Why Blog? - Reader Response

RGMP 2: Start a blog

In a blog created by Mindy McAdams called Teaching Online Journalism she has developed a reporter’s guide to multimedia proficiency. She has designed this to help journalists get to the next level of competition by providing them with tips and hints on what they need to be doing to succeed. A lot of success comes from the experience and exposure itself. People are more prone to remember an experience that allowed them to get involved to create exemplars. The more times they face the exemplar the more familiar with it they will be. This will also allow for more conversation starters and things to talk about in a social setting. McAdams says that the first thing you need to do is to start reading blogs and setup the RSS feed. News travels faster than ever now a days and the best way to keep up is by reading blogs.

In this post McAdams recommends to journalists that you create a blog as soon as possible and get going. It is said that most people who stay up with their blog in the end get some sort of connection that they probably wouldn’t have got otherwise. Possibly getting a job because of a random blog post you made is quite the motivation to try and keep a blog active for as long as possible. I know I am going to do what I can to keep mine going. I already feel special enough because BJ Fogg a Stanford University researcher posted a comment on one of my earlier posts.

When trying to manage and maintain a good blog McAdams provides two essential practices that will keep your blog growing. First you need to link out, which means linking your blog to other blogs out there by referencing their posts and using some of the information provided from their blog. “This makes you visible to other bloggers and also (via trackbacks) to other blog readers.” (McAdams) The second thing you want to do when making you blog popular is to make comments on other peoples blog posts. Make sure you include your name and a link to your blog. This creates more exposure of your blog allowing more people to access it from different locations.

Along with creating these blogs and commenting on others you have to make sure you know what to write about. People don’t want to hear about you personal lives and what you had for lunch. Blogs are an exchange of information and knowledge, it’s a way we can educate ourselves without going to the classroom. McAdams recommends your write about “beat” which I believe to be what your doing and doing well. Including any problems or struggles that you had and how you overcame those experiences. I can only hope I find my own style in blogging and maybe someday it will grow to be well known.