Here’s the transcript from tonight’s #Blogchat.

If you think about it, there’s a lot of seemingly contradictory advice being passed around about how to improve your blog.  On the one hand, one of the best arguments for blogging is that a blog allows you to share your expertise.  This is completely true and one of the best arguments in favor of blogging.

However, one of the problems that many bloggers of all stripes encounter is a lack of interaction and participation on their blog.  They create this place where they can share their expertise, and then no one wants to talk to them.

Often, there’s a reason why.  Because experts are scary people.  When you encounter an expert, the assumption is that they know more than you do.  And for many people it’s very intimidating to discuss a topic with someone that you believe knows far more about said topic than you do.

This is exactly why #Blogchat has a ‘No experts allowed’ rule.  Because when people are identified as the expert, what that really signals to everyone else is that you’re not the expert here.  And that shuts down communication.

So if you are the blogger, you need to walk a fine line of sharing your expertise without coming off as ‘The Expert’.  It’s a very tricky proposition, and even veteran bloggers struggle with this.  For example, I recently wrote a post that I was really excited about.  The topic was a bit more advanced and I envisioned it as creating a more high-level marketing discussion.

Instead, it got zero comments.  Because when you start a conversation at a more advanced level, you are setting the participation barrier at a high level for your readers.  For example, if you start a 301-level conversation about a topic, anyone that feels that they are below that level or ‘not as smart’ as the writer, likely won’t comment.

So if you are blogging to establish your expertise and also want to have engagement on your blog, you need to strike a balance between the two.  You need to share your expertise, but not in a way that discourages your readers from engaging with you.

That’s what we’ll discuss tonight at #Blogchat: How do you strike a balance between sharing your expertise and building engagement on your blog?  Please join us at 8pm Central tonight (3-2-2014) for the discussion.  Come on, who wants to watch the Oscars anyway?

Thanks to Hashtracking I was able to track the #Blogchat stats for 2013, and came up with some pretty interesting results that I wanted to share with you.

First, a caveat: Hashtracking switched me over from their account to an account just for me in February, so there’s a gap of 9 days where we didn’t have stats for #Blogchat.  So all stats associated with the chat are approximate.

Actually the number I currently have is right over 116,000, so if you add in the gap in February and the final 12 days of this year, we’ll end up with right at 125,000 #Blogchat tweets generated this year.  Yes, we are a chatty bunch!

Here’s how those tweets break down (Feb-now):

As you can see, 39% of the #Blogchat tweets are someone replying to someone else.  It’s a conversation, which is why #Blogchat has been so successful and what I love about the chat.  Smart people sharing what they know and learning from each other.

Amazing number, isn’t it?  That’s the size of many small towns!  It also speaks to the diversity of the #Blogchat community.

I think this is really interesting.  26% of the tweets come from the 20 most active contributors, and 48%, almost half, of the tweets come from the 100 most active contributors.  So half the tweets are coming from 0.5% of the members!   

Thanks to Patrick, Linda, Bruce, Georganna and Janice for being the 5 most active members of the #Blogchat community this year.  If you are new to #Blogchat, these guys are a must-follow!

Of course, one of the things that makes #Blogchat so valuable is all the amazing co-hosts we get to learn from.  2013 was certainly no exception…

 We were extremely lucky to learn from Kerry, Chris, Mitch, Jay, Carrie, Dave and Sheila this year.  As an added bonus, here’s the transcript from each co-host’s #Blogchat:

Kerry – Legal aspects of blogging

Chris – Incorporating video into your blogging

Jay – How to create Youtility in your blogging

Dave – Leveraging your blog as a networking tool

Sheila – Blogger outreach

Carrie – How a small biz can make money from blogging

Mitch – Lessons learned from a decade of blogging

Biggest #Blogchat of the year?  That came on the Sunday of March the 10th, when 3,038 tweets were generated!

Oh and who was the person with the most followers that used the #Blogchat hashtag in 2013?  That would be this guy:

Ok granted he only tweeted twice about #Blogchat and they were both RTs but hey, it’s MC Hammer!

And the biggie:

Isn’t that amazing?  And no, ‘Reach’ and ‘Impressions’ aren’t always the most accurate measurements around, but still, the number of people exposed to the #Blogchat hashtag this year cannot be denied. It’s a staggeringly large number.

Finally, thank you to everyone that has helped make #Blogchat the amazingly valuable and helpful community that it is.  Here’s to an even better 2014, which will be #Blogchat’s FIFTH year!

PS: Want to sponsor #Blogchat in 2014?  Here’s price and details.

 

Here’s the transcript to tonight’s #Blogchat (Click on Transcript on the left)

Tonight (November 17th, 2013) we’ll cover one of the most requested topics at #Blogchat, how to write and get Guest Posts!  #Blogchat is sponsored all month by Pencils.com, please follow them on Twitter and check out their blog!

Here’s what we’ll cover tonight at #Blogchat, starting at 8pm Central:

8:00PM-8:30PM Central – How to write Guest Posts for other bloggers.  We’ll talk about how to approach other bloggers about letting you guest post for them, and how to figure out what they want you to write about.  Writing guest posts for other bloggers is an excellent way to build awareness and exposure for yourself.

8:30PM-9:00PM – How to get bloggers to write Guest Posts for your blog.  On the flipside, if you can have other bloggers guest post on your blog, it’s a great way to get additional and valuable content on your blog, which benefits you by boosting your traffic and exposure!  Plus the blogger that wrote the guest post for you has a vested interest in promoting the post, which also promotes your blog!  Here’s a recent guest post that Kerry wrote for this blog.

 

So join us tonight starting at 8pm Central, or stop by a few minutes early to say hi!  You can follow the hashtag on Twitter here.

Here’s the transcript from tonight’s #Blogchat, click Transcript on the left.

Hey y’all!  Tonight (Nov. 11-2013) our #Blogchat topic is The Creative Process!  #Blogchat is sponsored this month by Pencils.com, please check out their selection of writing and drawing tools as well as their blog and please follow them on Twitter.

I think tonight’s topic will be incredibly useful and it will definitely be one where you’ll want to be favoriting a lot of tweets as we’ll all be sharing some of our favorite tips, tools and tricks on how we create our blog posts.  Here’s what we’ll cover:

8:00-8:30PM Central – The Creative Process.  Here we’ll talk about how we actually write our blog posts.  Where do we start, do we write the headline first, or last?  How do we flesh out our post ideas?

8:30-8:45PM Central – What digital tools do you use to help in writing blog posts?  Are there apps or sites that help you collect information or save ideas for posts?

8:45-9:00PM Central – What analog tools do you use to help in writing blog posts?  Do you take notes the old-fashioned way, with pen and pad?  If you write your posts out, do you prefer to use pens or pencils?

 

It should be a great discussion tonight so please join us starting at 8pm Central!