To continue the conversation we began last month. I put to you then what I consider to be The First Question of Blogging: Why do you want to blog? Answer that, and while I can’t guarantee you riches, I can say your experience as a blogger will be successful. Can’t answer it? Go back and try again.
Here’s why: action without purpose is aimless. Even a chicken scratching the barnyard has intent. I know of what I speak. Recently I spent some time with my blog posts back when ByJane was on Live Journal. Here’s the first post I ever wrote:
Day One — I learned about this site from my cousin, and it seems like a good way to keep in touch with far flung friends. I don’t have the time to email everyone the lengthy notes I used to–how did I have so much time when I was doing my dissertation??? So I figure if I can keep up a passably regular journal, that’s a good way to keep contact. IF I can get my friends to read this…
That was a clearcut purpose. I shoulda/woulda/coulda been successful–if I was doing it now in 2010. But in 2004, blogging was an esoteric activity and my friends were not interested. However, I was hooked on the activity of blogging, so for the next years I did it with no purpose other than–I dunno–to do it. To see what I could make of it. These were the heady days of Dooce, when we all thought we too were just a scintillating blog post away from fame and fortune. But groping for the subject of that scintillating post–if this one didn’t work, then I’d try that. And if the next post wasn’t the winner–well, damn, I’d come up with something. Consequently every month or so, I’d publish a version of this:
I’ve been stuttering and stumbling over what to write in this Thing, and I realize it’s because I have no Audience in mind. See, the four cornerstones of effective communication are Purpose, Audience, Message, and Persona. They’re all interdependent, so when one is missing–an escapee, as it were–the others go awry. [...can you tell I'm dredging this up from my years in the comp. classroom?] But an absent Audience isn’t really my problem; it’s that I am unclear on my Purpose. Why am I writing this, whatever it is? I must go ponder….
Ponder-schmonder–it wasn’t till I started MidLifeBloggers that I found a coherent Purpose, that would guide the decisions I made about what and when and why to post.
According to Matt Sussman’s “The What and Why of Blogging” on Technorati’s State of The Blogosphere 2009, there are three reasons why most people blog:
- to speak their mind,
- to share their expertise,
- as a business venture.
I fall into the middle group: MidLifeBloggers is my way of sharing my expertise about this wild trip through midlife. There are other blogs on the midlife experience which are decidedly more at the mind-speaking end of the spectrum. I’m thinking of one where the writer rails away at the cruelties of ageism. And there are other midlife blogs which function as business ventures. They’re either promoting a specific company or they’re aggregating members in order to maximize their commercial potential. This isn’t to say that all of us don’t sidle over into the other two reasons. Certainly I publish a lot of “mind-speaking” on MidLifeBloggers and the site is, secondarily, a business venture. But that’s not its main Purpose , and I have to remember that when I’m making decisions about it.
Such as–do I want MidLifeBloggers to promote a political agenda? Anyone who knows me knows my politics, but during the last election, I didn’t enter the political fray on this site. I did other places, but not here–because I want MidLifeBloggers to represent all midlifers, no matter their political persuasion. Similarly, I’m not trolling for members and insisting that commenters register because I’m not creating lists I can present to a potential advertiser. Frankly, the site would be better off financially if I did, and the fact that I don’t on MidLifeBloggers is a sure indication that my primary purpose is not to succeed as a business.
The blogosphere is crowded and noisy, and sometimes it’s hard to find/keep your place in it. Envy can be rampant and me-toism, as well. Knowing what your Purpose is in blogging is a sure way of keeping you focused on the blog you are creating, rather than the one that belongs to someone else. Staying focused on your blog is the way to successful blogging. All the rest follows from there.
