No, I’m not talking about a blog for “mature audiences.” I’m struggling with the question of how to know when your blog is mature. I’d like for you to struggle with me for a minute.
Please understand that by maturity I don’t mean the ultimate goal, after which there is nothing left to accomplish. I just mean, mature in the sense that “a teenager becomes an adult with a lot more life to live” kind of maturity.
Most measure the maturity of their blog by subscriber count, earnings in a month, traffic data, or post or comment count. I’m not sure any of those in isolation tell the whole story of a blog’s history, and I don’t know exactly what combination of them works either. I like the way Mack Collier put it – don’t allow numbers to determine “success”. What I do know is that for me, it all boils down to one word – influence.
It may be a different word for you – maybe connection or community. But for me, especially on my personal and pastoral blog, it’s all about the number of people I’m influencing, which is usually told in some combination of the factors mentioned above.
Perhaps we could agree on this – maturity and success are both words that signify a moving target. This is a good thing. It keep stretching us, challenging us, and requiring us to think, work, engage, interact, and feed ourselves.
What do you think? When is a blog mature? Is it even possible to know? And why does it matter?
About Brandon Cox
i enjoy your article. great job. keep it simple
I think the blog becomes “mature” when it reaches the point where the community is highly driven by each of the articles.
Where each post brings comments that are well thought out and provoking.
I think there is a “critical mass” to the design where the community is contempt and will even complain about the redesign – passion for something they have become apart of.
A blog would also be “mature” when the content becomes completely dictated by the community. Contributions by the community. Where everyone feels like the blog has really become a hub of the net.
.-= Murlu´s last blog ..A Simple, Real World Example To Understand Beatmatching =-.
Wow, awesome definition, and a lofty goal. I love the thing about the community getting upset about changes. We see that as a negative, but you really put a positive spin on it – deep!
I think a mature blog is that have very good writing style and know what audience want actually. Like John Cow, Darren are some blogger that they write by taking account of their audience, while they also continue their blog marketing strategy.
.-= chandan´s last blog ..How to build link by linkbaiting strategy =-.
Twitter: b6s
says:
As long as your blog doesn’t get “too old” ;)
To me, it’s mainly a question of time and number of posts. Where to draw the line and call it “mature” is not clear, but obviously a blog that was published a week ago and only has 2 posts is not mature.
.-= Anne @ b6s.net´s last blog ..How Will the Movie Avatar Effect the Internet =-.
Good thought Anne. Longevity definitely enters into the picture!
I am not sure about your blog’s maturity level, but I am not maturing and like it that way! :-)
Seriously, I think many factors come into play, but I don’t think earnings is one of them. Subscribers, traffic, comments, age, etc.. are the factors I would look I guess.
.-= Keith@NeedInformation´s last blog ..Sunday Funny’s 12-27-09 =-.
Keith, good thought – maturity is a moving target. As soon as we think we’re there, we realize how far we have to go.
I think a blog becomes mature when its writing becomes so. Take my niche for an example: There are plenty of blogger who write their ‘wow, this was awesome’ or ‘lolwut’ after each goddamn’ aired episode of the series they follow. No especial originality, nothing interesting to read. And then there are bloggers who write essays on topics brought up by the above mentioned series or episodes, interesting, argumented, in short, not a waste of time to read.
Excellent point, and I’m a stickler for good writing in blogging. I’m okay with authentic and vernacular, but turned away by poor quality writing on blogs.
Great question. I honestly believe that a blogger will feeel different levels of maturity through the blogging process and through natural growth, or heck even practice.
I think as the blogger matures in writing style, creativity and building a community the blog will follow by showing signs of maturing through the process.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..Do Follow WordPress Plugin vs Lucias Linky Luv Plugin =-.
John, that’s a good point, and I should probably focus more on the maturity of the blogger, and not just the blog.
Brandon, at the very best, I think the term “mature” is about as subjective as it can be. Why? Blogs mean different things to different people. Some will call a blog mature by the content it covers. Others might call it mature based on its longevity.
Also, I just don’t know that you can truly know how many people you are reaching and influencing with your blog. We all know not everyone posts comments. In fact, the majority never do. You may have the casual reader that stumbles across a blog, reads it, yet you never know which way that person was influenced by it. Sure, plug-ins and such are there to measure your traffic, but the one thing that plug-in can’t do is tell you what that person thought. That person might have hit your blog by accident, as well.
Kind of like preaching. Only eternity will tell the true results. At best, it’s all subjective, and to those who write, keep writing on your subject. It’s mature in its own way, it’s simply not possible to accurately measure blot maturity, IMHO. That’s my .02 cents worth…
That’s a pretty good perspective, Tom. I would estimate that only 1% of my readers ever comment, just based on # of comments versus # of pageviews in a day. It’s a pretty good point you make!