Durbin’s Top 6 Blogging Mistakes
1) Writing! with Exclamation! Points! !
We see this a lot. Beginning bloggers are really excited about what they’re doing, and their enthusiasm generally leads to overemphasis of their first blog posts. We teach in the class that exclamation points, italics, bold, and font color and size changes are not allowed for three months. Your writing should convey enthusiasm without the use of crutches, and like pounding your shoe on the table to make a point, exclamation points usually mean you have weak writing (ed. Writing sentences that need exclamation points, but leaving them out - while clever - is lazy writing with bad punctuation. But nice try).2) The Obligatory Get Back to Writing For Myself Post:
This is more of a social blog problem. When you build up a small audience, it’s customary in about the third of fourth month to despair that your writing has gone from self-exploration to shameless pandering to your audience. Most bloggers (myself included), have written the oh-so-silly “I feel like I’m writing for the audience instead of myself” blogpost. Usually some of your readers come to your comments and tell you how great you are, or give you advice on how to write. It’s really sad. Like a cry for help (Bonus fact: Some bloggers learn that the only way to get comments is to write such a post. That clearly is a cry for help).3) Excessive Use of Pictures and Videos:
Pictures and video are great, and it’s wonderful that we have the ability to mashup our media, but sometimes, we use pictures and video to make up for a lack of writing. Once is okay, but when you start posting content just to pretend that you haven’t really fallen off the blogwagon, it’s time to write post number 4:
I found a new blog called brandstorming. The above three blogging mistakes are from his list of six total. I found myself nodding as I read his list. Go here to read his post in it’s entirety. Good stuff!
October 1st, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Interesting blogging thoughts, though I don’t entirely agree with them.
Point 1) You are quite limited in your reply spaces, and effectively limited in your posts by the usual interest level of the audience. While frequent usage WOULD be a sign of poor communication skills in a larger essay or a novel, exclamations are a perfectly reasonable way to express emotion in the condensed writing format of blogdom.
Point 2) It would be truer to say that most new bloggers go through a period of adjustment to the format, and often come to the same realizations in the early part of that journey. Its not sad, its just life. Eventually the better bloggers find enough people to be interested in their lives and get over that phase.
point 3) People like pretty pictures and are often curious about how other people’s kids, pets, houses, and gardens look. Many blogs are at least partly for the benefit of relations who enjoy regular updates about how silly the baby looked with peanut butter in her hair, and how well those rosebushes are doing these days.
Then too - some bloggers are good enough to make the shots artistic, and use photos as part of their way of sharing what inspires them.
I am surprised you didn’t blast quizzes & memes as well- though I (and many other people) enjoy reading people’s answers/results.
IMHO what makes or breaks the use of such elements is variety and a willingness to share some actual thoughts about life.
October 1st, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Hi Susan,
You do know that I wasn’t the one that wrote the list right? I do however agree with a lot of what Jim wrote.
I think the beauty of the blogosphere is that there are no rules and everyone can blog how they like and even find others who appreciate their blog for different reasons. What bothers one may be the very reason another reads a certain blog.
Thanks for stopping by!