In his study In the Borderline of the Traditional and Social Media, Janne Matikainen examines why people bother to write for free in blogs and online communities. Earlier studies have emphasized the need for attention, but now the more important reasons were revealed to be self-expression, interaction with others and the implementation of web ideology. The roles of producer and consumer are mixed in social media, and active online communities have no need of the old media gate keepers.
Make Yourself Heard with a Blog
Clearly there has been a need for dialogue which complements main stream media, when you think, e.g. about the massive quantity of blogs. There are an estimated hundred million blogs in the world – and new ones are being created every second. The comments and connections – or the way blogs converse with each other – are as important as the blogs themselves. At its best, a blog community is a medium of alternative conversation which complements mainstream publicity. It is exciting that Jukka Kemppinen – or any popular blogger – can receive dozens of comments.
A blog has to be interesting to attract readers, but how to write appealing blog posts? First and foremost, you should have something to say and you should have the courage to state your case decisively. A clear message expressed in a concise manner suits blogging. Your own personality and voice can be heard in the text, and the readers can be activated to leave comments, for example, with open questions.
The Popularity of Short Updates has Increased
The peak popularity of blogs seems to be fading, however, because young people in particular prefer to use microblogs for shorter updates. Even so, Twitter can also be used to promote longer blog posts. You can pick some questions or statements that might get readers on the hook and shape them into Twitter messages. You can then link the message to your blog post. In the ideal situation, your clues are somehow connected with a conversation that is already ongoing. You can also practice how to formulate a good Tweet.
Facebook updates are very similar to Twitter messages. Brevity and participation are virtues when updating, but the tone of the conversation is normally more entertaining on Facebook, which should be considered. The benefit of Facebook is a wide user base which shows in the number of comments. When I have crowdsourced a problem simultaneously on Twitter and Facebook, the first one usually produces four or five answers and the second usually several dozens.
You’ll learn to write interesting messages by practising and analyzing good texts. The next slides give you some good tips, even if the presentation is based on marketing. After all, marketing skills do no harm to us as teachers either, do they?