I’m honored to introduce you to Darren Rowse, uber-blogger. I’ve learned alot from Darren over the years and finally got to meet him last week at BlogWorld Expo in Los Angeles. This post seemed perfectly suited to help your nonprofit retool your blog so Darren’s graciously let me republish this it here. You can find him on Twitter @problogger
by Darren Rowse
I am fortunate enough to meet quite a few of my blog’s readers face-to-face at conferences. It’s always a surreal and enlightening experience.
One of the most interesting parts of the experience is having readers share with you the posts that you’ve written that they remember most. On some occasions they remember things you’ve written years in the past!
Funnily enough, though, these often are not the posts that you want them to remember.
What people don’t remember about your blog
As a blogger who focuses mainly upon how-to and informational posts, I find it fascinating that people rarely tell me that the post they remember most fits into that category. It’s rare that anyone comes up to me at a conference and says:
“I remember that post on dPS from 2009 when you taught us how to use longer shutter speeds to create motion blur! I loved it!”
or
“I’ll always remember that post on ProBlogger when you listed ten ways to use images on posts. What a great post!”
It’s not the how-to or informational posts that people remember.
What people do remember about your blog
Image copyright Christopher Nuzzaco – Fotolia.com
The posts that people come up to me at conferences and remind me about are:
- stories
- playful posts (humor, or writing in a different voice)
- rants and emotive posts
- inspirational posts
- opinion pieces
- posts about failures, problems, and needs people have
While informational posts are important as they help people on a day-to-day basis, it’s the more heartfelt posts that create memories for people, and make them feel a connection to you as a blogger.
What posts do you remember?
What is your most-remembered post by readers?
What posts do you remember that others wrote long after they were written?
I love Darren’s advice. So nice to share with your reader’s Marc.
This reminds me of the saying that people don’t remember what you say. Rather they remember how you make them feel. Thanks for some great insight!
Good point, Kristen!
And thanks, Gayle. I’m honored he let me!