The magical world of blogging

I love blogging. It surprises myself, because I really hadn’t predicted that having a blog would be something I’d get hooked on – or even less did I expect all the things it would bring with it. Extensive networks, new opportunities, great connections and new horizons.
Especially the last couple of weeks have shown me the potential of what a blog can do. I have been contacted by people who through my blog have found me and have thought that my perspectives on science communication were worth a direct contact. Thus I have recently had a superinteresting discussion over the phone about online collaborative tools with the man behind www.irrationalscientist.com and communication expert at Sanofi-Pasteur; I have met a kindred spirit in science communication, herself a blogger, on the topic on www.signsofscience.org and with a passion to connect with people interested in science communication; and last I have been contacted by the University in Lund, Sweden, asking if I’d be able to do a lecture on science communication to a class of master students in Public Health. To this comes the people who comment on the blog, send me emails or tweet me.
Every contact has been superinteresting and every time I am amazed of what only one year of blogging can lead to. Its is truly amazing.
Recipe for success?
Maybe it is due to my recent very positive experiences that earlier this week I decided to walk out (and I really rarely do this) from a seminar titled ‘How you get success with your blog’, organized by the Danish Journalist Association. Okay, the key speaker was a beauty blogger, so not exactly the same blogging topic as mine, but nonetheless still a blogger, and the seminar was described to be focused on blogs more generally. So what provoked me so much that in end I decided to leave? Well, first of all I must say the blogger’s presentation style gave me red spots. I felt she had an ability to trash everyone that wasn’t her or didn’t do like she did – both on blogs or in the general media. Maybe it was her personality and presentation style that made me leave, but at the same time I must admit I disagreed with her on so many issues, issues she presented as the absolute truth about blogs.
The power of the right ones and oneself
My major point of disagreement was that I don’t believe the objective of a blog always is to get as many readers or page viewings as possible. Of course it is motivating to see that people are reading your scribbles, but I’d much rather prefer to have a few of the right readers rather than masses of people. The beauty blogger was however obsessed with number of page viewings and unique visitors. This is of course of great importance if you’re trying to sell ads (which she was) but the presenter generalized this to the extreme and made it seem like it was the ultimate goal of any blog to have thousands of readers, likes etc. She almost stated that if you couldn’t get high number of readers you might as well quit blogging.
I couldn’t disagree more. Yes, I too like to have readers, and I do get a kick out of those days when many have clicked their way through to my blog, but it is not the sole success criterium. To have contacts like the ones mentioned above is to me the real success. As well as all the things I learn as I am writing and sharing my thoughts and views with the world. The power of the blog is in my view not the number of people who read it but that they are the right ones and that you get so tremendously a lot out of writing it (regardless of it ever being read).
I look forward to my continued scribbling on this blog, on further developing the contacts I have made and explore new ones. The world of blogging really is magical!