If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you will have no doubt realised the huge improvements. These improvements have happened not only since I started at the beginning of 2016, but even in the last few months.
I have never considered myself a writer. I enjoy reading other writer’s carefully worded pieces and admired how well they can evoke emotion and thoughts in their readers, but I never thought I could do that. I’m certainly not saying I am that good now, but I am improving, so maybe one day I will be able to write as passionately as many others do.
If you have written on a blog yourself, you will know what I mean when I say that writing in a public place is a lot of pressure. Will anyone read what you write? Will they hate it? Or even worse – will they not care at all? Despite these worries, writing on such a public platform brings great opportunity – you can say whatever you want, with no barriers or guards holding you back or censoring your words. This is one of the many reasons why I think blogging is so brilliant.
Credibility
I have certainly noticed that in the short time I have been blogging, my level of writing has risen. If you go back and read some of my posts from last year, or even the beginning of this semester, you will notice this too. I didn’t link to enough research – academic or otherwise – and there is nothing really enticing you to read the post. I have learnt how important these things are. Ensuring that facts are correct, and backing up any claims with sources is extremely important for your credibility. Stories can help you remember things, but statistical evidence has been shown to be more persuasive (Cooper 2015). There are also the ethical and legal reasons for giving credit to the owners of ideas/images/facts etc.
Blog Layout
My blog has undergone a major makeover recently. About 5 weeks ago I realised how boring, bland and ‘not-me’ my blog was – it didn’t even have an ‘About’ page! So, I spent a few hours redesigning. I struggled through the many theme options until I found one that I thought suited me. I carefully chose the colours, images and words that I thought went well. I organised my posts into easy-to-navigate menus, and even added the ‘Creative Side’ page to showcase some of my other work. There is a live Twitter feed, and links to other places you can find me online. All of this has created a blog that really represents me – It is full of my opinions, images and information. Hopefully you agree that via reading and searching through my blog you can get a feel of the sort of person I am.
Readership
Readership is still something that I am working on, but I am a lot more aware of it and how to increase it than I was a few months ago. I tweet links to new blog posts, encouraging people to read. I also use tags with words I think might increase the chances of it being seen. The #bcm241 tag is obviously the most useful – and this is where most readers will come from. Followers will see my posts in their WordPress feeds – I currently have 28 WordPress followers (this is something that I can focus on increasing).
These are the weekly stats for my blog over the last 6 months. I started blogging for BCM241 on July 30th, as you can probably tell. My highest readership was the week of August 14th-20th with 48 views and 25 unique visitors. When my posts are linked to by other bloggers, I have noticed my views rising. This is why my readership the week of August 14th is higher than usual – my posts were linked to by other students and Susan’s Map Hub site (thank you!!)
Writing for Myself
Adii Pienaar, founder of PublicBeta, said ‘Write for yourself first & foremost. Ignore the fact that anyone else will read what you write; just focus on your thoughts, ideas, opinions and figure out how to put those into words. Write it and they will come” (Cooper 2015). In the past, my blog posts have usually just been about the lecture topic that week, not always something I was too interested in. Over the past few months in BCM21, I have had more freedom to write about topics from an angle that interests me. Not only does this mean I am more motivated to post, but it comes across in my writing.
What’s Next?
My next step is to focus more on pushing my posts out to the public. With just over 3,000 Twitter followers and hundreds following the #bcm241 tag, Twitter was a great place to start. I can publicise my blog through my other social media accounts like Instagram and Facebook. I will admit, I have been hesitant to do so because of the pressure I mentioned earlier. Currently, the readers of my blog are predominately those in the same course as me or people I don’t know at all. However, Instagram and Facebook would bring over friends and family – this increases the pressure to do well when people you know are judging your work.
Another way to increase readership is to learn more about search engine optimisation (SEO). This is not something I know a great deal about so I won’t ramble on about that, but it is certainly something to look into. Including a call-to-action is another way to engage readers. Davidoff (2017), says a call to action is critical, “Asking your reader to respond is the beginning of the conversation that will generate leads and hopefully, demonstrate the value of active and consistent blogging.”
Consistency is key – posting consistently will keep readers engaged with my blog. While I have been a lot better this session with regularly posting, I still need to work on this.
Blogging this session has been a great experience so far, improving my skills beyond what I expected. If you would like to watch me improve further, follow this blog and my Twitter to keep up with posts.
Until next time,
-Emma
References:
Cooper, B 2015, ‘How I write research-based posts’, weblog post, 28 July, viewed 2 October 2017, <https://blog.ghost.org/research-posts/>
Davidoff, Doug 2017, ‘The Importance of blogging: 6 keys to writing effective blog posts’, weblog post, 25 April, viewed 2 October 2017, <http://blog.imaginellc.com/the-importance-of-blogging-6-keys-to-writing-effective-blog-posts>
Feature Image: Source
Emma Bruce 
2 thoughts on “Reflecting”