Last week, Chris Brogan wrote two satirical posts about becoming a “social media expert.” But the resultant traffic bump — and the reactions from people who couldn’t tell it was satire — alarmed him into (temporarily) promising to never be ironic again.
Elsewhere on the web, Sue Walsh at Gadgetell reported on PayPal’s recent “non-announcement” about their additional fees. The comments on her piece were a mixed bag, with half the respondents ready to take up torches and storm the PayPal offices and the other half ready to drag Walsh herself into the street over their own accusations of her bias.
What do both instances tell us about blogging? As Mitch Joel suggests when he recently considered killing the comments on his blog, the nature of discourse in social media is dying — fast.
Killing You With Kindness
Sometimes your audience agrees with you overwhelmingly — usually for one of three reasons:
- You’re right
- What you’ve said is so obvious, it can’t help but be agreed with
- Your audience doesn’t know enough about your topic to argue efficiently
In these cases, the comment stream is filled with the voices of people falling all over each other to validate the author (and themselves) by agreeing with her. What does the author learn? Simple: keep writing more posts like this.
Two Free Tickets to the Troll Convention
Other times, a blog post becomes a hotbed of dissent — often because the topic is broad enough that the general public finds its way to that particular post, and they decide to let the author know what they really think.
And, since these visitors don’t know the blog author, or have any frame of reference for that author’s other work, they have no need to be civil in their comments. If they disagree, there’s no need to be polite, because they never intend to return. (For example, the commenter who advised that I “get anal raped in the Pittsburgh slums” because he disagreed with my review of Watchmen.)
Rethinking WHY We Blog
Maybe you blog for business, so all traffic is good because it validates you as an expert — and expertise sells.
Maybe you blog to be popular, so all traffic is good because it validates your ego.
Or maybe you blog because you’re trying to understand the process, in which case any traffic is good because it’s all part of a long learning curve.
But since the act of blogging implies a desire for feedback, what actual value are you seeking from your commenters? Do you need to be told you’re right? Do you want to instigate an argument? Challenge people’s preconceptions? Invite constructive criticism? Create an actual dialogue?
Is your audience capable of providing that value?
Tags: audience, Blogging, comments, Social Media, Sociology
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