What does it take for people to bother with reading your blog?

[Commander Bubbles 1,343]

Overall, this is one of the things I've noticed on this site. It just seems like nothing more than a popularity contest, with people only caring about what the more well-known members with lots of brohoofs and and profile views say. Everyone else is just shoved aside and not take seriously, but I digress. With my bad depression, I was told that I should write a blog on the forums. However, even though blogs appear on the homepage, nobody seems to bother much, and therefore, I felt it was just a waste of my time. Now, what I want to know, what do you have to do to make people actually care about what you have to say? Do you have to be one of these popular members? Do you have to blog often? I spent a great deal of time on my blog post awhile ago, and I haven't bothered with it since because I felt it would just be a waste of my time.

[Standard User 2,127]

That's just how Internet culture works, sadly. There are the big, prominent names that appear everywhere, so people are naturally attracted to posts by that member. Plus a minority of the members even realize we HAVE a blog system.

 

Doesn't mean that NO ONE saw your post, however. Some might have read it and just had nothing thoughtful or helpful to say. To encourage more views, post the link in your status update and/or ask a specific member/group for their opinions or advice.

[Discordian 6,015]

For starters, you may wanna consider trying to stop the line of thought that the things you post are made in the interest of having people read it. There are thousands of people on this site and it's very likely that you aren't the first person to post about something. If you're posting something that's more personal it's likely that few outside of your own circle of friends even want to read it.

 

Now, I don't want to assume that you're only doing blogs for viewers so the next step is to just keep doing it. Might take awhile but eventually people will take more interest in the things you blog about, assuming they are things that have enough entertainment value for one to want to read it.

 

Most importantly: Keep in mind that the blogs on this site are available to all users and everyone wants a piece of the blog action so people are likely to spend more time doing their own than they will reading another person's. This is a MLP site so the likelihood that people will read your posts if it's not related to MLP are even lower.

 

The ones that get the most attention are either going to post about MLP stuff or they are the ones who put the most effort into blogging regardless of the topic. It's not just about how popular the user is, it's also about how much effort is put into it. Some people work hard at blogging and it shows while others who only do it as a passing interest probably don't have as much content as one who is more dedicated. This goes for both MLPForums blogs and blogs on any other site.

 

So if you want your voice to be heard (in spite of what I said it's not inherently wrong to want people to read your stuff ) just keep working at it and do what you can to make the reading interesting. "I like this because it's awesome" is a terrible way to express an opinion and doesn't provoke much thought. The best opinions are those that are well-founded regardless of whether you agree with them. Blogs are just another way to express opinion or share other people's opinions or even their works.

[Planty 1,053]

For starters, you may wanna consider trying to stop the line of thought that the things you post are made in the interest of having people read it. There are thousands of people on this site and it's very likely that you aren't the first person to post about something. If you're posting something that's more personal it's likely that few outside of your own circle of friends even want to read it.

 

Now, I don't want to assume that you're only doing blogs for viewers so the next step is to just keep doing it. Might take awhile but eventually people will take more interest in the things you blog about, assuming they are things that have enough entertainment value for one to want to read it.

 

Most importantly: Keep in mind that the blogs on this site are available to all users and everyone wants a piece of the blog action so people are likely to spend more time doing their own than they will reading another person's. This is a MLP site so the likelihood that people will read your posts if it's not related to MLP are even lower.

 

The ones that get the most attention are either going to post about MLP stuff or they are the ones who put the most effort into blogging regardless of the topic. It's not just about how popular the user is, it's also about how much effort is put into it. Some people work hard at blogging and it shows while others who only do it as a passing interest probably don't have as much content as one who is more dedicated. This goes for both MLPForums blogs and blogs on any other site.

 

So if you want your voice to be heard (in spite of what I said it's not inherently wrong to want people to read your stuff ) just keep working at it and do what you can to make the reading interesting. "I like this because it's awesome" is a terrible way to express an opinion and doesn't provoke much thought. The best opinions are those that are well-founded regardless of whether you agree with them. Blogs are just another way to express opinion or share other people's opinions or even their works.

 

Follow this advice and you won't really go wrong!

 

Although I have not bogged in a while now, I found that the more I did the the more views I get!

 

I also did things like film reviews and controversial topics and music I liked. 

 

Make it interesting and not a wall of text and think of a great title as well = epic winning!

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

Well, my blogs generally get a lot of views, and I'm not popular

 

Everything I started off with barely got any views, anyway, so don't feel bad, dude.

 

Just give it a title that makes it sound interesting; by interesting, I mean sounds like drama, not "Oh, that's interesting." Give it star power brah.

[GrimCW 658]

TBH I didn't even notice them, and still won't... (no really.. I hadn't even noticed that part of the site for soooo long... I always assumed you had to be "friends" with the person, or check their profile for that...)

 

So much incoherence (no offence guys.. but nitpicking, while good, is still only nitpicking... And reaching for straws just to do so makes it seem desperate), and randomly laid out things with no true meaning... At least on the "review" side

 

There might be something worth a read amidst the crowd, but I'm not wading through it to find out....

 

 

So what would it take to get me in there? A logical argument and a link to it

Or just a link to something that looks to be of interest in some way... Otherwise it zooms out of my sight before I even realize I glanced at it..

Edited January 13, 2014 by GrimCW

[Fluttershyfan94 5,742]

It's simple really, when it comes to blogs people want them to be entertaining so it's not strange that people may ignore blogs that are well less entertaining. Also, the view counter used to be broken that might be it. But the most important part when making a blog is having a balance. Both informative but entertaining, I see some that are just long texts and you just give up. Then there are blogs that are very informative but not entertaining so you may not ignore it but you feel like you have little to say about it. It's also good to have a good name on the blog so it's a lot of things but it's important to make a blog fun to read at least if it's long.

[Discordian 6,015]

Ah, now that I think about it another thing to draw attention to your blogs is exposure. Putting a link to your personal or MLP blogs in your sig or something will make it more visible than assuming people will even look at the blog area of the site or even your profile to see if you have a blog page. It's up to you to advertise.

[Commander Bubbles 1,343]

Well, my blogs generally get a lot of views, and I'm not popular

Everything I started off with barely got any views, anyway, so don't feel bad, dude.

Just give it a title that makes it sound interesting; by interesting, I mean sounds like drama, not "Oh, that's interesting." Give it star power brah.

What I don't understand if how you have 15,000 profile views in such a hsort span of time... :C

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

What I don't understand if how you have 15,000 profile views in such a hsort span of time... :C

I don't either, bro. I also lost almost 200 brohoofs from that thing. I don't get it, but whatever. I probably just got an obsessed stalker or something I'm not popular, though

[Commander Bubbles 1,343]

I don't either, bro. I also lost almost 200 brohoofs from that thing. I don't get it, but whatever. I probably just got an obsessed stalker or something I'm not popular, though

Basically, you blogged a lot and then got a lot of views that way? Mine get views, but no sort of acknowledgement at all, not even my post about my first year of being a brony

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

Basically, you blogged a lot and then got a lot of views that way? Mine get views, but no sort of acknowledgement at all, not even my post about my first year of being a brony

Yeahh. Pretty much. I also changed a lot of what I blog about. Sometimes it's stories, sometimes it's a rant about some bullshit that irritated me, or sometimes it's just a humorous picture.

 

Plus, titles are everything

[Discordian 6,015]

Sometimes it's just luck of the draw. There's really no telling why people read the blogs they do or ignore the ones they don't. For all you know they could just not like your username. (Just a silly example that's probably not true in 99% of all cases)

 

Hell, sometimes you can even point out why people don't read yours just by studying your own subject matter. For me, the main reasons I blog are for video game reviews. The problems with that come with the fact that I don't really review new games that often so my reviews are hardly "relevant" but also because I'm an amateur reviewer at best which automatically has some sort of stigma to go with it. People don't trust user reviews unless it's a friend usually. It's hard to see the reasoning behind a review when you don't know the person.

 

But I do them anyway cuz I like it even though I don't think anyone actually reads them.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Discordian

[Deesinn 393]

Overall, this is one of the things I've noticed on this site. It just seems like nothing more than a popularity contest

 

I thiiiiiiink it's like that everywhere you go in the world, it's just human nature and the way we create our social ladders to separate good genes from less desirable ones in a primal sense I would guess.  Just keep doing your blogs, and keep making friends, eventually people will wanna read em'

[Winterbass 763]

Truth be told, I don't check blogs a lot of times, and even when I do I hardly comment at all. While I do take the liberty to read through all the information when I'm on the homepage, I don't come there often, missing a lot of the blogs. The only thing that interests me in a blog is, is if the content is interesting. The title has to catch my attention, and the blog should get its message across, whatever it is. But since my activity on the homepage is very low, most of the blogs fly past my head, and I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only case. 

 

I don't mind people following the more "popular" users on the forums, it's their decision, and if they enjoy reading the blogs of those users, that's fine by me. I guess it does boil down into a mixture of actually having something to say, and being followed by a group of people initially. Which is pretty obvious, because blogging is also a social activity ,without any social ground to work on, it will be hard to get a blog lifted off the ground, unless you ask people to read it and tell you their thoughts, which is where the social part kicks in. People either come across your blog or you ask them to, after which they'll give you their thoughts, if they're interested, they might follow you.

 

I'll give your blog a whirl, since you're mentioning it.