One of the demonstrations I use in training bloggers is an example of how important shared community is in creating excitement.
You start in a room, and ask one person to clap. The person claps a little, sheepishly looking around at their colleagues. You ask a second person to clap, and to do it with gusto. That person claps a lot louder, faster, and you tell them they did a good job, but that it sounded a little hollow. You ask for volunteers, and let anyone else try.
You pause a beat, and then ask the first two people to clap together. They do so. You encourage a third person to join in, and then you encourage all three to show a lot of energy. The sound increases, and ultimately, someone adds a whoop or a shout into the mix, and the sound transforms from a few people clapping to a celebration.
Then you stop, and you begin clapping yourself, lightly, and without rhythm, and you say, "This is the essence of blogging." Alone, your voice is hollow. Combined with others, your voice is part of an explosion of excitement and energy.
Blogging Is Not About You
The first and most important rule of blogging is understanding that
your blog is not about you - it's about the community. It's about your
readers. It's about your industry. It's about anything other than your
marketing pitch.
When communities grow, they grow because the shared conversatiin is greater than the individual conversation. An indidividual has a limit on what they know, a point where their expertise ceases to be worth listening to. A group of people obviously has a much higher limit to when they cease to be effective, and using a blog, no one voice can drown out another.
Combine the level of expertise in a community with the excitement generated by numerous voices, and you have the advantages of community.
So how do we accomplish this?
