Most people don’t blog – they don’t have any real reason to. But most people can discover the benefits of blogging, and some even want to try. The problem with starting isn’t about being technical. You don’t have to be a techie to start blogging – otherwise generation MySpace wouldn’t have happened.
People have all sorts of reasons for not starting a blog, but I mostly feel that people are trapped in a consumption culture, and don’t bother to try. Bloggers tend to be production-inclined. We believe that the stuff we blog about needs to be:
- archived
- shared
- discussed
It’s not as though blogs appeared on the scene and that it was absolutely the best thing since sliced bread. People who started blogs already had specific traits on which to build on, but were open enough to adapt with and sustain the emerging blog culture – whatever that may be (it keeps changing).
They could be anyone – visionaries who thought deep about specific topics, a socialite wanting to publish their whereabouts, a mother reflecting vicariously about childhood, or any regular Joe.
But to blog is to learn, give, and adapt.
If that’s what you’re after, then you’ve pretty much covered the basics of blogging. The rest are just details. And that’s what most blog how-to articles focus on, and there are tons of them. Articles on how to set up your blog, how to make it pretty, what topics to discuss, what style to write in, and on and on and on.
Blogging is an extension of yourself. It’s not the whole you, but just a part. It’s a part of you that you give to others – which is actually the permission to allow people play around with, talk about, and share your thoughts.
Therefore, you need to decide which part of you to share with the rest of the world. I feel this part is important, but I think everyone gets this. Whether or not these things are appropriate to share is subjective. Sometimes it’s worth just trying it out, while keeping certain things under wraps – like your identity, location, and so on. This is what creates the blog’s identity.
The difficult part about blogging is in managing this identity.
It sounds silly at first – why would anyone care about managing a blog’s identity? It matters when you realize that the blog is a part of you. It’s like shaving or dressing up.
One good way is to maintain seperate blogs that have separate identities. Another way is by keeping specific posts private. Yet another way is to use categories. Blog templates and themes can assist in some aspects. There are many ways to communicate a cohesive blog identity.
A lot of people get blogging wrong because they don’t realize that blogging isn’t like writing a book. It’s like a public journal, and bloggers can make mistakes, but good bloggers learn from their mistakes and publish them out and communicate their lessons with their readers. You’re not supposed to be perfect before you can start a blog. In fact, being imperfect is one real reason why you should.
But most people don’t want to look stupid, so they would rather avoid it. Bloggers, instead, find healing and connection with seemingly anonymous audiences that it drives them to write better and give more. It’s kind of a “good world”-”bad world” perspective. But it’s a perspective worth exploring.
The good thing is that you can start small, and find your way around until you reach a comfortable spot.
I started off writing personal thoughts and reflections, and my readers were mostly friends. I began to realize a lot of things I wanted to say were meant for a larger audience, and I created new blogs for that. I began to talk to other bloggers about the things they said. Some responded. Some were trolls. I killed off some older blogs, and kept some regularly updated. But the more I blogged, the more I realized that blogging is really about adapting socially. The benefits of blogging are due to its social nature.
If you’re not sure how to start a blog, start with asking yourself the question – why? It gets a lot easier after that.
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