I've been blogging for 4 years, and have learned a lot along the way. Om Malik has been blogging for 10 years and shares his 10 lessons.
My 10 years of blogging: Reflections, Lessons & Some Stats Too
Ten years is a long time. Sometimes it is so long that one forgets a lot more than one remembers — like the fact that it I have been blogging for a decade. I would have totally forgotten about the amount of time that has passed, had it not been for (what else) a blog post from Fred Wilson, one of the more engaging and rigorous bloggers on the web. It just so happens he is a venture capitalist, but he would be a great blogger without the VC tag as well.
Om buries his 10 lessons in the bottom of his relatively long post. So, let's bring them to the top and you can see them here.
Here are my 10 lessons learned:
- Blogging is communal: In 2008, I wrote that “blogging is not just an act of publishing but also a communal activity. It is more than leaving comments; it is about creating connections.” That is the single biggest lesson learned of these past 10 years. Every connection has lead to a new idea, new thought and a new opportunity.
- Being authentic in your thoughts and voice is the only way to survive the test of time.
- Being wrong is as important as being right. What’s more important — when wrong, admit that you are wrong and listen to those who are/were right.
- Be regular. And show up to blog every day. After all you are as fresh as your last blog post.
- Treat others as you expect yourself to be treated.
- (In 2006 I wrote this and it is worth repeating) Doc Searls once told me, and it has been one of the guiding principles for me: blog if you have something to say and respect your reader’s time. If you respect their time, they are going to give you some time of their day.
- A long time ago, Slate’s Farhaad Manjoo asked mefor some tips on blogging and here is what I told him – Wait at least 15 minutes before publishing something you’ve written—this will give you enough distance to edit yourself dispassionately.
- Write everything as if your mom is reading your work, a good way to maintain civility and keep your work comprehensible.
- Blogging is not about opinion but it is about viewing the world in a certain way and sharing it with others how you look at things.
The tenth lesson comes from Kevin Kelleher when he was writing for us back in 2010. In his post, How the Internet changed writing he noted:
Many bloggers tailor headlines and posts so that they’ll surface at the top of search results, making them at once easier to find and less enjoyable to read. And this decade, a lot of other bloggers mistook a strong writing voice for caustic irreverence. But most eventually learned that writing with snark is like cooking with salt — a little goes a long way.
If anything, avoiding that trap Kevin mentioned is the biggest lesson of them all.