Blogging Tips & Etiquette

In May 2008, I will have been blogging for 3 years!  I’ve learned some stuff about blogging over those years.  Some tips I’ve picked up from other people.  Other tips I had to learn from my own mistakes.  Since a lot of my friends are joining the blog world, I thought I would share some of those tips.

Here’s a list of some tips and etiquette concerns that I have learned about blogging:

• Be short.  If every post is an essay, no one is going to keep reading.  Sometimes is okay, but not all the time!
• Use lists.  People will read lists before they will ever read a paragraph of the same length.
• Post regularly!  If you post every week or two, people are going to stop checking up on your blog.  Try to post something every day.
• Make use of your draft function.  If you get a good idea for a post but don’t have time to write the whole thing, type a couple notes and then save it as a draft.  You can come back to it later and you won’t have forgotten about your post idea.
• Don’t bash people.  No place is the right place for it, but public blogging is certainly not the place for it.  If you have criticism towards a friend, don’t hide behind passive-aggression and a computer screen to say it.  That’s pitiful.  If you have criticism about a ministry leader, don’t post it.  I haven’t always lived up to this (see posts on Joel Osteen).  Part of me wants to say I shouldn’t have posted those, but the other part of me says that it is different because I’m not just criticizing his ministry–I’m calling out the fact that he’s warping the Gospel into a message of health and wealth.  I’m still not sure what to do about those posts.
• Build other people up!  Encouragement and honoring other people is part of our job as Christ-followers.  Make it a habit to talk someone else up on your blog.
• Don’t sell yourself.  Speaking of talking people up, don’t use your blog to talk yourself up.  It’s okay to share about your successes, but share your weaknesses, problems, shortcomings, etc.
• Be vulnerable.  This goes with the last one.
• Write about your passions.  People don’t want to read something that is half-hearted.  Be passionate.  Passion is powerful.
• Share the link love.  When you write, link to other pages and other blogs.  Make use of your blogroll too.
• Know why you blog.  Why do you blog?  What’s your mission or purpose?  Maybe you have a few.  For me, when I blog, I want to make an impact on people’s day.  I want to change how they think about something.  Blogging is also very therapeutic for me as well, allowing me to gather my thoughts, get them in order, and put them down somewhere.  It’s almost like a life journal for me.
• Know your audience.  Who’s reading your blog?  Who do you want to read your blog?  Make sure to appeal to them.
• Comment on other people’s blogs.  Blogging is a large intellectual community.  If you expect people to comment on your posts, you should take time to read other’s posts and comment on them.
• Check your spelling and grammar.  Period.
• Write about fun stuff too.  All work and no play makes for a boring blog.  Every post doesn’t have to be profound.
• Everything you write will be read.  You should know the implications of that.
• Be YOU!

Tony Morgan, chief strategic officer at NewSpring, has written about blogging.  Here’s a link to that post.  Also, he just recently did a breakout session on “blogging in the ministry world” at Unleash, the pastors’ conference at NewSpring.  Here’s the outline from that session.  Tony has shaped a lot of my own views on blogging.

~ by Cody Thomas on 21 March 2008.