Bloggers Can Be Very Self Centered – Are You?
After six months of blogging, one of the things that has started to dawn on me is that bloggers and the blogging community are a very self centered group of individuals.
I know from several little campaigns that I have run and from seeing some of the campaigns run by others, there does not appear to be a high participation level from bloggers. I have been running my 1000 blogs against whaling campaign and I am struggling to get to 100 – forget the 1000.
I have also conducted several competitions with very little response. One competition I ran only got two responses – figure that out!
Bloggers want visitors, they want people to leave comments and they want subscribers to their feeds. I have got news for everyone, it is a two way street. You participate and others will reciprocate. What really strikes me as odd is that often a competition or campaign, such as my whale campaign only require a comment on a post. For that you get a link back to your blog, you also get exposure. I don’t know how many times I have read a comment on a blog and followed the link to see what else that person has to offer.
I can understand why some of the big name bloggers don’t respond to every campaign – they are often inundated with requests. I have a lot of respect for bloggers like Andy Beard, he at least does respond, even if it is just a flying visit to leave a comment and move on. I am sure he visits many blogs each day. Other ‘big name’ bloggers do not even answer emails or respond to comments – unless your ‘in’.
Are you self centered? Do you visit a blog, have a quick read and say yeah yeah yeah and move on? Or do you comment, do you sign up for campaigns? Do you follow links to other blogs? Or do you drop an entre card and run off to the next site?
Bloggers are self centered. Some really get into the spirit of blogging. I have met some really nice bloggers who comment, communicate and even exchange emails. There are some great blogs and some very passionate bloggers out there. Collin from feedflare is one such blogger who is trying hard to get his new blog up and running and has a great competition going – check him out if you have the time.
What are your thoughts – are bloggers self centered or do I just have a poor perception? What is your experience when it comes to competitions or campaigns – do bloggers participate or is it a hard struggle? I would really like some feedback on this issue.
My name is the live link to a blog post I recently wrote in regards to some of the struggles that newcomers have to face in Sphinns voting community. (marketing news)
I think that you’re assumption of needing to be a part of the ‘in’ crowd to receive responses is not far off at all. Our bogging communities are either newcomers trying to spend most of their energy focussed on getting the ‘vote’ of the bigger dogs, or are the bigger dogs who do not consider newcomers of much value or use to them. Yes, in essence, they are very self centered. It is sad but true.
I am about to visit Collin to check him out. Good luck on your whales campaign. I am sorry it is taking so long for you to achieve your goal with that.
It is funny Les, that there seems to be only one blogger who is big who will give you the time and respond to an email you send him, and that is Problogger but for him to leave a comment on your blog would be very shocking.
But as far as social sites are concerned I think blogcatalog has dried up.
I work weird shifts, and that affects the kind of blogger than I am. In my ideal, I’m the type that will comment on what I read – if I have something useful to say – and participate where I can… but then there are days when nothing catches my attention because I’m so freaking tired I can’t see straight but I try and at least reciprocate drops.
I’m sorry that your whale campaign hasn’t been going that well… I tried to get some people to sign up and I do believe I got one (7milesdown.com) but my readership has gone up a little bit (albeit all entrecarders) so I’ll try again in a little while. It’ll just take some rescheduling of scheduled posts. Good luck Les!
Tough discussion Les. I think it boils down to a couple of things. 1) The type of blogger. There are a huge amount of make money bloggers out there (of which I subscribe to like only a couple), but these guys/gals in general are just as you describe and really very self centered. They’re supposed to be. Business bloggers (of which I guess I am one as well) can be just as self centered because they worry about making money just as much as the make money blogger. Personal blogs are probably best for the comment stuff but requires those in a similar or at least interested niche. In the end, the market is saturated and most are too busy to even take care of their own blogs appropriately, let alone visit and comment on others. Yet, in the end, that’s what makes bloggers successful (outside of the luck variable which does play some). I think being discouraged about these things is perfectly normal and probably relevant. It’s what you do with that discouragement that matters. I believe longevity and consistency win out in the end. Stick to it buddy. Persevere. The hare may be flashy, but it’s generally that damned tortoise that wins! For what that’s worth…
Peace……..
T
Fragileheart – I will not stop the attempt to get 1000 – giving up is not in my nature. I think humans are humans – either it affects us and we respond or we ignore and move on.
Tommy – as I just mentioned – I wont give it away. I think I am now coming to the realization that I should just blog what I want to blog and people either take me or leave me. the blogging community is a bit too fickle to try to satisfy directly. Business bloggers are the ones that surprise the most – the more links you can get the better – either for PR or SERP rankings or just for traffic. I have that mybloglog thingy (very technical) that tells me how many visitors click on a particular link to leave the site and the number that click on links in posts is quite high – around 30-40% so getting a link in a post is quite valuable.
Collin – I think social sites are drying up everywhere. The problem is that bloggers who are new are joining hoping for a quick traffic fix but forgetting you have to socialize to get anywhere.
The one thing that is good is that over time you build a regular group of readers (who I do appreciate), you also build a fringe group that drop by occasionally and of course you get your one stoppers who don’t come back. They all count and they are all floating. A one stopper may pass by again and become a regular. You can never tell.
Keep on blogging – that’s my aim
yeah keep da spirit … i don’t know if i included in your criteria or not. but what is my blog.. even i’m not included in blogsphere. the sadness is who read my blog ?? but as long i can type my mind i could happy enough.
I think it’s a case of familiarity. I’m far more likely to sign up for a cause that is recommended by someone I already have a relationship, than one of the 100s I can come across on random blogs and websites.
Having said that, I’m still amazed that my blog was the only one I ever encountered which had the Amnesty Censorship widget on it…alongside Entrecard, Project Wonderful and all the other ways to pimp myself. One simple widget could have made a big difference, and had a great idea behind it, but noone seemed to be bothered… I stupidly forgot to include it in my last site design update, but on the bright side your post has reminded me to go and include it again…
Good for you Les. Never give up! Also, I just wanted to say thanks so much for letting me advertise on your blog
I have been pretty much off sick for the last week and still have 2000 emails to work my way through, and tons of comments that if I don’t hurry up will get automatically purged.
I think most bloggers try to respond as much as they are able to, where appropriate.
I think for specific causes, a dedicated blog works best
This was a very good post and includes lots of things I’m guilty of. I live in Hawaii and by the time I get to read blogs the ‘discussion’ has been going on for hours and someone’s probably said whatever I was going to say. As far as contests, I have just never been a contest person, just not my thing. But your post got me to thinking. I’m going to make it a habit of commenting on every blog I stop at, even if it’s only to say HI, and I’m going to start entering contests I come across. In my 3 years of blogging, I’ve never been after big readership numbers. I do it because it’s fun and I enjoy it, but let’s see what can happen with a little effort
I feel your pain, Les, but here are a few thoughts. I may not be the best judge as I blog in a crowded niche, but one about which I feel strongly, I get big spikes of visitors once in a while from Digg or Stumble, but overall my traffic the past few months is usually only a few hundred people per day. So I am not a widely read or successful blogger by those standards.
Blogging overall is not what people think. The big success stories are often those who stared early. Some have tremendously valuable content, others have content not different than thousands of other blogs, they were just early to the party, so to speak. If you want a daily site to read that makes you laugh, and you have one in your reader that works, why would you be interested in the thousands of other funny sites that came along after. There are now so many blogs that if a person was to subscribe to even 5% of what they find interesting and of quality, they would soon overload their reader. Even most of what is subscribed to does not get read. I talked to someone recently who subscribes to about 20 feeds. One of them is the Simple Dollar feed, a very successful site. That site usually puts out multiple posts per day. So over the course of a year would send thousands of posts to this person’s reader. I asked how many of the posts from The Simple Dollar he had read over the past year, and he said maybe 10.
The bottom line is that there is an overload of information. A good bit of it is interesting and of quality, but who has the time to read even 1% of it? A person with their own blog is an even more unlikely source of visits because they are so busy with their own sites.
There are so many “make money blogs” that to a new blogger, it seems like a slam dunk. This is unfortunate. I say this to new bloggers as often as I get the chance. “Only start a blog if you believe you will still be posting regularly a year from now and will be doing so even if you have not made one dollar from your site because that will most likely be the case.” Blog because you enjoy it or have something you feel is important to say. Don’t blog because you think you will support your family, or even buy your daily coffee with the income.
Sites like BlogCatalog, Qassia, Stumble, MySpace, and all the other social spaces take a bunch of time that most people do not have. I often am surprised that they are as successful as they are. I know I read the titles of discussions at BlogCatalog all the time and see many that I know I would like to read and comment on. I only have time to read a few. Some days I have to tell myself to not even open the BC site and be tempted to spend an hour there.
By the way, a campaign like yours will appeal to those interested, like me, who will sign up right away. Then the hard work begins. It is a numbers game. A small percentage will sign up, so you need a big overall visitor count to make that small percentage number the 1,000 you want. Not many people click through links like the one I had on my site to your campaign. Looking at your list, I bet maybe only six of your sign ups came from my readers.
-Will
Will – thanks for your comments – I could almost republish it as a post – guest post – except for duplicate content – I agree with most of what you say although I feel that with some of the early bloggers they are now becoming jaded and it is all about money for them. If you analyze most of their posts, they seem to either be written by someone else, be a post that refers to someone else’s post and rips big chunks of it into their own post, or be a post that just links back to older posts. They only seem to have ‘fresh and interesting’ content of their own once a week.
This is where new blogs have the advantage. The trick is to bring a fresh approach and to market it well.
At this stage of my life, I blog for the sheer enjoyment of it. If I were looking to make money I would be in the poor house by now. Thanks again Will.
Flo – I am glad you got something out of the post – that is the aim. Welcome and please return again.
cheers all
les
LOL, I have actually found the opposite in my short time blogging. I have only been blogging since December and I have found so many cases already where bloggers have come together to help fellow bloggers out that they don’t even know. Everything from donating money or credits to just the most amazing words of encouragement and optimism.
But I think it depends on what your interests are and what catches your attention whether you even notice things about some blogs. I’m sure my blogs bore a lot of people and they take no more then a quick glance so probably wouldn’t even notice if I did have some sort of cool contest going on….no I don’t and haven’t yet LOL,..just and example.
I personally don’t participate in many contests because most of them require you to post something on your blog about it, and since I already do PPP I don’t want my blog to be too full of ad type stuff that it turns people off from looking at my blog at all. So I pick and choose which ones I am going to participate.
So no, I don’t think bloggers are self centered, doesn’t mean I think you’re wrong about it, we’ve just probably had different experiences thus far in the world of blogging