Emerging Trends in Blogging

Blogging itself was a new form of communication not too long ago, although in many ways not that different from what came before, from news articles, to editorials, to LiveJournals, and message boards. What has been coming on the scene feels different, but is similar too. Microblogging, and blogging as social media, is where things seem to be going at the moment.

What can this blog, as a blog about writing and blogging, do to keep up with this? What does the future of this blog look like?

Tapping into Community

Last week, I discussed the blog’s statistics, and the different communities that they show me to have connected to. Keeping up with this would be one way to grow the blog. However, there are already blogs about blogging, how-tos and such. What am I adding to this conversation?

As a community grows, and largely from people I know and from fellow bloggers, the way to remain relevant would be to take requests for blog reviews and commentary. Then, the blog could be showcased on this blog, which would drive traffic in both directions, to the other blog and to here. It could help people improve their blog with some of the tips and tricks and best practices I have been learning in class, and would be something far more unique that the blog could do.

Hopefully doing this would also tie-in with a number of new trends. For instance, shares and social media connections for these sorts of posts. Also, it would keep a stream of new content coming up on the site, which would keep everything on the blog relevant. It might even lead to becoming something of an authority in the blogging community, which would lead to things like influence, or maybe a full time job blog editing or writing.

This could even potentially be a paid service, creating a different form of revenue stream from the blog. Hey, a boy can dream.

Micro-Blogging

I already have a Twitter created, and now a Tumblr, and have been playing with those. Writing in these formats is so interesting; still reserving judgment on Tumblr, and have my posts saved as drafts so far. Planning on potentially using that as a short-chunks-of-fiction blogging space. I especially like how you can have multiple Tumblr blogs and manage them all easily, share your items across (so, say, short story bits sharing back to a main blog to advertise them and link all your stories back to you as author), and do all sorts of thing I have only scratched the surface on.

Twitter, however, I have started playing with. It’s interesting, it seems like a place to “friend” real celebrities and such just by following them, and then mercilessly cyber-stalking them. However, when you have someone you know, you can actually have a conversation. Like below.

Writing for Twitter is so interesting. Let’s take a moment to see what I accomplished there in under the character limit. I rejected the whole idea of “doing it myself” – the whole purpose of my friend’s blog, and related Twitter. Meaning I also kind of thumbed my nose at being mentioned in the post at all. Whoops. Then, not only did I oppose making it myself, but came back with one of the biggest, scariest corporations out there, McDonald’s.

All this without touching the political and social issues that are baggage to go with this.

And yes, I would actually like to know how to make my own Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, that would actually be great! As this was a friend, I hope they realize I was joking. Mostly. I totally went out and bought a McDonald’s wannabe Chick-Fil-A sandwich (meal number 8 I think) that day.

I think as a vehicle for mentioning your blog, and keeping in touch, Twitter is great. In terms of being able to write stupidly snarky things in a short space, it is king. Facebook status updates without the Facebook. But really, blogging it is not. Community it is.

What do I do from here?

As much as I like the idea of asking people if they want blog consults, I don’t know how much of a need there is. Would you ask someone to look over your blog, give suggestions, and give you ideas for growing your community presence? I’m having trouble talking my wife into following some of the advice I am giving, though she is planning on starting a blog. If I can’t convince her… although she is a tough critic!

However, the main issue would be time. Maybe if I added advertising, and doing blog consults added to the community and created revenue in some manner. Maybe even with charging. Though free (with adverts and other things) would be more satisfying. And lots of required sharing.

Of course, I do still need to do an internship, and finding something to do in an enclosed community has been difficult. Maybe this would be a project I could do instead? Must investigate…

Meanwhile, I would definitely continue using Twitter. My plan with this post is to give a shout out to @I’llMakeItMyself with this post. Meaning if you are reading this after clicking through from there, it’s working!

However, a lot of the things I was planning to do with blogging from the beginning, like blogging fiction, I would be more likely to do on Tumblr. I have an iPhone note with lots of blog post ideas, and I sorted them out: a few I would think of doing here, but the majority I think would make more sense on Tumblr.

And, finally, the whole question boiled down: What does a blog about blogging do about emerging trends? Why, keep up with them and write all about them, of course!