This post is for fellow bloggers and myself. When the Cataclysm will arrive, we will play WoW. Which means less time for other stuff like blogging. However we like blogging and/or have a purpose with it. Blogging is unlike many hobbies, you can't just do it for some weeks than forget it completely for a month like you can do with DVD movies or playing Civ V. Blogging is not just writing texts for a folder in our computer. You write to a target audience and you receive feedback in form of analytics data, comments, posts of other bloggers. If you just go silent, they leave and may never come back.
To keep them it is important to keep on blogging during periods when you have other issues. When you go to vacation, having a batch of canned posts work. But now, when Cataclysm comes, readers also have less time and less likely to care about your thoughts of female-male ratio of horde leaders or the imperfectness of the zero-sum DKP loot system. They want recent Cataclysm content that helps them in their adventure. Of course it does not mean that you have to change into MMO Champion, or simply post official patch notes. The readers have chosen your blog for your main focus. So make a plan that keeps you posting relevant information.
My plan is:
To keep them it is important to keep on blogging during periods when you have other issues. When you go to vacation, having a batch of canned posts work. But now, when Cataclysm comes, readers also have less time and less likely to care about your thoughts of female-male ratio of horde leaders or the imperfectness of the zero-sum DKP loot system. They want recent Cataclysm content that helps them in their adventure. Of course it does not mean that you have to change into MMO Champion, or simply post official patch notes. The readers have chosen your blog for your main focus. So make a plan that keeps you posting relevant information.
My plan is:
- Monday morning: Current state of The PuG and WotLK experiences
- Tuesday morning: Current state of my business and a recap of the 4.0.x adventures. I can't post Cata info as I have not yet played Cata when the post goes live. I also discuss my Cataclysm investment plans.
- After that: every day (maybe even Sat-Sun) business posts, The PuG related info.
17 comments:
>Make a plan and announce it, helping you keeping to it.
Social mindtrick. Announcing a plan doesn't glue your fingers to the keyboard. It's only, "oh no, I will be disappointing someone if I don't stick to it, so I'de better!"
Good guide, it helped to remind me that Cataclysm is this Tuesday (which also happens to be the day I do my main update on). So now I'm wondering what to write. I mean really, what can I write on a launch day that will interest people and be relevant? I'll have to set my other topics aside. Not posting something about Cataclysm on the launch day would be kinda ignorant =P.
@First comment: trying to please everyone is an irrational social action, however, thinking "I'm awesome and I can disappoint anyone" is even worse. You don't have to please everyone, but there is reason to NOT disappoint your boss,your gf, your customers, or in this case, your blog readers (the mindful one, atleast). It isn't about caring for anyone feeling, it's about his own pratical purpose: he needs the readers, for ideas and responses, else the blog would be some kind of ranting without any benefits, at all
Gevlon I'm glad you are not going to stop bligging when Cata comes out. It's one thing that always makes me sad - because of some non dramatic event (like Cata release) the blogger stops doing what he was doing for a log time ie posting new posts.
This makes the number of readers drops significantly and it drops really fast and then to go back to where they were ... well that's a different story.
I'm actually kind of relaxed about it. I'm going away for a holiday for a couple of weeks over Christmas and I won't have any time before that to prepare posts in advance.
If some readers stop to follow me because I'm silent for a few weeks - so be it. I can live with it. I guess it would be different if I had a more clear purpose with my blog - to spread a message or get a revenue from ads.
About the content of posts in times like this: there will be an overflow of guides of all sorts and to be honest I think it's a tad boring. Regardless of how useful they are, I read blogs mostly to enjoy sparkling and personal writing from interesting, thoughtful personalities. ideas, opinions, thoughts and experiences are way more interesting than "How-to xx" guide number 100. Classic blogging will never get out of fashion - not even during a Cataclysm.
All this said, you have some good points. I too hate to see blogs just disappear without any notice. I think it's fair to be transparent to your readers and inform them about your plans. (without spamming the blog with sorry-for-not-writing-posts, which are quite useless.)
I think mostly I want to just celebrate the fact I've been able to keep a posting schedule for the last 6 months, despite there not really being much new in the game to write about!
I'd say it's a solid suggestion to make an announcement in at least two ways.
1. It informs the readers, that they probably can't expect anything before the announced date, and they know the Blog isn't simply "gone"
2. (If I'd write a Blog, this would be my main reason because I'm lazy) It somewhat forces the Blog-Writer to release something at the announced date.
Thank you for reminding me about this
Actually in this case
>Make a plan and announce it, helping you keeping to it.
is more then a social mind trick, because once you announce something on a blog it's even worse if you don't follow through (worse then saying nothing and not having updates). You create a situation where you need to do thing you think you won't feel like doing (in this case posting on a blog) by increasing the severity of the consequences if you don't. It has nothing to do with
"oh no, I will be disappointing someone if I don't stick to it, so I'de better!"
Personally I have hopes that the Greedy Goblin blog will have a focus on the new rated bg system or bgs in general with helpful hints and such a to succeeding.
Most guides I've found to bgs are severely outdated or very basic. IE. Put 5 on 3 nodes in AB to win, while having the other teams help defend if there's a zerg. Usually there isn't a mention that the zerg is causing there to be only 1 or maybe no one at the stbs for instance which can be taken by a stealth class causing the group zerging to send 3-4 back the deal with inc stb.
Just saying sometimes you have insights into pvp that aren't widely all to widely known. Didn't discover that you could fire over the second wall in WG until i read this blog...after approximately 200 wgs battle no one on my server mentioned it. Hope for more pvp related mosts.
"Make a plan and announce it, helping you keeping to it. "
Is a social mindtrick.
There are no consequences for not following through. One can always make up valid excuses for why something didn't happen. There are usually more important things that come up than what you mentioned is on your to-do list.
Your list made me think about what I like in your blog. I'm sure everyone reads it for different reasons but personally I enjoy the philosophy based on (or inspired by) the microcosm of real life that is WoW.
It's reassuring to hear that you won't lose your self discipline when Cata arrives. I confess that I'm rather addicted to you opinions, whether I agree with them or not.
Most bloggers I read write more when there is an expansion, not less. That is because they have something new to write about. As Spinks said, the hard job is finding something to say when you haven't done anything new for six months.
As for losing readers during a hiatus, reliable readers use feedreaders. Unless they hyper-aggressively purge their feeds, they'll automatically pick the blog back up as soon as there are new posts. Stating a return date may be helpful to the blogger, but as a reader it means nothing to me. One, I already know it may not turn out the way you planned, and two, it's not like I'm going to write it down in my calendar.
"One can always make up valid excuses for why something didn't happen."
A plan is a breakable promise. When a person says they are making a plan, it means they know that it's a promise that they cannot keep.
@ all comments on social mindtrick: Gevlon is a social if he keeps to his plan. However, if Gevlon does not keep to his plan, excuses means he's social, and lack of excuses means he's goblin. It's that simple.
@Anonymous: Or "plan" is something one wants to do, despite not sure he'll succeed.
Gevlon, I am stocking up for Cata by stockpiling very cheap chilled meat, borean leather, saronite ore, goldclover, and other things required to level professions in the hopes that future alts will take dual crafting or otherwise need these materials, by which time they will have become expensive, much like most outland herbs. I severly doubt that I could think up a thing such as this if there weren't some catch, so is there a catch?
"Make a plan and announce it, helping you keeping to it."
*social trick alert* Why would announcing a plan would help you keeping it? Just by making it and keeping to yourself should be enough.
@Last anonymous: to let others to plan their own moves maybe? I mean one can think "no blog will be updated in the first week so I don't look". Now they know that I plan to do so.
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