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)

6 responses to “Hillhead By Election”

Zebadee

19/11/2011

It would seem that the Lib Dems are a ‘busted flush’ with no plan to make any meaningful comeback which is very sad. The SNP were in a similar position in the 1980s but did have a plan which has been successful. Is there not a case for the revival of The Liberal Party? There is certainly a need for such a political party for the whole of the UK not just Hillhead. The Liberal Party could possibly unite the whole of the UK and not just Scotland.

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1. kelvin
  
  19/11/2011
  
  Well, the Liberal Party has never gone away – it still exists and has some councillors. No doubt they feel that their time might still come.
  
  I’ve a feeling that there probably needs to be a clear attempt to do something new though. A New Liberal Party could be formed by a significant breakaway of disaffected liberal democrats but would probably need some significant hitters in order to get going. Given that part of the problem is some very unimpressive leadership in the parliamentary party, it makes it hard to see that happening.
  
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Zebadee

19/11/2011

Yes I know that the Liberal party still exists and understand that they have little or nothing to do with the Lib Dems. They too have no big names or ‘big hitters’ which is a pity. As you yourself will know out there in the real world there is a need for a centre party not right or left. I suspect that there is a large number of thinking people who would at least listen to a political message from the ‘centre’ and they are worried and concerned at the polarisation of the right and the perceived ineptitude of the left in todays political parties.

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Caron

20/11/2011

Kelvin, a few weeks ago, we had a by-election win in Inverness. The evidence suggests that the Liberal Democrats have not become toxic, but where we work, knocking on lots of doors, having strong campaign messages and get our vote out, we get good results.

We had a first class candidate in Hillhead, but I agree that we need to look at how we get our message across.

I’m not for the Murdo method of abolishing the party just to set up a new one. We have good, liberal ideas, with good, liberal values, and an energetic leader who is so genuine, so likeable and very good at explaining what they are. Yes, we have a mountain to climb, but we have our ropes and crampons ready and we’re already ahead of where we were a few months ago.

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1. kelvin
  
  20/11/2011
  
  Yes, I know Caron – I agree with a lot of what you have said. However, the big question is whether the party can get people out there working again.
  
  The win in Inverness was good though it was a pretty narrow thing. Still a win is a win in anyone’s book.
  
  However, whether the party can get doors knocked on etc now is the big question. I know I’m not the only person who has offered a lot to the party in the past who is questioning where the liberal tradition lies.
  
  I know Willie Rennie is likeable and I do believe he stands for lots of good policy ideas that I believe in, but he’s not even making a good job of running his own office at the moment. And his team are not responding online to criticism of him very well either.
  
  I’d love to feel I wanted to support the party – I believe in liberal values, understand liberal values and can articulate liberal values along with the best of them. However, so much of what good people worked for has been squandered so quickly that I just find it too difficult. (By the way, I say that as one of the 307, so I’m still hanging in there in the polling booth).
  
  And the problem is not primarily that the electorate feels betrayed by the Lib Dem brand. That is serious but summountable. The problem is that the activists feel betrayed. That is much, much more serious.
  
  307 votes out of 23243 on leafy home ground and placed fifth is terrible whatever way one looks at it.
  
  The Greens were trumpeting their result on twitter so much I thought they must have won, but they only had 120 or so more votes which doesn’t strike me as a particularly exciting ship to jump to, even if one were looking to leap. I’m not really interested in a party which thinks that getting 435 votes out of an electorate of 23243 is anything to crow about.
  
  Reply
James

20/11/2011

Hi Kelvin, I agree about the democratic disengagement – properly alarming. But the Lib Dems as they currently exist aren’t a Liberal party of the sort I think you want. They’re fundamentalist economic liberals, Orange Bookers determined to remove the social safety net. It’s not liberal as I understand it to make education the province of the rich, to cut benefits for the disabled to appease the Jeremy Clarksons of this world, to hike up regressive taxes like VAT, etcetc.

The really small-l liberal party in Hillhead did a lot better than the Lib Dems. The Greens.

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