PureBlogging

Last week at the end of Kathryn’s post, she asked if bloggers have a responsibility to act as role models for their readers. It reminded me of back when Charles Barkley played in the NBA. He was asked a similar question by a reporter who wanted to know if he felt like professional athletes should act more like role models for their young fans. Barkley replied, “I’m not a role model!” He went on to say that a child’s parents and teachers should be role models, not professional athletes.

In a perfect world, Charles would be right, but in the world we live in, Charles missed the boat. The reality is, we don’t get to choose whether or not people see us as role models. If someone perceives you as something, right or wrong, that’s what you are in their eyes. So my answer to Kathryn’s question is; Yes. We do have a responsibility to act as role models, because we don’t know who in our audience sees us that way.

The same could be said about your position as an “Expert” in your chosen niche. You may never have claimed to be an expert, and might not even feel that you are an expert, but if you stay at writing long enough, and produce honest content, someone in your audience will decide you are an expert. That is a big responsibility.

Here’s a dirty little secret about being a writer: I can be an expert on any subject I want just because I am a professional writer, and I tell people I am an expert. People’s perception of writers is that they have researched a subject, and they know what they are writing about.

I could tell people that I am an expert on raising poodles, and I could put together a portfolio of work that will enforce that expert position. I could tell you that I have published articles and written a book on the subject, and people would believe me. Never mind the fact that I have never owned a poodle, I’m a professional because I got paid $3.00 for the article, and the book was a 25-page ebook of crap I “borrowed” from poodle web sites. I say I am an expert, someone will believe me.

Being an expert is a great way to build an audience for your work, but it also carries a lot of responsibility. If someone perceives you to be an expert, there is a good chance they will act on what you tell them. That puts a lot of burden on you to make a legitimate effort to make sure what you write is the truth.

It is the same in any public arena. You are publishing your work, which makes you a public figure. Whether you think people notice or not, some of them do, and they pass judgment on you based on your blog.

The bigger your blogs audience grows the more potential you have to make an impact on your readers, either as a role model or as an expert. Whether that impact is positive of negative is entirely up to you.

Did you know you can create a comment blacklist in WordPress? A blacklist is a list of people who are denied access to something. A comment blacklist in WordPress denies comment spammers access to your site. This uses less of your Web server’s resources and bandwidth. It also saves you time, since there is less comment moderation to deal with.

After upgrading a blog recently, I forgot to reactivate the Defensio anti-spam plugin. Within seconds a spam comment appeared. Then another. And another! In just a few hours, I had nearly a hundred comment and trackback spam messages! It was kinda scary! Reactivating Defensio was like damming a flood.

But there is more you can do besides use a good plugin. If you go to Settings > Discussion in your WordPress 2.5+ admin, you can create a comment moderation list and even a comment blacklist.

Download My List of Spam Keywords

You need a list of common spam keywords for your blacklist. I’ve put together a custom list of ‘em you can download and use for your blog (I don’t really want to list them here).

Download Blacklist

Instructions to download and use:

1. Right click on the link and choose to save link as (Firefox web browser) or save target as (Internet Explorer)
2. Once the file downloads, unzip it on Windows (double-click and click “Extract All” on the left or right click) or just open it on a Mac
3. Copy everything in it
4. Paste the contents into the comment blacklist text area (if you just want these words to place comments into moderation instead preventing them altogether, paste them into the Comment Moderation list
5. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes
6. Enjoy fighting spam while you sleep!

The list is made of spammer keywords from the WordPress Codex page on blacklisting comments and a few other sources. And yes, I use it on my own blog consulting blog.

I’m excited to announce the launch of a new blog - DailyTechBits.com. At DailyTechBits, we plan to help you simplify your online life and get things done quickly and easily. You will find how-to’s, tutorials, downloads, websites, tips and tricks that will help you accomplish your daily tasks in the most timely and efficient way.

The motivation for this new project came from my desire to post about things other than blogging. When I run across something interesting or learn something new, I want to share it and many times these topics have nothing to do with blogging. That meant I needed a new outlet.

Sharon Hurley Hall has agreed to join me at DailyTechBits and we promise to provide you with the best time saving tips and tools that we can find. I hope you guys will stop by and let us know what you think… oh yeah, feel free to grab the RSS feed so you don’t miss anything!

As a blogger, you probably read a lot about the need to develop a strong network in order to grow your blog. If you already have a solid network of other bloggers you know how valuable it can be, and if you’re new to blogging you may wonder why it’s so important to have contacts and connections with other bloggers. Here are 10 reasons for you to make networking a priority.

1 - More Readers

Other bloggers that you have a relationship with are very likely to also be readers and subscribers of you’re blog. I know that personally, many of the blogs I subscribe to are a result of knowing the blogger more so than wanting to follow the blog itself.

2 - More Loyal Readers

I think you’ll find that your most loyal readers will be those to whom you have some sort of connection or relationship. Who comments regularly on your blog? It’s probably readers that you have grown to know through interaction on your blog, or maybe on their blog.

3 - More Links

Sometimes you’ll read of bloggers being upset with A-listers accusing them of only linking to other A-listers like it is some kind of exclusive club. I don’t think the reason they are linking to other A-listers is because of a status issue. I’d say it’s more likely that those other A-listers are their friends or members of their network. It’s human nature to want to help those that we know and like. Get to know some other bloggers and you’ll probably find more links coming your way.

4 - Success with Social Media

Social Media Marketing is just as much about a network as it is about the content itself. Those who know you the best are the most likely to vote for you on social media sites. If you have a strong network you can also request social media votes when you need them the most. Whether you use a system such as the shout on Digg, or if you simply send an email, this can be very effective when it is not abused.

5 - Launching Pad for a New Product or Service

Have you ever noticed that when a well-connected blogger launches a new product or service it seems like every blog is posting about it? Obviously this will have a huge impact on the early success of the product or service. I’m sure in some cases these reviews or promotions are paid, and in some cases they’re not. If you have any thought of selling a product or service in the future, focusing on your network would be a good priority.

6 - Boost for Promoting a New Blog

I launched a new blog a few months ago and one of the first things I did after the launch was email many of my friends and contacts that I’ve made. All I asked was for them to stop by when they had a chance. The results were overwhelming as many of them stumbled a post or two. As a result the first two days produced around 10,000 visitors with no money spent on advertising and just an hour or so sending some emails. I’m sure there are bloggers that have stories that put that one to shame. Getting attention for a new blog is difficult, but when you have some established connections it’s an unbelievable different situation.

7 - Name Recognition

In order to become a recognized authority in your niche, you’ll have to be well-connected. Blogging is all about building a name for yourself, so this will have significant benefits for your blog’s growth. Becoming the authority on you subject matter isn’t really essential, but if people associate your name with a particular topic you will almost certainly be successful as a blogger.

8 - More Comments

I mentioned earlier that a strong network will give your more readers and more loyal readers, and you’ll often see that it also results in an increased number of overall comments. Many of the readers who consistently comment on my blog are people who I would consider to be in my network. Best of all, the conversation that is started with those friends and contacts will sometimes lead other readers to get involved and start interacting.

9 - Fun and Friends

Forget about all the benefits of a network in terms of growing your blog for a moment. Even without all of these reasons, networking is still beneficial because it’s enjoyable to get to know others and make new friends with other bloggers. Yes, a blogging friendship may be different than one in the “real world” and you may never meet these friends, but it’s amazing how much of a real friend a fellow blogger can become.

10 - Learning

Blogging is like anything else in life, there’s always more to learn. Some of the best learning opportunities out there are from others in your network. Most friends would be happy to answer a question for you or give you guidance in some way.

What’s Your Experience?

Is networking a priority for you? What results do you see?

It’s been a while since I’ve done this but I decided to put together a list of Weekend Links today. I can’t guarantee that I’ll do this every week like I used to… but you never know.

Weekend Links are my way of rewarding the active members of this community by featuring an interesting post from the top commentators. If you would like to see your post featured here, just join the conversation by commenting regularly and next week you just may make the list.

• Steven Snell lists 50 essential Photoshop text tutorials.
• jack shares a first time home buyers Clearwater, Florida real estate experience.
• Michael Martine asks, “What picture do your social media activities paint about you?“
• Misti Sandefur helps you tackle the reading, writing and studying dilemma.
• Eric | Directory One SEO reveals the value of the Online Better Business Bureau.
• Chaya Jennifer says you can make money online by freelance programming.
• centrinads shows you how to beef up your Pagerank.
• Andy Murray wants to know if clay court players are getting a raw deal.

Sheesh, it appears that I need to do a better job of moderating comments. And while we are on the subject, I think I need to set a few new guidelines for Weekend Links. To be included in the list of links you must:

1) Have a blog, not a static website.
2) Write in a language that I can actually read. Which would include English and… well… ok, just English.
3) Not annoy me by putting links to spam, splogs, penis pill retailers (or any other pharmaceuticals), and porn in the comment area.

If you need more information on what is acceptable and what is not please refer to our Comment Policy.

Have a great weekend!

A few days ago my girlfriend and I were taking the Metrorail to Chinatown when she pointed out a poster advertising the train we were riding — the multitude of stops, the easy-to-understand schedules, the clean and safe cars.

(That sounds silly, I know. It’s like those companies that run ads during their hold music — Why are you hustling me? I’m already here.)

“Read that poster,” she said. “Doesn’t it look like it was written by a fourth grader?”

Indeed it did: Lots of simple sentences. No words longer than about seven or eight letters. No complicated wordsmithing. Just short, gentle, unchallenging copy.

I told her what many copywriters and journalists already know: While it may not have been written by a fourth grader, it was written with the understanding that people without much of an education would be reading it. The writers knew they had to target a very broad audience, so they cast a wide net when it came to reading comprehension skills.

I’ve always felt it’s one of the most insulting ways to address people.

Lately I’ve been working up a new Wordpress blog that lists the many ways our world is slowly turning into the world of Idiocracy. For those of you who haven’t seen this scarily prescient Mike Judge film, it’s the story of a regular-ish guy named Joe who’s cryogenically frozen for 500 years. He wakes up to find himself in a dystopia of famine, environmental disaster, and — most strikingly — extraordinarily low IQs. Mass marketing has dumbed down the population so much that farmers now water crops with Brawndo, a Gatorade-like sports drink advertised as having “what plants crave.”

The result is a worldwide famine. Nobody understands why Joe would want to give the plants water (”Like out of the toilet?” they ask). Brawndo has electrolytes, they say. It’s got what plants crave. It says so right there in the ad.

I think the Metro ad we saw is one of the many steps to a world exactly like the one Mike Judge imagined.

It’s not a good idea to alienate your readers with complex phrasing, eclectic references and an expensive lexicon of terms that make them reach for the dictionary. But the alternative isn’t to treat them like idiots.

So: How do you reach the widest possible audience while still maintaining an intelligent voice?

Back in my journalist days I knew a sports writer named John. John was very cool in a very geeky way — he reminded me of Toby Radloff. And he would always cluck his tongue at me when I complained that my editors were too hard on me when I tried to write “smart.”

“Write at no more than an eighth-grade reading comprehension level,” they’d say, and I’d get mad and stuff my articles with as many five-dollar vocabulary words and heady references as I could without derailing the topic. Penury! Sin Qua Non! Fifty Four Forty or Fight! Then it would all disappear by the time it reached the page.

“You’re doing it wrong,” John would say. “Your writing should be more than a reaction to the constraints placed on it by your audience.”

He was right: The fact was, my audience did have a pretty substantial portion of readers whose education had gone in a different direction than my own, and who might be turned off by my a lot of my choices. My job as journalist was to inform, and I couldn’t do that if my readers were turned off by my writing.

Another of John’s pearls of wisdom solved my problem.

“Write simply and directly. But don’t patronize. I always try to include just one good vocabulary word per article. If it’s a good article, your readers will want to pick up the dictionary to find out what it means, or ask someone else what it means. One word is always simple enough to look up, but they’ll only do it if what you’re writing is compelling and page-turning for every moment up until the point at which the word appears.”

The Metro poster did none of this. It used what seemed like a series of simple, five-letter words and simple, declarative, five-word sentences to convey an idea. Whoever wrote it clearly thinks that, if you are the kind of person who rides public transit in Los Angeles, you have the brain power of a four-year-old.

I wish I had taken a picture of it. But I’m sure you know the kind of copy I’m talking about.

Also, maybe point zero zero one percent of Angelenos ride the Metrorail. Not saying there’s a correlation there, but there you are.

Don’t do what this poster did. It’s a bad idea to marginalize your audience by talking over their heads, but it’s even worse to marginalize them by talking down to them. Because if enough of us talk down to our audiences, eventually that’s what they’ll come to expect. They won’t want the kind of fast-moving, compelling wordsmithing John encouraged me to write. They’ll want subway posters that tell them the Metro is a good thing.

They’ll want writing that has what plants crave.