What is in Kelvin's Head?

How twitter and facebook can save your blog rather than kill it

10/10/2014
One of the things that anyone keeping a blog must be aware of at the moment is that things are not the same as they were. At one time you simply had to put up something even vaguely interesting and people all over the world would read and comment. Blogging was like the Wild West – for the attention seeker there was gold to be mined her.

I remember Mother Ruth saying to me before she started blogging, “All you have to do is ask ‘Who teaches cats yoga?’ and you’ve an audience”. If you could supply an entertaining picture of the cat in question, you were immediately set to dominate the blogging world.

Nowadays, things are more difficult. One-liners like that have long since moved over to social media. Facebook and twitter are a more appropriate place for compact wit and if you are initially trying to reach friends and friends of friends then the social media platforms are the way to go. It is, to a large extent, what they are for.

I made a prediction in one of my new year posts that the number of active bloggers would decrease but the influence of those who remain blogging would continue to increase. I still think that is true and I can see when I look through my blog feeds in a morning that there really are far fewer people making the effort. The fad has past but there are some who continue. Those who continue tend to be those who have learned to harness social media and quite often those who have given up have simply moved to social media instead. Perhaps blogging gave them connections with people that they are happy to retain in a different way.

For some people, starting a blog is about keeping up with those whom you know. For others it is like taking a few tentative steps into the limelight and tottering onto a very public stage. It is the latter type of bloggers who are persisting and they have even greater potential now to become global voices. The blogosphere is becoming free of some of the clutter. Now the cat pictures have moved to facebook and twitter, maybe posts with more substantial thinking matter more.

It is very obvious that quick witty thoughts are going on social media whereas blogs are now being used for more substantial thinking. Successful blogs these days quite often seem to have fewer posts than they once would have done but the posts themselves are more substantial.

Who would have guessed that blogging would have reinvigorated the essay as a writing style?

Anyway, it seems to me that you can write as much as you like these days, if you are not engaging on social media then you are unlikely to see many readers.

Here’s how to make social media work for you and keep the readers flowing in.
- Post links to your latest blog entry on twitter and facebook (it isn’t rocket science, that’s where your readers are).
- Note the plural! – Post a link in the morning to get the morning audience, one in the afternoon (for when America is waking up, if you are in Europe) and another one later in the day.
- Don’t be ashamed to work for your audience.
- Remember that email is a form of social media and offer people the chance to sign up to receive your posts. This way of reading blogs is growing.
- Remember to provide an RSS feed for those who receive blogs that way. (For readers, I recommend Feedly now that Google Reader is long gone).
- A witty link on twitter that gets retweeted is the gold you are chasing
- A photo of a cat doing yoga is never wrong.
- Oh and one last thing. Why do you think it is important to ask questions on a blog?
Picture credit – Mel on Flickr Copyright (CC BY-ND 2.0)

5 responses to “Heresy hunting”

Nick Brindley

14/05/2014

It is probably helpful to be clear about the distinction between “dogma” (which is best understood as the definition of orthodoxy and of heresy, of the things it is mandatory to affirm and the things it is forbidden to affirm) and “church order” (the rules about how people are to conduct themselves). These are related but by no means the same thing.

“Doctrine” is a third thing again, to my mind. It is the body of teaching that the church affirms but is much more extensive and changeable than dogma.

Of particular relevance is who has the authority to pronounce on these things. Denominational authorities quite properly establish church law and discipline (this needs to be done and there’s nobody else to do it) but would go beyond their proper sphere (in my view) if they tried to establish new definitions in the field of dogma.

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Andrew

14/05/2014

I feel the need to separate praxis and doctrine, but I suppose that is probably a minor heresy in itself, in a church that hides its doctrine in its liturgy. Although I suppose the deftness of the ‘McCarthy Liturgy’ has maybe sidestepped that pitfall as deftly as an 18th century non-juring bishop side-stepping western orthodoxy and the rest…

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Rosemary Hannah

15/05/2014

To a degree I think it is a matter of tradition. Anglican churches have tended (and it is only a tendency) to insist of orthopraxis. Church of Scotland churches have tended (same health warning) to emphasise orthodoxy of belief, call it doctrine or dogma. St Andrews is not of course a C or S institution, but it used to be, certainly in my day, and to a degree in yours, heavily steeped in C of S ethos. St Mary’s trained C of S ministers and that was ALL the training they got, because then they knew Orthodoxy.

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Jimmy

15/05/2014

The links on this post have led me to think of this –

The Inner Party – The Outer Party – The Proles.

The model demands tight control of the middle class, with ambitious Outer Party members neutralised via promotion to the Inner Party or “reintegration” by Miniluv, while proles can be allowed intellectual (and sexual) freedom because they lack intellect. Winston nonetheless believed that “the future belonged to the proles”. Wikipedia.

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Allan Ronald

19/05/2014

There was most definitely a C of S ethos at St Andrews in my day [67-71]. Robin Buchanan-Smith was running a packed college chapel and one president of the SRC and one president of the Union were St Mary’s men who went on to ordination and, in one case, to be Moderator of the Kirk. Perhaps they got their orthodoxy from Matthew Black at St Mary’s and their skill in future clerical politics from their student posts…….

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