Read This Before Your Blog’s Bait And Switch
I’m referring of course to Mitch Joel’s blog about something he calls the social contract. I read it while in the midst of being conflicted about the same issue of building a thriving community only to change to high-powered sales pitch. I’ve seen it advised, and I’ve seen it happen. And each time I felt as if I were missing some information. Is it cold turkey, or a kind of gradual change-over from “Take my advice” to “Buy my stuff?” Do we give...
Read MoreHas Blogging Dulled The Power Of Your First Line?
We’re spoiled as bloggers in lots of ways, but I’m talking about what happens after we’ve built an audience of any size. When we’re trying to grow our audiences, we work hard on headlines that get people to click to begin reading. And if we’re smart (and we are), we also work hard to make the first line of a blog post draw our readers in to keep reading. But what happens after we’ve built a community we’re proud of? Folks tend to make our regularly...
Read MoreHow To Get People To Read A 1000-Word Blog Post
Please welcome Jacqui MacKenzie of marketing agency Straight North, who I met via a circuitous route beginning with Twitter colleague Brad Shorr, also of Straight North. Find out how to keep people’s attention for longer than I can… Hey, where are you going? The Internet has really done a number on people’s attention spans. For writers who create content for the Internet, it’s conventional wisdom to keep the piece short and sweet – especially when it comes to blogging. A...
Read MoreWhat Do You Do With An Uncomfortable Shoe?
Let me let you in on something: This blog isn’t talking to you. At least, not when I take that tone–the one that tells you things you already know using my trademark insouciant sarcasm. You know the one. The one that opines about whether you should do this, that, or never, ever the other thing. You’re a grown-up; you know what you’re doing, and I’ve no illusions you need me to tell you. I’m talking to them. Those other people–over there–who can...
Read MoreWaiting While Blogging
I’ve said before that I believe the number one quality of every successful blogger is patience. But it’s hard, being patient. People equate patience with waiting, but that’s not what it is, not in blogging, anyway. And the difference is one that determines its success or failure. It doesn’t matter how unique, how extreme, how eclectic, how well branded you are offline, how passionate–it takes time to traverse each level of the blogosphere to whatever spot you seek...
Read MoreWhy You Can’t Benefit From Escaping The Echo Chamber
Every so often I read a post that cries out into the ether: Is it just me, or is everyone saying the same thing over and over again at the same time? Nope. It’s not just you. It’s all of us. Carry on. We’ve all heard the simple “birds-of-a-feather” explanation, but isn’t that just an excuse? I mean, birds don’t choose. We choose to surround ourselves with the people we do. We choose to read what we read. We choose to share what we share. So why is it...
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