Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Blogging about Blogging

The Hotel Parrot, he would only talk when there was no one in the room. 
I have passed the five year mark of not missing a day of posting.  In the first decade of blogging, I blogged when I thought of something, or when I felt like it, with very mixed results.  I met some wonderful people, several of whom have remained friends despite dropping out of blogging.  A few years ago I did some reading on developing social media networking - for work.  A few things I learned along the way:

  • Create content on a consistent basis.  Some blogs post weekly, or two or three times a week.  Consistency builds readers. 
  • Comment on other blogs and more people will comment on yours. 
  • If you reply to comments, people will be more likely to comment. 
  • Use photos or graphics.  Text only is lost on the visual readers.  
  • Ask a question to engage your reader. 
  • I create content ahead of time, and schedule posts.  I try to be a week ahead, and posts get moved around.  
  • Try to stick with a theme, I try to stay positive, upbeat.  Obviously travel is a recurring theme for me. 
What is your best tip for blogging? 

10 comments:

  1. Congrats on 5 years of daily posting! That is hard to do. Your blogging tips are all excellent. The only other one I can think to add is -- keep posts relatively short and quick to read. No one has time to plough through the collected works of William Shakespeare.

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  2. Anonymous5/12/2020

    As you said, comments are the connector, but don't try to gather readers by just leaving a comment. There has to to and fro interaction. I get rather annoyed by people who leave a single comment and then expect you to follow their blog.

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    1. It took me a long time to learn this one.

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  3. stay away, stay far far away from debbie downers/constant complainers/drama queen quentins. there's nothing wrong with blowing off steam occasionally, but every damn post is excessive.

    also, watch for people who cut/paste/post the same blog entry every month. they may change a word or two of text, but...B-O-R-I-N-G!

    last, kill all spammers with fire!

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    1. There are a couple of people I have stopped reading on a regular basis. Warning, tomorrow is my annual self pity wallow. I delete and report spammers. They are a part of the game.

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  4. I don't have a blog, but I read many. Yours is one of the first I started reading consistently. I like yours because it is short and usually upbeat. You also have excellent pictures. I am trying to comment more regularly on blogs I really like. Also, I like your Sunday five the best.

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    1. Thank you, I like short, and the blog allows me to share photos I have taken. Sunday Five sometimes stumps me in finding questions.

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  5. I wait for The Muses or somebody like them to put something in my mind. When this fails I go into my Freudian free-association training until something pops up. In a pinch there is always "Walking the dog" entries.

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    1. We love walking the dog entries.

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