If No One Reads Your Post
February 24, 2007 by Lonny.
Seth Godin breaks his pattern of deep analysis and asks a simple question: If no one reads your post, does it exist? He goes on.
What do most people get out of blogging? After all, most blogs are virtually unread by outsiders…
The act of writing a blog changes people, especially business people. The first thing it does is change posture. Once you realize that no has to read your blog, that you can’t make them read your blog, you approach writing with humility and view readers with gratitude.
I realized from the beginning that the likelihood of developing a small cadre of interested readers was extremely remote. I have friends who constantly question me about blogs and blogging because, well, I write blogs and have been doing it for years. Most people seem to focus on becoming the next Top 100 Blogger or making money.
But I look at as three simple things.
1. Extracting My Brain. By getting stuff out of my head and onto paper, er, a blog, I free up my brain for other things. This allows me the freedom to further develop those thoughts beyond my initial gut reactions. It also gives me an outlet to decompress, to let out a little stress now and then.
2. A Way for People to Know Me. If someone is interested in getting to know me, they read my blog. I don’t feel compelled to stand by every word I’ve written. It’s how I felt at the time. If that scares certain people, it says more about them than it does me (I think). I like open and transparent people better than those who are constantly trying to present their image in a certain way. I write because those who want to know me better will read it and decide to get closer – or stay away.
3. Writings for posterity. Someday my children will read my writings. There will probably be a lot for them to digest. It won’t all be pretty. But it will be real. How many young adults ever feel they truly know their fathers? This record of my thoughts, my ideas, my opinions, and hopefully my progressive growth, will be a help to them in their own journey I hope. Men used to keep journals more frequently. They also wrote letters more frequently. Some of my private thoughts are not in my blog, but the blog still does peel back layers of me – whether I intend it or not.
Those are the things that motivate me to write. I think about readers sometimes and what they might want to hear. But, for the most part, I write for my own selfish reasons above. If anything I write can ever help anyone in any way, I’m thrilled. But if no one reads it, I won’t alter anything to attract more readers.
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