I finally got to visit all of the participants for Week 1 of the Blog Improvement Project, and I have to say that I was totally inspired by all of the great goals. There were 42 bloggers who participated, and after going through them I came across a number of similar goals:
- Leave more comments. This one came up a lot, along with goals about getting more comments. I’m not sure what sort of BIP project can make people leave more comments except to make one of the activities a two-week project to leave comments, but I have some ideas about projects for getting comments.
- Improve blog layout, design, and use of the sidebar. This came up almost everywhere, which was interesting to me. I think a lot of blogs looked great, but their authors still weren’t happy with the way they looked.
- Learn more about social media. I’m toying with the idea of doing a “Social Media Carnival” where I ask bloggers to write a post about a social media tool they are familiar with (StumbleUpon, Technorati, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and then linking all of those together for BIP people to refer to. Thoughts?
- Write better book reviews. Still not sure how to do this one, since it’s hard to say what a “good” review is versus a “bad” review, but we’ll see. I suspect the best way to figure out what a good review is would be to read a lot of reviews, and then take the pieces you like and try to incorporate them… sounds like a project idea to me!
Anyway, those are the four most common goals I ran across while leaving comments and reading posts. As a wrap up, I think this turned more into me rambling about how I’m not totally sure how the BIP is going to go, but that I’m excited for the project and hope it will end up being helpful for everyone 🙂
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I love the idea of a Social Media Carnival – that way I’d only have to research one, but could still learn about the others.
Good summary of all the goals. I also checked out most of the 41 blogs and was very impressed with the goal effort. I’m glad I’m participating in this project and look forward to watching the progress on each blog.
Can I make a suggestion? It would help me if all the Blog Improvement stuff was all together in one place. I bookmarked the page with all the dates and kept coming back for more information and it wasn’t there. Then I figured it was inside your blog and had to search to find it. I can see it may be a problem as the weeks go on. I don’t have an answer so I guess this was more a request than a suggestion. But I’m sure I’m not the only one who was searching.
I like the idea of a Social Media Carnival, too.
I think the social media carnival would be a good idea too. I don’t use a lot, mostly because when I look at the website for them, I’m not sure why I need them or what purpose they would serve for me. So..something like this would be great for me.
I’d like to learn more about Social Media, too. I have a facebook page and a twitter (which I use rather sporadically), so it would be nice to hear about what those other things can do. As far as writing “better” reviews, well, I’d settle for just getting my reviews written at a reasonable time. And leaving more comments is a good one; I need to visit more new blogs, especially of the people who come visit me. BIP is going to be a fun activity for the year! 🙂
Margot: I’m going to keep linking all the BIP posts to the main page you have bookmarked. I don’t plan on posting much other than the main projects (on the dates listed) and wrap up posts if they seem important. So, there probably won’t be anything between the Monday posts to look at, but if there is I will make sure to link it back to that main page. I’m not sure if there is a better way to do it than that, but I’ll keep trying to think if it becomes a problem.
Everyone else: I’m glad the idea of a Social Media Carnival sounds good!
Kim, I forgot to link via the MR. Linky, but I did write something up last week too….just FYI
http://reviews.rebeccareid.com/blogging-goals-reading-journal-15-january-and-a-winner/
I’ve noticed an improvement in the quality of comments, both on my blog and on other people’s, thanks to the participants of this project. Thank you to everyone who is making an effort to make more useful comments – it is improving the blogging community for everyone!!
I think a social media thing would be good, too! Right now I mostly just use Twitter, but I’ve been experimenting with StumbleUpon and Technorati as well. I’d be interested in learning about others that would help my blog (and, er, what use Technorati is. I’m not entirely sure I see the point to it, especially compared to Twitter and Delicious and so on).
I’ve got to say… that was a very inspiring post. I liked the fact that you took the time to read the entries – that’s some dedication. The project with social media sounds like a great idea to get us more involved with each other. Thanks for the wrap-up.
Jackie: Me too, I’ve gotten a lot of nice comments from new readers over the last few weeks!
Anastasia: For the life of me, I cannot figure out what the point of Twitter is, so once I get the social media thing organized I hope someone can tell me 🙂
D Dubs: Thank you!
Thanks for visiting my blog Kim. I am really looking forward to the rest of the project and it sounds like you have lots of interesting tasks ahead!
I really like the idea of a social media carnival. I belong to Stumble Upon, Technorati, and Facebook, as well as several blog rating sites that aren’t social. I don’t understand what AllTop is at all, or the point of All Mediocre, although I’m on their list!
For those who want to work on the visual design of their blog, I found a site that has other bloggers critique your blog. I’ve got to find it again, but we could set up something among ourselves to do that, as well.
So glad I joined this project. From zero visitors to 8 public + a handful of anonymous ones in two weeks, that is not bad, is it?
I really think my new blog is doing well, and I am quite proud that I did come up with a weekly feature which also gives me an opportunity to add some of my own photos.
Please excuse my late reply, I’m way behind, haven’t even started my BIP 2 yet.
I think the social media carnival is a GREAT idea. I use a few of the ones you mentioned but don’t know them well enough to write about them. I could really use help with them though.
Your other ideas are great too. Keep up the good work and thanks.