The trouble with blogging – sometimes no-one is listening
By Dave Parrack
Blogging is many different things to many different people. For some it’s a passion, for others it’s a means to an end. For some it’s financially beneficial, for others it’s not. But there’s one problem that all bloggers face at some point in their lives – the realization that sometimes no one is listening to what you’re saying.
There’s a strong argument to suggest the heady days when blogging ruled the Internet are past. Maybe that’s true, at least to a certain extent. Some of the people who jumped on the blogging bandwagon back in 2004 – 2006 are now likely to be found on Twitter after realizing they can get their points across to people in much the same way but using just 140-characters rather than 300 – 500 words.
There’s another school of thought, and it’s one I subscribe to, that thinks blogging merely evolved from what it was at the height of its mainstream popularity to what it is now. It all depends, of course, on what you want to gain from blogging or online writing in any form.
There’s no use starting a run of the mill, standard blog to discuss your work and home life if you want big traffic and/or big money to come your way. Neither is going to become reality. You need a niche, something to grab an audience, something to draw people to your site not once, but time and time again.
This is a realization many people have come to terms with since they blithely started a blog to see if they could make a go of the latest Internet trend. As The New York Times has noted, many of these blogs now lie dormant, having been abandoned by the hopeful individuals who wrote them for unspecified lengths of time back when everyone was seemingly doing it.
It is still possible to build an audience for a blog but it takes more than just pumping out a few short articles a month and sitting back to watch the rush. Instead, it takes hard work, commitment, a willingness to muddy your hands in the pool of social media, and above all, great content.
I have a passion for writing, which is why I blog. It’s what I do, and it’s what I love. If everyone blogged for those reasons and let the benefits come their way (or not) naturally, then we wouldn’t have such a graveyard of dead blogs on the Web. And that’s the truth as simply put as I can manage.
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on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
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June 8th, 2009
trends are really interesting..people often start by hearing stories of other earning while sleeping..but as they start they expect to earn too early which is a kind of childish…it is always a slow and steady process.
June 8th, 2009
We live in an age where we have access to an unprecedented volume of information, and we are overloaded with it. It is only the gifted few who are able to write (blog) using a style that attracts a following. It’s a simple case of supply and demand – if just about everyone’s supplying, those who are demanding can be lost in a virtually infinite collection of online literary works.
Not everyone who blogs wants to be read. I for one blog as a means of therapeutic release and expression – to record my thoughts and feelings about various topics on a password protected page on a server that search engine spiders and crawlers do not index.
Personally I have never used Twitter, and have no intention of ever doing so. What’s the 140 character limit all about anyway? Is it a convenience and necessary evil tailored to the fast paced highly structured world in which we live, just like fast food? Or is it an indictment that highlights the nonchalant laziness of humanity? In either case, it’s a fantastic way of diluting the art of writing.
June 9th, 2009
I’m not listening to you; I’m not listen to you; I’m listening to you