When bloggers get together at conferences, meetups, and on Google+ Hangout’s, it seems that the biggest discussions they have are about branding, advertising, marketing, SEO, and ROI. While none of those things are bad, every one of those things has to do with something more than what a small time blogger would have a focus on. For those of us who do not have aspirations of getting to 10,000 unique daily views, do not look at our page views every week, and are okay with only a couple of comments a month, we have a bit of a different drive to blog and this can be a good thing and a bad thing.
Before we go too far into this topic this week, let’s define what a small time blogger looks and thinks like. This is a very opinionated definition and you may have your own, but for the sake of these next few blogs, this is where I am coming from. Through out this, I will be using a pseudo case study of a small time blogger, named Frank, who loves to write on the topic of coding and designing iOS applications.
- Not On The Main Stage While I could not specifically tell you what statistics on page views, comments, or impressions a small time blogger has, the assumption is that within the genre of blogging that you write on (assuming you have a blogging strategy that has helped you define what you will be writing), you are no where near the top. For Frank, this means that he is not one of the main voices online that speaks into what good iOS framework or revisions needs to be made, he is no speaking at any Apple convention anytime soon, and really is just one of a thousand voices who loves to program on the iOS platform.
- Content Is Still King While Frank may not have the audience that other programming bloggers or Apple employees have, his content is no less impressive. He constantly is sharing project updates on his own unique apps he is designing, posting screenshots while he looks for critique of his work, and even may post code for review by others or if he needs help debugging some script. His standards of blogging content, expectations of proper written text, and the necessary effort together of a great piece of work is still there.
- Write For Yourself When big time bloggers put together their posts, usually there is a lot of structure, planning, and analysis of what gets the most views. Their content becomes driven by the views and the audience in essence dictates what will be written next by their unconscious votes of page views. This is not a bad thing, they are in it for the profit and need to continue to run a well maintained business. For small time bloggers, we are driven by our personal passions. Frank’s desire to program the next big app is what inspires him to continue to blog and for him, that is what dictates the next several articles in his queue.
- Networking Improves Content All bloggers network, regardless of the size of your audience and the number of followers and fans you have on social media does not necessarily correspond to if you would defined as a big time or small time blogger. But it is the motivation of the networking that ultimately comes down to adding to your definition of a small time blogger. For Frank, social networking is not necessarily another away to get his blog post out to the masses. Sure, he posts his link once or twice, but within that framework of tweeting and Facebook status updates, he is having great conversations with other like-minded people. The conversations he has on these mediums begins to seriously improve the content that he is posting and sometimes becomes the main drive for writing on certain topics. For big time bloggers, you still have those conversations, but they are typically short and many times more of a sales pitch than a dialogue. (Even customer support on social media is trying to “improve the brand” rather than network.)
As I said before, this is an opinionated definition but something I draw on from experience as I interact with both the big time and small time bloggers. Would love to here from you: what is your definition of a small time blogger?
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