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SOBCon is finally here this weekend! I and many others have been looking forward to this event for months!
My presentation is going to be based on the March post Are You a Member of the Blogging In-Crowd?
The post raised a great debate - are we blogging just for bloggers? Most bloggers started their blogs to get a message out - but are we failing ourselves and our potential readers when we spend so much time focused on getting links and attention from other bloggers?
The real question behind all of this is :: What can we do to break outside of the blogosphere and reach the people we wanted to reach with our message in the first place?
I bring this up now, because I would be curious to know what you would like to get out of this presentation. Although it’s close to finalized, it wouldn’t be a SOBCon presentation without this being a conversational presentation, would it?
If this presentation could alter the course of your blogging career forever, what would you have to get out of it?
If you were to walk away from my presentation knowing full well that you got tremendous value from it, what questions would you want answered?
Or better yet, what questions would you want raised?
Wendy,
I hope you are able to do a write-up of your presentation for those of us who can’t make it to SOBCon. I’d love to see what you come up with!
While I am still focused on getting links (because my Technorati ranking gets me ridiculously excited), I would love to get some ideas on how to get non-bloggers with an interest in my topic (environmentalism and personal development) to start reading my posts. Perhaps you could focus on how to market to people in a specific niche . . . I suppose it could be something as simple as passing out business cards or as complex as combing online communities to find the people who would be interested in/benefit from an individual blog.
I think that all this rush for getting links aims to increase the PR, thus gaining more authority, in order to rank better in the search engines. Search engines are for all people who seek solutions to their problems (not only for bloggers), so I would say that we eventually write for giving people an opportunity to find their answers. For getting our message out to them, we need to do also the “dirty” job of pushing our work on the front SERPs. Only 40% of my traffic comes from referrals, and it takes me 80% of the total blogging time to get it. However, I need those 40% to make myself visible for the rest of 60% coming from organic search.
My question: Do we really want to get out of blogosphere? Where readers would be puzzled why would somebody start his site with the end, not with the beginning? Where readers would get lost in sidebars, blogrolls, ads, widgets, and other stuff? Where readers would not know that they CAN submit a comment? Where readers have no idea that there’s a dialog out there?
I asked myself all these questions just before I started blogging: I was sure those people were nuts, because they started with the end, when I wanted to read a story from the beginning. They were nuts because they made annotations at the end of the pages, instead writing new ones. They were nuts because they kicked you off their site each time you clicked a link.
Now I think different and it is very possible that in a few years from now, all internet users will think different. Then, we will have internet = blogosphere.
Sorry, I did not realize that I just wrote a whole post instead of a comment. And I forgot to wish you good luck at the conference!
I’m glad you did, Simonne! That is some great food for thought!!
Also, Lorna, I do promise to post something about my presentation after the event. I’ll likely video/audio record it too, but I’m not sure if we will be posting those to the public.
Some friends of mine look at me like I have three horns coming out of my head when I mention blogging. LOL! Most truly have no clue what it is!
I explain that most business, organizations, etc will have blogs now, and its an excellent way of getting some feedback on things you have questions about. Every read articles from an author that you truly enjoy? Find their blog and ask them all those burning questions you had about their latest project! Have some company you have a major gripe about? You can track them down also! LOL! Want to learn and discuss issues about hobbies, your industry? There are alot of people out in cyberspace that have some good quality information that you can really learn from, and share with others your experiences.
I honestly don’t think the blog deal has hit their hit or anywhere near yet! These blogs are amazing, and also give you a chance to get what you need out as well!
Have tons of fun at the conference! I wish I could go!
Hmm… good questions.
I think I’d like to hear about how to make your blog/site something that people are passionate about. A place they love to go. A place that has the power to change people’s lives.
If it’s about the “in crowd”, then my question would be, “How can I make every visitor feels as if they are magically a part of the in crowd?”
How’s that for a challenge?
Hi Wendy, I’ll be at SOBCon (yay!) and I think you’re absolutely right; many people don’t see the point in blogging and don’t read any of them. I just attended a monthly meeting of a communications professional group, and most did not know much at all about blogging — too much info on top of their already busy lives, and how do you find quality ones worth your time? Good questions.
I’d like ideas about getting our voices into print media and TV media; I like your idea of offering syndication to the local paper.
We are very much a “self-licking ice cream cone.”
@ Helen - those are some great points - thanks for chiming in!
@ Adam - I only figured out in the last couple of days that you are going to be there - I’m PSYCHED to meet you!!
And yes, that is indeed a good challenge!
@ Sheila - I think that a lot of people don’t realize how much they lean on blogs for information based on how well they rank in search results. SEO is really one of the best ways to reach out beyond our own “ice cream cone”. I’ve got a few more ideas up my sleeve - but I’m going to also put the audience to task in my presentation!