linds_e

I don’t like to play favorites when it comes to peo­ple I count among my friends, so I am not going to answer the 7th prompt in the Best of 2009 Blog Chal­lenge exact­ly. How­ev­er, I would like to share nine sug­ges­tions for suc­cess­ful blog­ging (all of which I am work­ing on myself):

1. Be Authen­tic. I remem­ber back on Diary­land when I first real­ized that blog­ging is writ­ing for an audi­ence. Exper­i­ments with voice and theme come with the ter­ri­to­ry, but the blogs that stick with me the most are the ones with true authen­tic­i­ty and sense of self.
2. Don’t Just Repost. It is easy to fall back on just repost­ing oth­er cool con­tent. I find myself doing it most when I feel a sense of oblig­a­tion about post­ing but have noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar to say. I think it is absolute­ly mean­ing­ful to share the links/media/ideas that inspire you. The for­mat of one of my favorite blogs basi­cal­ly just curates the web. But when all you do is repost with­out adding your own com­men­tary or edi­to­r­i­al voice, I lose inter­est.
3. I Like Pic­tures. I am a visu­al per­son. I love to read sto­ries told thru pic­tures. Words are some­times over­rat­ed.
4. T.L.D.R. Too long, did­n’t read. About half of the links I see on Twit­ter read a lot like “blah, blah, blah.” Para­graph breaks and for­mat­ting are your friend. If I have to skim the con­tent to get thru it, I am not like­ly to come back. (more…)