It’s 10:30 pm and I’m almost done with my work for the night. Should I go to bed early or scroll through some of my favorite blogs? It’s a dilemma I often face and unfortunately for my sleep schedule, I almost always go for catching up on blogs. I’ve been keen on blogging since high school. After some persuasion from friends I created a Tumblr account and fell in love with documenting my life and interests. Still today, Tumblr and its myriad of blogs and quality of photography fascinates me. Through my experience with Tumblr, I learned what I value most in a blog. There are many factors to be considered, from writing style to use of graphics. No two blogs are exactly alike and it’s important to consider what can prove a blog successful.
I cozy into bed and type in a url and hit enter. As the website loads, right off the bat graphics and layout are what determine how long I will stay on a site. As discussed in Writing for Digital Media, websites have to catch a reader’s attention in a max of three seconds. Internet users have short attention spans. We want information and entertainment and we want it now. For my personal blog, I would spend hours combing through themes on Tumblr trying to find the perfect fit. I draw most of my inspiration from the blogs Humans of New York and Fashion Toast. Humans of New York is a photojournalist blog that shares the stories of average New Yorkers. Fashion Toast is the personal blog of a prominent fashion mogul. Both of these blogs have not only captured my attention because of their vibrant content but they also use cohesive layouts. Their information is displayed in a clear yet also visually appealing way. They employ great techniques of user-friendly ingenuity that will keep me a reader for many years to come.
Another unique feature of a blog that makes them so popular today is their ability to be different. A blog is something that you want to read for fun. It is rare (but awesome) that you would get assigned to read a blog in an academic setting. This gives blogs and bloggers the ability to be creative and develop a distinct style and voice to draw in readers. I had never seen “The Bloggess” until we read it in class. I think this blog is a perfect example of honing a distinct style. The Bloggess is fun to read, easy to maneuver and has a unique, sassy and award winning style. Along with voice, content is vital to a blogs success. It’s the meat and potatoes and what keeps people coming back. Nowadays you can find a blog on pretty much any topic in the world. (A whole blog dedicated to gravestones, who knew?) As a blogger the world is your multimodal oyster. Because you have so much freedom, it’s important to keep a few things in mind in related to content. First, shorter is always sweeter. Long, droning paragraphs can really weigh a blog down. Second, update at a regular frequency. Readers want to know when to expect and have new content to discover. On my own blog, I use the queue feature to ensure my posts are on a schedule. And lastly, blogs are a personal expression of your interests and a place for you to explore your self as a documenter.
Be passionate. Be creative. Be a reader. Be a writer. Be a blogger.