Anonymous asked:

What can you recommend to someone who wants to increase their blog presence?

I guess the first thing would be: don’t worry so much about increasing your blog presence.

A better focus would be on knowing who you are and what you want to share with other people.

Because that’s what that whole “presence” thing is all about–letting stuff flow out (like ideas or inspiration or helpful tips or stories) instead of expecting everything to flow in (blog comments or likes or follows or nods or popularity).

Think of it like this: inside each of us is a bottle of something really good. For you it might be wine. For me it’s Cherry Coke. Whatever. It’s all the same.

A mistake a lot of people make is that they take this bottle of Cherry Coke (or whatever) and pour it in a bunch of other people’s bottles, expecting they will, in turn, pour back into their bottle. And when that doesn’t happen, when their bottle runs dry, they become resentful of the people they’ve shared with. They think, “I shared with you, and you didn’t share with me, and now I wish I hadn’t shared with you, because you suck.”

Don’t do that. 

Your blog shouldn’t be this thing you use to get people to pour into you. It should be this thing you use to pour into other people. 

“But,” you say, “if I pour all of my Cherry Coke into everyone else’s bottle and they never pour their Cherry Coke into mine, won’t my bottle go dry?”

Not necessarily. Because ideally the things you would be sharing are things you, yourself, need. That’s where the “knowing who you are” part comes in. 

In other words, when you share this thing, whatever it is, you’re filling yourself up, too.

So that’s my answer. 

TL;DR – It’s not about you, it’s about them (your readers).