Posted on Monday 21st of January 2008 at 14:42 in Blogging

A few lessons in blogging from the past 24 hours

Recently I've been doing a couple of guest posts for John Chow and yesterday my latest was published; Successful Blogging - 5 Tips for Writing With Confidence where I focused on some of the more obvious aspects of blogging language. I also raised a few eyebrows with some advice on how to "blag it". I promptly got my ass handed to me.

The article on JohnChow.com was explaining how to use confident language to give additional authority to your posts; because readers respond well to authoritive tones. I spoke about how you should avoid bragging about inconsequential successes (like being frontpaged on Digg).

Why did I ever recommend that?
Because if you're trying to dress the part of being a big-shot blogger then bragging about fairly ordinary events acts in contrary to your image as being a big shot, get it?

The rest of the advice
Was fairly normal; using unambiguous language to explain what you mean, talk about the things you do right and only admit failure when you've got a point to prove - these are fairly ordinary points that can split opinion... But it was my final point that really got the comments flowing.

#5 - You Don’t Need To Tell The Truth All The Time
I had genuine reasons for giving this as a tip but they weren't conveyed in the original post. Because I was writing for JohnChow.com (where evil behaviour is almost worshipped) I thought I'd include this. What I meant was that if you're trying to "dress for the promotion you're trying to get" then it's not always necessary to tell the absolute truth. Be murky about it, deliberately vague and "blag" your experience using supporting material.

What that sounded like to most readers was "lie to everyone" and that's not quite what I meant. I know a lot of people on the Internet who have told a white lie or two to help things go more smoothly - I wasn't advocating massive bare-faced lies to everyone - but I appreciate why it seemed this way.

One of my blogging idols got involved and it hurt!
Darren Rowse from Problogger read the post and gave a thorough and constructive reply. His reply was arguing against almost every point I made which was fair, the Internet is all about discussion, right?

Unfortunately he then posted his reply on Problogger and things got worse
The article made a little more sense on JohnChow.com because the readers expect some slightly evil advice from time to time (hence it's inclusion, despite me not living by those rules). You see once you take the article out of context I look like a bad person; and that didn't feel good. Darren remained constructive but I couldn't help but feel that I was unable to voice my opinion.

So I've been keeping my head down a little today, feeling sheepish because my advice fell slightly outside the context that I intended it to be in. This leads to an important lesson:

Proof read your posts

If I'd have sat on that post for 24hours before sending it over to John I'd have been happier, it would have likely been reworded and maybe 40% of this storm wouldn't have happened.

Either way, I guess it got people talking about me and Oscar Wilde seemed to think that was a good thing, albeit if it doesn't seem that way today.

So just to conclude, I don't lie to my readers on this site and I do admit failure (notably my PPC failings). I'm a little unhappy at how the post was perceived but that's just part of the blogging game. Thanks to everyone for all for your comments. On the bright side Darren Rowse now knows who I am...

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Comments

Showing most recent 9 of 9 comments

And Off Topic: Is there a way to flip your comments around so they’re listing first to last? I would think most readers are top to bottom readers like I am. It is weird to read the last comment first, context is missing and without times and dates on comments it is hard to know they should go the other way around.

Rebecca Laffar-Smith

There were a number of points that dropped my jaw too in your original post. I added my two cents with Darren’s response post but wanted to add something ELSE here.

Some readers, who come across your post MAY NOT BE CHOW READERS! Yes, it can help to target your guest posts for a specific blog but many of us choose not to read John Chow’s post (primarily because of the ’evil’). That doesn’t stop links to specific posts coming up in other places we frequent.

As my comment in Darren’s comments says, Real confidence is about being YOU! If you DON’T advocate being evil, if you don’t do it yourself, DON’T suggest it as a tip to others. Write about YOUR OWN success and BE YOURSELF! You’ll win more friends that way.

While the buzz may have found you a few new subscribers it may also have black listed you with many others. For example, it would take a LOT to redeem you for me now. This post helps, but honestly, if you really do believe in your five tips then you’re not the kind of blogger I want to listen to.

Much like what Morpheus said in The Matrix. "You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."

They ignore the fact that some big time bloggers gamed Google, Technorati and/or Alexa. They don’t want to believe that some of these bloggers have used underhanded methods to boost their RSS count or inflated or been less than honest with their real earning numbers. They don’t even think about how these big timers are profiting off of them, building autoresponder lists and so forth. They’ve taken the blue pill.

Frank C

Nice to see Darren commenting. Alls well that ends well.

Harpo

thanks for your follow up post. i am sorry for the hurt you mention in this post - I was very hesitant to post the comment and post - but I felt that it brought up some topics that needed to be discussed so did it. Hopefully it can continue to be a productive discussion.

Like I think I commented somewhere to you - I do understand where you were coming from. John’s blog has a certain style and voice (the ’evil’ thing). My only concern is that I hear back from some bloggers that they tried to emulate the ’evil’ stuff and ended up getting hurt as a result. While John doesn’t mind getting banned from Google or some other service and likes a bit of controversy (he uses his bannings and controversy to leverage traffic brilliantly) most other bloggers don’t know how to do this and can come off the worse for it.

I guess this is what worried me about your post (and to be honest some of John’s other ’techniques’). Yes they work for John but don’t always for others.

Anyway - just my two cents - hoping that it’s a learning experience for us all :-)

Darren Rowse

I think it’s actually a great article on your behalf, my blog post was more about where John Chow’s blog has gone as opposed to anything about your article.

Anyway, I think all this dialogue is brilliant. I’m not sure what sort of traffic you saw out of the article or out of Darren’s response but I reckon your profile has been raised a bit from it. It’s good to have an article that polarizes audiences and creates conversation, it’s much more memorable than a safe post.

You’ve gotten another RSS subscriber in me..

Cheers
Matt

Mathew Packer dot com

It’s good to see that you’ve made a point of it. I thought you were advocating lying to everyone and anyone but i guess you aren’t so that’s fine.

Maybe be more careful next time.

moonvase

I read your post from Chow’s blog and subscribed to your RSS. I got what you were trying to say even if no one else did.

I read both and I see where you’re coming from, although you have to admit that the rest of the world saw the post in a different light to you.

I’ve been reading the site for a long time now and you don’t do too many of the 5 points you listed. Not sure if it’s given you a bad rep or not

James

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A few lessons in blogging from the past 24 hours