It is with
a heavy heart that I bid goodbye to the Sisterhood, this blog and my anonymous
audience. After two terrific years, the time has come to leave. Due to
circumstances beyond my control, it will be impossible for me to continue
contributing monthly posts. So, I must
cease being a blogger, which by no means stops me from being an avid follower,
reader and commentator.
Looking
back with affection, I realize that belonging to the Writing Sisterhood has
been an über experience, one that has
taught me plenty and not only about writing and writers. It has taught me about
blogging and what to expect from it. I am tired of hearing that the Blog Age is
over, that only video blogs have any hope in the age of Tumblr. Hey, I once
heard Facebook would die with the advent of Twitter, and that blogs would kill
forum life forever. Time has proved wrong all those prophecies.
Undoubtedly,
there are more blogs than readers out there, but blogging is still a fairly
respectable activity, as long as you abide by certain rules. First rule: never blog about “everything.” The days of
blogs that covered every subject under the sun are passé. A blog must always
stick to a particular topic, but don´t make it too general or too specific.
My blog Latinas Del Ayer was meant to cover a
myriad of issues concerning how women lived in Latin America in the first half
of the Twentieth century. The amalgam of
subjects, ranging from fashion to entertainment, turned out to be too
broad. It confused the readers and I
never got faithful devotees.
Around that
same time, I began to compose another blog, this time I devoted the place to
Fantasy Fiction. Although the posts
covered film, books and television series, I soon recognized that “thronies”
and “fangbangers” were my audience. I began to pen weekly recaps of “Game of
Thrones” and “True Blood.” Even after the seasons were over, I continued increasing
my clientele by devoting 80% of my material to A Song of Ice and Fire matters. Since there are several” Game of
Thrones” blogs around, I didn’t want to turn mine into a GOT site. My solution
was to alternate the ASOIAF entries with posts on fictional vampires, witches
and, that ever lasting favorite, Harry Potter.
As a
blogger, your most important concern should always be your audience: who do you
write for? What do they need? Thanks to Google search terms you may attract
tons of visitors, but what matters is to entice them to become permanent
guests. I absolutely agree that in order to gather a large following, the
blogger has to visit and participate in similar blogs. It´s how I built a nice
set of devotees in my first blog, but for some reason it didn’t work with my
Fantasy Blog. Either some bloggers were not aware of the “reciprocal visiting
card” rule or were not into creating a community.
There are
many misconceptions and Murphy´s laws about how to blog properly, but one point
that everyone agrees upon is that a blog is nothing without constant visitors.
Apparently, there are three steps to achieve traffic and followers: post often, post brief and post new. Hogwash!
Sure, tons
of people visit blogs every morning to watch the hottest video. In our
audiovisual-oriented, semi-illiterate, attention-deficit afflicted culture,
videos are fantastic. They demand less time, less intelligence and less attention
to enjoy them. However, if a hundred blogs (plus YouTube) are showing the same
video, who could want to visit them to watch the identical thing over and over
again? It just doesn’t make sense.
This
problem applies to written news as well. With so many places devoted to
newscast activity, it´s a waste of time to wander from blog to blog reading
similar accounts. Back in the early Twentieth-First Century, blogging revolutionized
journalism, because blogs added editorial comments to every scoop. Soon users
flocked to blogs just to share or challenge the blogger’s opinions. This is
what made blogs so popular and so exceptional. Alas! That art seems to have
lost its way in the days of up-to-the-minute, condensed, and frequently
blogging.
Joining the
race to get the “latest” bit in your blog seems like a futile exercise. I am not an advocate of the “new” especially
if your blog is, like mine, a place in search of “unique.” That is a term used
in my last job to refer to regular customers who commented regularly on whatever
you posted. Those people are rare, precious and difficult to fish. From
experience and observation, I can assure you, they don’t care for “the latest.”
They crave inventive opinions, a good blogging voice, and shared tastes rather
than flashy and bizarre posts. They don´t mind reading a page or more when the
content and writing are of quality.
When it
comes to length, I have to declare myself guilty. I do tend to get carried
away, but I also like to read meaty and comprehensive posts. Although I´m
trying to condense my articles, I have come to the conclusion that half-a page
posts, regardless of its subject matter, are useless. An effective piece should take you a page and
a half to express it, but unless the topic merits a longer exposition, keep it
under the four-page limit.
Regular posts
are also an issue. Although, the consensus among the Sisters is that we are
extremely proud of our blog and its achievements, I think that if time had let
us, we could have posted more often. However, work, family obligations, and the
fact that some of us are joggling personal blogs as well as this one, prevented
us from bringing more frequent contributions.
Nevertheless,
beware of the word “frequent." Three juicy weekly posts are more than enough.
Daily long entries will exhaust your creativity and drown readers with too much
data, thus diminishing your chances of getting useful sensible comments and
encouraging the desired debate.
My last
advice has to do with “unique voice,” a rather abstract concept that keeps
coming to my mind when I ran into a blog so welcoming that makes me want to
tarry. I believe that each of this Divine Blog’s founding Sisters owns a
personal voice (opinion, writing style, etc), and that is our greatest asset.
But if you are running a one wo/man blog then you’ll have to find your own
way of making it an outstanding place.
Talented bloggers may enhance their
place with their own visuals whether is artwork, personal photographs or
home-made videos, and then there are those that are constantly coming up with
contests and games.
What
happens if you are not artistically gifted or lack the imagination to create
contests? Then you have to rely on
subtler ways of making your blog unique. Look around at similar blogs. What are they lacking? What it’s missing from
them that could attract customers? What demographic group they are not
targeting? Fliling a gap can make your blog stand out among others that address analogous subjects.
One last
word before leaving this fabulous spot. If I learned something from the company of my Sisters,
it’s the importance of courtesy and hospitability in running a blog. I was
terribly moved when a dear friend and former boss described the Sisterhood as
“a cozy, warm place where ladies could drop for tea.” So I strongly advise
those who read me to continue enjoying the welcoming atmosphere of this blog
and to recreate it when building a space of your own. G-d bless you all!
Do you blog? Share your experience and
tips on how to make a blog a special place.
