Why You Should Blog With Community in Mind and How to do it
Basically can you see blogging as being about publishing or about community. If you believe blogging to be merely about publishing is content production the main purpose and occupation. You may interact with others when looking for inspiration and when researching just as you will probably be contacted by people when you do something right (and definitely when you do something wrong). However, is blogging from this perspective mostly one-way communication. A much richer scenario offers the community perspective (or should I call it the circular communication perspective?) where the content acts as the foundation and where as much as possible of what adds to it is included in the blog itself.
Building a community on your blog can not happen in separation. To rewrite a famous John Donne quote is no blog an island, entire of itself; every blog is is a piece of the Blogosphere, a part of the main. Hence is community building essentially about reaching out to other blogs and bloggers. The two main bridge builders are links and comments. By linking to other blogs and commenting on their posts are you in fact ensuring that your blog doesn’t loose the connection to the main land and drift off to sea. Although the notion of being isolated on a deserted island may seem exciting (at least when you hear about it) will it soon become pretty boring and unsatisfying only talking to yourself. Working the community aspect into the purpose of your blogging and your blog will ensure that you don’t share the fate of Robinson Crusoe who wanted nothing more than getting back to his community.
When thinking about the purpose of blogging and your blog you may also consider if you blog to learn or to teach. For me it was important not only to learn to blog, but also to blog to learn. If you blog to learn will you automatically reach out, seek the advice and opinion of others, give feedback (because you appreciate the value of it), ask questions, etc. The question is if you really need to blog to learn. If it wouldn’t suffice to simply read other blogs, ask the questions, make the comments and move on. I personally consider blogging essential to my learning (and relearning) since it offers the opportunity and practically demands that I reflect over what I learn, am able to distill it and that I can communicate it, which is worth so much more than merely reading about it. The teaching aspect will slowly but surely play a greater role as the next proving point will be if you are able to teach others what you yourself have learned. Some say that is indeed the point where you know if you actually learned anything at all.
The interesting point lies between the beginning where you have more questions than answers (provided that the subject is new to you) and the latter stages where you seem to have all the answers to the beginners questions. The key to keeping things interesting is to be aware that what counts is knowing what you don’t know. Constantly coupling your existing knowledge with what you are learning and helping others do the same evens out the playing field. If you from the start aren’t afraid to offer your opinion even if you don’t know the exact answer and you keep asking questions after you seemingly know all the answers you will be able to melt what you know with what you are yet to learn. Besides does most questions not have only one right answer so looking for those would only emulate the search for the holy grail. Important is it that you find your own questions and answers and that you keep this process going.
If your are building something you need a strong foundation. One that makes it possible to build on. One that it is worth building on. Simply throwing together a bunch of links, emailing a lot of bloggers and commenting like crazy on other blogs will not do. People have to find something they can relate to, learn from, add to or something fourth in order for them to interact with you on your blog. From nothing comes nothing when we talk about community building. You are the one who has to create something from nothing so that people can help you add to that something. You will be amazed how much comes from something seemingly insignificant if done in the right way. With a little luck your community building efforts will even benefit from the same logic as compounded interest - your blog will start snowballing, constantly adding to itself and increasing its tempo. However will this only work as long as you do your part, which includes making the way free so that the snowball can indeed keep rolling.
The best additions to great content that encourage interaction is offering additional information and alternate views through links to related posts from other blogs and by commenting in a way that encourage further comments. Once you have laid the foundation is guest blogging something to consider. Simply put is guest blogging commenting’s bigger brother. Just like commenting offers guest blogging the opportunity to expand communities by letting someone from the outside add to them. The scale is however much bigger and the impact more profound. If done right can guest blogging build strong bridges between communities and help them creating subsets. However, it only works if you give to give and not to get. That being said is there nothing wrong with having ambitions and aspirations as long as you keep them on the back seat where they belong. However essential they may be to success should they not be the reason for blogging. Ask yourself if you live to breathe or breathe to live and which of the two is the purpose and which is the facilitator.
Since there is a fine line between community building and self-promotion you have to continuously make sure you do not overstep it too often. When it comes to giving and getting is blogging no different that life itself. Expecting that everything is handed to you on a silver platter will only lead to disappointment. Just as in other aspects of life is there no guarantee that giving will lead to getting, but since getting without giving isn’t an alternative you might as well throw your calculative thinking overboard and simply start giving as much as you can. You will find that there are a lot of giving people within the blogging community and that you will get a lot back. Especially so when you give without expecting something in return. Since what you are giving and getting is all immaterial there is enough of it to go around except when it comes to time. That is the one aspect where you really have to consider that you do not give so much (and don’t demand to much of others) that you neglect yourself and thus diminish the value of everything else you do.
Blogging can be a wonderful experience where you learn a lot, get inspired by great personalities and get to now new people. You may even get to teach others what you know, inspire them and win new friends. There is so much more to blogging than meets the eye. So much more than merely churching out content and monetizing your blog. Or at least there can be. You decide what you want from blogging when you define your purpose and start your blog. The next step is to actually make it happen. It will probably be a long journey, but since the journey is the purpose is that exactly as it should be.
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7 Responses to “Why You Should Blog With Community in Mind and How to do it”
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Hi Jan,
I think our dialogue about conversational blogging versus community blogging maybe one that is seated in the semantics. . . . I look upon every conversation as an opportunity to learn, to share information, and to deepen relationships. All conversation is based in relationships for me.
Conversation also, for me, includes listening actively to hear what’s not being said. Making room for what might have been said in a way that could have been meant differently. Conversation is the cornerstone of a community. In that way too, conversation and community are inseparable to me.
What you say in this article about blogging to learn and putting ambitions in the back seat are my thoughts too. I agree and now better understand the meaning of your blog title — like it even more, in fact. I see within it the circle of inspiration and communication and community.
If you want to learn more then check out my welcoming post, which more or less formulates my mission and vision if you will.
Actually are we very much in agreement. Only would I word a few things differently because my starting point differs from yours. In essence do we see eye to eye though
Since my thoughts on the matter are difficult to capture in a couple of sentences do I plan doing it in a number of posts. I am still trying to figure out where to start though so it may take a little time before I get to it.
Hello Jan:
I enjoyed your thoughtful article. It reminds me to be clear about my priorities. Communication is indeed circular
Hi Galba,
Thank you for your kind words. The best communication is indeed circular. On more levels even. Keeping this is in mind does in my experience indeed add to the equation. Which reminds me. I really have to get started writing more about how I see all this working on a fundamental level.
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