates an entire conversation. The nodes of the graph are posts and the arcs of the graph are permalink citations from post to post."

[Graham]

I haven't tried Blogpulse, but I did try the similarly sounding co.comment which I couldn't get to work at all. Co.mment on the other hand is great. All new comments arrive in my RSS reader. No problems thus far. What you cn also do, as I've done on noodlepie is add a 'Conversations' button, so if you have any stalkers they can see who you're talking to or listening to :) let me know how you get on with it.

[Graham]

AND, sorry for going on... I just noticed Co.mment works with Flickr comments. The only thing you have to get into the habit of is remebering to click the bookmarklet.