Andrew Sullivan is a pretty well known political blogger that has contributed to Time, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast over the years. In the following video, Sullivan provides some tips on blogging, including one that I think is more than a little debatable.
According to Sullivan, you must be posting at least twice a day otherwise "you're just a website," as if that's some kind of bad thing. Unless you're making a living as a blogger or there are multiple contributors to a blog, I'm not sure that most people can post that often. SFDB manages to that through scheduled posts but even at that, two of those posts are Sifts that are really a review of other activity in the South Florida blogosphere. Personally, I think a blog needs to post daily in order to retain a regular readership, although there are plenty of South Florida blogs that don't that still are very readable and are certainly "blogs" by every definition of the word.
The other two main points of Sullivan's advice, i.e. being yourself and creating a dialogue versus delivering a monologue, I would agree are certainly relevant to good blogging. I have to say that the dialogue thing can be very difficult given the potential disposition and biases of some of your readers, especially when it comes to politics, but the alternative is to create an echo chamber where comments consist almost exclusively of "attaboy!,"excellent point!," and other self-aggrandizing pronouncements. See Babalu Blog for further explanation.
So take the following rather preachy advice as a guide rather than the Bible.
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5 comments:
I agree with a lot he said but he comes across a little too arrogant when he says if you're not blogging twice a day, then you're running a website, not a blog.
We've already established the definition of a blog. We don't need him to redefine that.
However, he is right that if you want a hugely popular blog, then you must post as much as you can.
Not everybody has the time, resources, energy or talent to do that, but that doesn't mean they're not bloggers.
The term "blog" covers a wide swath of territory, so the idea of posting at least twice a day depends on what you're blogging about. If you're covering current events and politics, then yes, being up to date daily is important. If, on the other hand, you're writing about quilting or super-comp drag racing, then twice a day borders on drying out the well unless you can come up with something interesting all the time.
As for my own site, I have a limited amount of time to post since I don't do it from the office. But I try to get in at least three or four posts, knowing that there are some things I can't get to because of time. Since I write mostly about the political theatre, the stuff mainly writes itself and I hit the pitches.
And don't forget that one of the best ways to promote your blog is to be obnoxious and state your opinion as fact, knowing that your arrogance will get you plenty of attention.
I wish there was a "Like" button here. I would like mkhall's comment.
Ugh. Followup comment. I just watched that video. My god. Horrible. I think even the most mediocre blogger could probably produce a more enlightening video without the overwhelming sense of self-importance coming through loud and clear in this piece o' poo.
Plus, it's hard to respect someone's authority when they actually pronounce authority like Eric Cartman in their video.
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