They’ll follow the passion

Aileen Journey is a forty-something year old, foster to adoptive mom who teaches writing at an online college. She blogs at Problem Solver Blog and writes a regular column at Slow Leadership Blog. Previously she worked as a teacher of Deaf and Hard of Hearing high school students, a systems analyst (fixed computers), was the founder/manager of a sex toy store, a sign language interpreter, and a staff person in group homes. All of this was so unrelated that the only thing left to do was to write about all of it.

I just finished reading Seth Godin’s Tribes.  The book describes how people are interested in being part of a group, especially part of a group that’s going somewhere, working towards a higher goal.  In the past, creating a following was a relatively expensive endeavor.  You needed to publish books or do public speeches.  Now, though, blogging is one of the primary ways to develop a tribe.

Leading a tribe requires having an idea, a substantial idea that people can connect with and want to get involved in communicating about and advancing. Maybe you want to talk about a particular type of alternative energy or about changing the ways schools work or just providing good, clear information on marketing blogs.  Whatever it is, if it inspires a strong response in readers, Seth Godin calls them, a “tribe”.  Blogging’s natural existence as a live, ever-developing format for writing about ideas and interacting with the people who also feel strongly about them, make it the ideal tribe-building tool.

When you’re considering your goals in life, is one of them to disseminate an idea?  Do you want to get information into the world?  Do you want to change how something is done by providing information or even rhetoric?  Blogging is the ideal way because the posts are bite-sized.  Posts can be read so quickly and easily and therefore the information digested simply and regularly that there is ample time to flesh out your assertions.  The ideas can be developed over time with depth, detail and specifics in each individual post.  Different facets of the idea can be discussed while encouraging feedback so that the idea may even evolve and morph into something quite different, but perhaps more stable or doable.

If disseminating an idea or information is your goal then working to lead a tribe through blogging is a great idea.  The side benefit is that a tribe that catches on is well-suited for becoming strong and influential.  An idea that many people feel they can sign onto leads to people linking to it and mentioning it in other venues.  Developing a strong and loyal following also builds a good foundation of links and, if it gets really popular, “buzz”.

It’s hard to force a tribe to take off.  The leader/writer of the blog needs to be passionate and dedicated.  The people who find the blog need to be inspired.  Of course not every visitor will feel inspired to act or to talk about the blog, but if enough do, the tribe can take on a momentum of its own.

Blogging about something that you’re interested in exploring will work better for the long run since blogging is exhilarating at the beginning and then it becomes just work later.  There needs to be something that drives you to keep going.  Blogging is a long-term business and for people to link to you they have to see something that interests them at a deeper level.  People start becoming attracted to your ideas and want to link to you because it enhances their reputation as someone who can find quality information.

Consider your passionate idea as the flame that draws followers and admirers.  When you have that flame to carry, your job in publicizing your blog becomes more about showing people your interest and ideas and giving them the opportunity to join in something bigger than themselves.  Plant your idea wherever you can, on forums and comments and guest posts and see who is intrigued enough to follow.