Blogging Etiquette
The blogosphere has developed informal rules and behavior protocols to follow. This is very similar to what many refer to as “man code.” While it might seem silly to cover blogging etiquette (you can really do whatever you want), it may be worthwhile to take a look through this section. A fact of life for serious bloggers is that, if you don’t play by the rules, your blog will lose readers.
In no particular order, here are our best pieces of blogging etiquette advice.
The Golden Rule
The golden rule with blogs, especially corporate or organizational blogs, is to stay on topic. This can feel constraining, but people gravitate toward blogs that emit a singular purpose. For example, if you want fashion advice, you’ll be sure to check out Hello Fashion, Atlantic Pacific, or Style Me Grasie. If one of these blogs randomly posted about cars or sports, you’d probably be confused, right?
So, if you decide to skip the rest of this article (don’t!), just remember that choosing a main topic is the most important part of your blog’s success.
☞ Fast Fact:
There’s a blog called “Lonely Cheetos.” You can browse through an extensive photo collection of Cheetos that fell on the ground. You can also send in your pictures: http://lonelycheetos.tumblr.com.
Don’t Be a Simpleton
Okay, so we really just like the word simpleton. But, in all seriousness, your blog is public. It’s out there for anyone to read. Although you may only be targeting a specific audience, everyone can read it and post comments. Your blog represents you — make sure you’re being appropriate and are sending the message you want to.
It’s Not About You
A blog isn’t really for you — it’s for your readers. So, write for the reader. You need to be captivating, interesting, and, most of all, relevant to something they are interested in or care about. If you don’t carefully consider what your readers want and need, no one will read your blog. And if no one hears the tree fall…
Prepare for the Best
Expect positive comments on your blog. When you get them, take the time to thank the individual.
Prepare for the Worst
Expect spam comments. Expect negative, argumentative, and insulting comments. Many bloggers are jerks (for lack of a better word — maybe simpleton is better?). They thrive on spreading the gospel of hate, stupidity, and ignorance. You can edit these comments out, but that’s really time consuming.
Kill the jerks with kindness, stay relevant, stick to your ground rules, and push your main message. You won’t make everyone happy all the time, so don’t even try. For the ones that go totally psycho, ban them.
Create a Routine
Update your blog on a regular basis. If you update daily, you should stick to that routine. If you can’t commit to that, do it weekly. Your readers will expect updates on a periodic basis. If you tell them your blog will be updated daily, but it never is, they will quickly lose interest.
Many famous and successful bloggers announce their routine, whatever it may be, and they stick to it. For example, beauty blogger Tati (2.3 million subscribers) uploads a new video on YouTube every weekday around 9 a.m. Other bloggers don’t have that kind of time — beauty blogger NikkiTutorials (5.8 million subscribers) uploads a new video every Wednesday and Sunday at 4 p.m.
In other words, how consistent you are matters more than how often you’re actually posting.
☞ Fast Fact:
“Blogs that post daily get 5x more traffic compared to those that don’t” (Jatain 2015).
Don’t be a Plagiarizer
When reproducing an article or something someone else has written, get permission.
If you are including information from another blog or are discussing topics that are referenced on another blog you will be discussing, ensure that you put a link to the original source.
You should not steal website content and post it in your blog (unless you have permission to do so). You should not take images from a website and embed them in your blog. It is acceptable, however, to link to an image on another site or blog.
Don’t Exploit your Friends
Always respect the privacy of your friends. Don’t start making posts about your friend’s eating habits or how your sister never cleans the toilet (especially if they don’t know about it). There is nothing wrong with public opinion, praise, and recognition of others. That’s actually pretty awesome. But don’t go posting your ex-girlfriend’s phone number on your blog telling people to prank call her. That’s not cool.
Connect with Other Blogs
Add blogs you read regularly to your blogroll. A blogroll is a blogger’s list of his favorite blogs. Add the ones that matter to you most. It’s nice to have blogs link to you, and it’s nice to know who it is. Again, this is open for debate, but stick to adding your favorites and the most popular, and you won’t go wrong.
Put on Your Grammar Cap
You should correct typos and errors in your blogs. This doesn’t mean editing comments you don’t really like or don’t agree with. This is strictly to correct grammatical or typographical errors.
☞ Fast Fact:
Coke makes four times fewer writing mistakes than Pepsi in its posts on LinkedIn (Conner 2013).
What Would Grandma Say?
Do not write anything you do not want anyone else to know about. If you write it, it may come back to haunt you later. Don’t write anything you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see. You know exactly what we mean.
Again, there are no hard and fast rules.
Go with the rule of respect and common sense, and you can’t go wrong.
FROM THE EXPERTS:
JUSTIN PREMICK
Education Marketing Manager,
AWeber Communications —
www.aweber.com
- Do Unto Others…
This is probably the first and most important rule in blogging just as much as anywhere else.
Part of why you start a blog is to humanize your organization, and when you do that, you (as the voice of that organization) implicitly agree to abide by the same social rules and conventions that you would as an individual.
Break those rules, and you’ll pay the consequences — plenty of your readers have their own blogs, and should you treat them discourteously, the rest of the Internet will know all about it.
- Don’t Hide
This goes hand-in-hand with #1. If someone writes something bad about you, in a comment on your blog or on his or her own blog, don’t avoid the conversation. Engage them in conversation and find out what’s behind the disagreement. After all, you got into blogging to communicate, right?
If you do choose to moderate your comments (and we do here at AWeber), don’t censor! If someone says something about you or your organization that you don’t like, keeping it from showing up in a comment on your own blog just means it’s going to appear on their blog, in detail.
That said, if someone’s being abusive, there are times when it serves both of you better to talk in person, either via email or phone, prior to approving or removing such a comment. The right to free speech does not guarantee the right to an audience, and if someone is intentionally trying to trash you, you’re under no obligation to allow that to happen on your blog.
- Stand For Something
Not everyone’s going to agree with you or like you. If they do, they’re probably bored with you.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Know who you are, express your viewpoints, and be prepared to stand by them. If you change a stance, do it because you believe it’s the right move, not because someone pressured you into it. Again, blogging imitates life here.
Being provocative is not a bad thing, especially if you’re provoking a discussion among your readers. They won’t all agree, but some of them will, and they’ll all respect you for your frankness.
- Publish or Perish
You don’t necessarily have to say, “we’re going to blog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday” — but you DO need to put out content consistently. Otherwise, people will lose interest and find other places to interact. Remember, your blog is a community shared by you and your readers. Neglect that community, and it will fall apart.
Located in Newtown, PA, AWeber Communications develops and manages online opt-in email newsletters, follow-up automation, and email deliverability services for small business customers around the world. Customers access our website 24/7 to manage and send their newsletters to recipients who have specifically opted in on their website to receive that information.
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