A year ago, some of my favorite blogger's blogs were booming with retweets and comments, and the social proof was enviable, to say the least. Today, the people leaving the comments and doing the retweets have moved on to other blogs. I've observed that people tend to pay homage to a blogger or blogs in groups - similar to the way that work crowds frequent happy hours at bars. The same groups circle the same blogs and then move on to different blogs. I've done it myself. There are blogs I "left" several months ago and just never went back to, for no particular reason.
I don't think there is anything off about this. It's becoming clear to me that it's the way the blog world works, especially in the blogging, SEO, social media, or Internet marketing niches. Big blogs can hide it a little better, because they have so much traffic coming in and the new people commenting, tweeting, and linking in simply replace their predecessors.
Everyone loves and desires social proof (comments, retweets, virtual high-fives, getting on link lists, etc.) so I won't pretend that these things don't matter. I think that most normal people would like to have it. It's difficult to see a blog that you've spent time growing and growing begin to plateau in terms of its social proof.
But I want to encourage you to notice the swings and take them for what they are worth. You may be a consultant, and your blog is full of social proof but no clients are coming from it or your biggest fans are simply not your target readers. On the other hand, you may be booked solid and have what appears to be a less-than-social blog. It's difficult to tell what is really going on behind the pomp and ceremony.
A year ago, bizchickblogs was practically a newborn and wasn't getting any action. A few months later, things got hot and heavy, especially when I was providing blogging advice almost daily. Nowadays, traffic is much higher but social proof is just so-so. It's okay with me, though.
Here's how I keep it all in perspective.
- I try not to get caught in a rat race. I analyzed a year's worth of content on bizchickblogs.com, and the clear winners in terms of popularity are list posts. List posts take a lot of time if they are to be any good, and I can't and won't whip them out every single day. So be it. I have to live with that reality.
- I know what I want. If you're blogging for business, then gosh darn it, blog for business, not pats on the back. Read Patricia's post on comments and sales here, and then my old post on how comments don't make you money. If you still don't believe us, keep at it for six more months and then tell us how you feel about it. This blog is so much better than it was before, in my opinion, with or without comments.
- I enjoy my free time. I once read a post by Tristan Higbee about blog commenting, and how he was leaving something like 100 comments a day. And I'm sure he was getting just as many comments on his own blog in return, and responding to them all. That is a serious time commitment and it does work to an extent. I want to add quickly, though, that the tactic doesn't work for every niche - trust me. For me personally, concerning bizchickblogs, I just decided that the time commitment required to drive loads of comments is a lower priority than so many other things right now.
Word to the Wise: Don't become a slave to social proof...
... because it can ruin the integrity of your blog.
This is part of a comment left on a post at TheSalesLion.com, and I love what he is saying here:
I have somewhat regretted moving it from the personal blog I had started it out as years ago. I didn't feel the need to narrow the niche then. If I wanted to blog about Nintendo, then by God, I blogged about Nintendo, darn it! I have since come to realize that niche blogging really doesn't matter as much as we think it does. If readers like our writing, they will come back. Simple as that.
Some of you have been doing this for years and years - before social proof meant anything at all - and perhaps it continues to mean nothing to you. I think that at a certain point in a blogger's life, the love of the game just kicks in... and it's the love of blogging that keeps long-timers going.
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Social Proof Can Be a Fickle, Flighty Lover is a post from: bizchickblogs