Educational Technology Open Court Reading by Mathew Needleman

Advice for New Edubloggers

They Link Me, They Really Link Me

For the first time, I made it on a list of top Edubloggers, this one by Scott McLeod of Dangerously Irrelevant. The list is based on technorati authority, which for the uninitiated is calculated based on how many blogs link back to your blog.

It’s not an exact science and kind of arbitrary though I’m glad to be included on the list. A fairer way might be to base the list on numbers of readers but those figures are not necessarily public. Several of my favorite blogs (see my blogroll) aren’t on the list with the exception of Larry Ferlazzo who comes in at #13.

Readership on the Rise

Nevertheless, I have noticed my readership increase from 100 readers in December 2007 to 400+ average readers this month so I thought it might be time to offer some advice on what has worked for me.

If You Write It, They Will Come…Not

When Jon Becker, a new-ish blogger, mentioned that being a new blogger felt like being on the outside of an “awesome cocktail party”, he touched a nerve with many bloggers perhaps because we’ve all felt that way in the beginning. A lot of bloggers responded by saying that if a person would just write valuable posts, an audience would show up. While this might have been true in a world with few educational bloggers, I think it’s naive to suggest that just writing good posts will get you noticed when there are hundreds if not thousands of educational bloggers in existence. This is not to say that I haven’t gotten better at blog writing over the past year, it’s just that unless you put yourself out there, people may not show up on their own.

Join the Conversation and Comment

It took me awhile to feel comfortable commenting on other people’s blogs. However, I have discovered some of my favorite bloggers because of comments they’ve left on my own blog. So I’ve come to appreciate that leaving comments is a way to get people to notice your blog. Sometimes it’s not the blog owner who visits your blog as a result of your comment but it can be other commenters who follow the link from your name back to your blog.

Build Relationships

By commenting on blogs and getting comments back, I’ve built some blogging friendships that have both contributed to my teaching practice and been personally rewarding. I never would have “met” Kevin, Alice, Elona, Leila, Gail, Jose, Bonnie—to name just a few, were it not for blogging.

Each of them are bloggers who are about on the same level as me in terms of popularity. It might be more difficult to build a relationship with a top blogger. The top bloggers I’ve spoken to are all nice but they’re busy people. I think friendships are more likely to spring up between bloggers who are on your level because they are more likely to be mutually supportive of your blogging efforts.

Visit a Carnival

A blog carnival, is just a collection of blog posts. I used to think this was gimmicky but the Carnival of Education is like an institution and a generally respected one at that. There are always about 30-40 compiled posts from around the edusphere. There are too many blogs there for me to subscribe to them all (and I wouldn’t want to) but I do like reading a few of the articles every week. I assume other people do the same. They may not want to subscribe to my blog but once in awhile they might be interested in a particular article I’ve written. I have been linked to both from my articles in the Carnival of Education and by visitors to the Carnival of Education who liked a few of my posts, sometimes even stumbled them.

Go Viral

Jon Becker managed to go viral by complaining. My Mr. Winkle movie, while not a pork and beans size youtube hit has been viewed over 50,000 times between Youtube, Teachertube, Vimeo, and foreign translation sites and has brought a few visitors to my blog.

While content will not automatically attract an audience, if you don’t have something worth talking about then people will never come and never stay. At the same time, I must say that some of my throwaway posts have been the most popular.

I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m saying that there’s a paint by numbers way of becoming a semi-popular blog. There is no such way. However, these are a few things I’ve done on my blogging journey that have worked for me.

12 thoughts on “Advice for New Edubloggers”

  1. Mathew,

    First, thanks for including me as one of your favorite bloggers.

    I think you give great advice here. I might offer two more suggestions:

    1) Write articles in other education-related publications

    2) Participate in listservs related to your educational focus.

    Both of these two have helped people learn about my blog.

    Larry

  2. Thanks Larry for your suggestions.

    You reminded me of two more things.

    1) Participating in the group blog, In Practice, has helped grown an audience.

    2) Being gracious to commenters and always responding to them (as you have always been good about) is a good way to keep visitors when they show up.

  3. Thanks for the advice. I started a blog to share the things I do with technology. I love to share with people and not many fellow teachers in my current job are that excited about technology.

    I admit that I almost quit blogging within the first few days! My thought was that if no one was reading it, why write it? Then, I started sending out a note on Twitter when I had a new post. I started getting some comments and that made it worthwhile for me. While I don’t have hundreds of readers, I have some faithful and kind people who cheer me on.

    Thanks for giving this advice. Early on, someone on Twitter gave me the “if you write it, they will come” line…I can state for certain that is not the best advice. Once people know what you write, they will read if it interests them, but if they don’t know about it, they can’t read it.

    I will also put a shout out to the shy to comment! I have learned from many bloggers that comments are the fuel for great blogs! It took me months of reading a bunch of blogs before I ever commented. I didn’t know how powerful it was! I have received excellent suggestions and topics for future blogs and wonderful feedback!

  4. For a long time, I didn’t do a blog because I figured no one would read it anyway. Then I got to thinking “so what?” It’s still a great way to record ideas that I think about. If someone happens to benefit, all the better. But I have a written archive of ideas that I can always refer back to. And people do visit and comment from time to time.

    Your advice contains ideas I haven’t thought of before. Thanks for the tips.

  5. Matthew,

    Some very salient advice especially as noted by others that “if you write it — they won’t automatically come”.

    I’d add a few more pieces of advice though I am far from a blogger — My style is less on ownership and more on conversation. So therefore I blog all over the place — on forums.

    1. Use your blog url in your signature. Standard piece of advice.
    2. Post on forums in your area of interest. You’d be surprised who will click your signature if you make an intelligent contribution to the community.
    3. Join and RSS or multipost your blog on communities that offer such services and individual blogs – such as what I use Ning.
    4. Join communities that will promote your blog and see its value. They can promote whether by a link or like I do with Larry’s blog (because I see it as so valuable) – an embed page right in the community.
    5. Write articles for newspapers and journals. — these traditional areas still pay off.
    6. Get a business card just for your blog! This works and is an easy way to promote , especially at conferences. Just leave the cards laying around and bingo…the next week you’ll have many more people checking you out…
    7. Get some content as mentioned. Youtube / Facebook and these high volume places offer a marketing chance to bloggers.

    That’s my lucky 7. Thanks for the read.

    David
    http://eflclassroom.ning.com

  6. Mathew,
    Congratulations for being named to the top list of edubloggers and on the success of your Mr. Winkle movie. I always look forward to reading your posts, and thought Mr. Winkle was great when I saw it. I’m not surprised by your success. it’s well deserved.

    Thank you for counting me as one of your blogging friends. I too feel that the friendships that have developed over time because of blogging have been really rewarding in many ways. I must say that when I write a new post and I post it, I’m thinking “I wonder what Mathew’s thoughts on this topic are?”

    I’ve been blogging for almost two years now and absolutely love it. The fellowship that has developed around blogging has become an important part of my life. Who knew what was to come after I wrote that first post.

    Thanks again

  8. Sometimes I too wonder why I blog as most of the time it’s just for me. But then I like to think that it requires a certain amount of discipline and maybe a little or a lot of optimism. I’m reluctant to send my posts to twitter because I really don’t think that they are profound or interesting enough to warrant that kind of bravado. (me posting my own posts). But having said that what I do love about blogging and twitter in particular is the community and the collaboration and sharing that is part and parcel of this world. In my experience I have been given nothing but encouragement and support. So something must be going right.

  9. I, too, have found that some of my most popular posts were those that I considered to be minor ones. On the flip side, some of my lengthy, dare I say quasi-scholarly, posts, are ones that barely get a nibble.

    I enjoyed reading this post–got here from the Carnival of Education! I invite you to visit my blog as well–perhaps we can exchange links.

  10. Thanks for all of the great advice. I even learned a lot from the comments. I always find new blogs to read on the carnivals. I’m going to check out the Mr. Winkle movie and the headline advice from James Webber. Thanks again.

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