03 Mar 10 Blogging and Social Media

The doomsayers are flat out wrong!

Social Media has become such a huge phenomenon, and many proclaimed that the rise of social media will kill blogging the way television killed the radio, or the Internet killed magazine, the newspaper, and what not. But, this time the doomsayers were flat out wrong.

Blogging did not go away, and social media didn’t become the blog-killer. It didn’t, and both co-existed amiably. What doomsayers forgot to realize that blog has a different purpose than social media. If I could draw a leaf from our life to understand what these people were saying then I will say if blogging is like the magazine you read then social media is akin to meeting you have with your friends, or may be a conference you attend.

How can a conference or friends’ gathering replace the need of magazines?

It cannot. Both are different. Rather the readership of magazine will increase because of word of mouth phenomena cutting loose during social gathering. And that is what has happened to blogging. Now more and more people are blogging on variety of different topics.

Social media has fueled the growth of blogging. Now more and more people are using their blogs to express themselves. Social media along with its status messages has brought writer out of every person. Earlier you couldn’t imaging people saying things that you see them writing on their Facebook walls.

Social media may be huge in its own right, but when it comes to blogging, even a force like Facebook is subservient to blogging. Facebook is used by the bloggers to promote them, and it doesn’t work in the opposite direction. Facebook, twitter, MySpace, and the rest have turned into mere tool for bloggers to promote themselves.

What do you think about this? Has social media become the force or will become the force that will take the place of blogging? Use the comment box below and write in.

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Tags: bloggers, blogs, Doomsayers, Express, Facebook, Magazines, Myspace, People, Phenomena, Phenomenon, Radio, Readership, Saying Things, Social Media, Status Messages, Television, Variety, Word Of Mouth

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06 Oct 09 3 Cs of Blogging – Comment, Conversation and Community

Acquiring new users and keeping the existing ones is the goal of any blog. The blog’s success in these two departments will determine the overall success of a blog, and fortunately there is a way to do this. A system that will help you acquire new visitors and retain the existing ones. We call it 3 Cs of blogging: Comments, Conversation and community.

Comment

Comment is the life blood for your blog. This is the juice that flows only when you write a compelling post and ask people to send in their views by adding call to action at the end of each blog post. At the end of the post ask your visitors to leave comments, suggestions and their opinions about the post. This will prompt them to write on your blog.

The best way to get comment is to write something controversial. Having said that, it is worth mentioning that despite what you do, comment rate will never be more than 1-2 percent of the total readership.

Conversation

Take it like this: you started the conversation by writing a post, and the readers did their part by writing their views in the comment box, now it is again on you to respond to each comment to keep the conversation going. You should never stop responding to your visitors. You will stop getting comments, the moment you stop responding to your visitors, so keep the conversation flow swift and let the comment juice flow.

Community

A lot of two-way conversation builds a community on your website, a community of people that have similar aspiration and desire. Now it on you, the blogger, to keep the community intact by providing the community what it seeks. If you want to build a pool of loyal reader then do not ignore any reader. Respect each of them, and respect their views. By respecting their views, I do not mean to say that accept it. You have all the right to contest their views and think differently, but do it in such a way that it does not offend the visitors.

Tags: Aspiration, blog, Blogger, Comments Suggestions, Desire, life blood, Lot, Loyal Reader, People, Pool, Readership, Respect, Success, Swift

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06 Oct 09 3 Cs of Blogging – Comment, Conversation and Community

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