Bloggers Commitment to Content

Put a dozen successful bloggers in a room, and in short order the debates will begin over the thorny issues of the blogosphere. Are partial feeds evil? How should comments be moderated (if at all)? Do tags matter? And so on. In fact, you’ll find that there are few things that experienced bloggers universally agree on. One of the rare items that would be largely undisputed among this group is that authors should be committed to providing their audiences with information that matters, and they should create content that will make their readers want to come back.

Influential bloggers with a large and dedicated readership know that staying aligned with this directive will not only make their readers happy, but it can also mean lots of traffic. Over time, it can also help a blogger attain a position of “leadership” which is a primary reason many people decide to blog in the first place.

Commitment to content means understanding that posting is now an integral part of your life. It means you’ll want to constantly scan the horizon for items to write about, and to figure out how to make those items relevant to your readers.

If providing compelling content is a strategy for success, the key tactic is to focus on bringing something new to the table. The blogosphere is often criticized for being an “echo chamber” because so much material is repeated and linked to over and over without any expansion, enhancement, or insight.

A study conducted at the University of California, in 2007 confirms that blog readers prefer new material to echo chamber content. The report said that “Participants overwhelmingly commented that a good post is one that contributes new information or, to a lesser extent, extensive commentary about some issue on which the participant is an expert.”

You’ll often see posts that say things like “Gern Blanston has posted today about how corporate governance has suddenly become a major issue for the hamster breeding industry.” Compare that to a post that reads “Gern may have missed the mark with his post. I found this 1998 interview with a former CFO of Hamster co yesterday, and he said way back then that there was a crisis emerging…” The former is what we call “regurgitorial”; the latter enhances and expands.

Instead of “check this out, there’s an interesting article about vacationing on Maui,” try “This article mentions one of our favorite restaurants in Maui. If you go there, try to get a table on the balcony, as it has a great sunset view.” If you refer to an existing post, enhance and expand, don’t regurgitate.

Better yet, when practical, try to create posts that are not derived from other blog writings at all. There’s an old saying to write what you know and chances are you know a lot about your business.

Use your unique personal experience and knowledge to create original content that others can regurgitate.