Bloggers provide the best free learning tools around. We share what we know every day, offer tips for success and share cool stuff we feel you can use. In return you offer us your loyalty and conversation – and share with us and others in our blog’s communities.
As blogs grow, sometimes we (bloggers) find our sense of importance grows with them. While I believe we all experience a bit of ego now and then, thinking we’re the best thing to come along since the snooze button doesn’t exactly endear us to others. One thing I love about my writing blog’s community is how they bring me down to earth. If I start feeling self important or jumping on the lecture wagon, they reign me in with comments and emails.
Pontificating, negativity and daily rants are a good way to drive people away. Some of us don’t learn that until it’s too late.
Are you overestimating your importance? See how many of these look familiar:
- You believe it’s your job to give the rest of the world a reality check: When we’re passionate in our beliefs we often get annoyed when others don’t see what we feel is plain as day. It’s one thing to feel as if we’re right and everyone else is wrong, bur to bring it up on a regular basis gets tiring and old. It’s that old honey/fly thing. People aren’t into harsh.
- Most of the comments on your blog are from you: You pride yourself on your 100 comment blog posts and make sure everyone knows about your active community. But wait…what’s this? More than half the comments are from you. The rest are from your BFF. There may be two or three comments from your regular clique community, but really it’s all you.
- You spend more time criticizing or discrediting others than making an actual point: Are you one of those bloggers that always has to get a zinger in? If you can’t make a point without bringing someone else down, you might consider if you have a point at all. If everything you write is about someone else, it might be time to get new material.
- Everything is a personal affront: For goodness sakes, no one is talking about you. If you see yourself in something someone wrote, that’s one thing, but to take every offense to every single innocent comment as if it’s directed towards you is silly and paranoid. (And P.S. This song isn’t about you either.)
- You feel work should come to you: Your blog speaks for itself. Really, it’s perfection. It’s so perfect it should drive business your way. You don’t need to solicit clients or have promotions for business, that’s what the other people do. When you’re perfect the work comes to you.
- The rules don’t apply to you: Are you one of those bloggers who write whole blog posts about how folks need to stop Tweeting out their links more than once on Twitter, and then you Tweet links to your blog posts more than once on Twitter? Are you one of those bloggers who complain about name calling in the blogosphere, but then you call other people names? Are you one of those bloggers that has a complaint about everyone else, but can’t see that you’re doing the same thing? We can’t have it both ways with our blogs. If we’re telling people to stop doing something we do ourselves, it only makes us look like hypocrites.
- You tell private little jokes between you and a select few: You and your few blogging friends share some ever so fun private moments. Except you take them public, confusing your readers. You may not realize this but it makes others feel bad to not be one of the “select.” It’s best not to share a private joke unless everyone is allowed in on the fun. Otherwise your readers will pack up and go to a community that makes them feel as if they belong.
- Anyone who doesn’t get your point of view is naive or plain, flat out wrong: They must be idiots.
- You make it clear that you don’t need anyone: If people don’t like what you have to say or how you go about doing things they can move on. This is YOUR blog. They can start their own blog if they don’t like it.
- It’s a privilege to view your Tweets or read your blog: Membership only, baby!
Bonus: #11: You write posts like this. Guess we’re all guilty.
Can you think of some other ways bloggers overestimate their importance?
