Ever heard of the saying “Birds of the same feather flock together?”
It’s basically saying we always want to hang around people who are like-minded and share the same ideas as us, because we can resonate and connect well with one another.
But many bloggers don’t take advantage of this powerful social pheonomenon, and wonder why nodody hangs around their blog.
It won’t happen to you though, because here you are going to see why your ideas can be so powerful in attracting people to you and your blog.
First, let’s define what ideas are.
Ideas are like our individual personal philosophies - our own opinions, views and beliefs. Our life experiences and relationships have left memories and impressions in our mind, which shape our own respective world-views.
As the late Victor Schwab would put it, “our mind is a montage of hasty impressions, fuzzy generalities, bromidic wall-motto sentiments, self-justifications and sentimentalities.”
For example, my idea of branded goods is “Buying branded goods is sometimes a waste of money”. Now this is my own opinion or viewpoint.
And you have your own opinions and viewpoints. Maybe you believe, “Buying branded goods is always worth the money.” Then we disagree with each other, and you probably dislike me a little now. But if your opinion is the same as mind, then we appear to be “like-minded”, and you are pleased with me.
Here comes an important point
When we search for information, we all tend to get it from people whom we like to refer to as trusted experts.
But we all have a human tendency to trust people who we tend to like first. And we tend to like those who are like-minded as us, whose personal philosophies are aligned with ours, whose ideas or world-views coincide with ours.
Our trust is based on deep-seated feelings which comes from associating with people whose ideas we already resonate and connect well with.
Michael Masterson, the man behind the success of the $300million info-publishing empire, Agora Inc, says it this way –
“We want to understand how to get through life in a way that is meaningful to us. We all have our ideas of how the world should be - a world-view.
Whatever kind of information product we buy, we want that to co-incide somehow with our view of the world.
And if you find a person out there, that’s explaining to you how the world works and should work according to your view, you will stick with him forever.”
The same applies to blog readers. People visit blogs regularly because they trust the blogger’s advice and opinions. The reason they trust and like the blogger is because they can connect well with his/her ideas, opinions, views or beliefs. And the reason they can connect well is because?
They share the same ideas, opinions, views or beliefs!
Let’s look at an example to better illustrate it. I’m a reader of John Chow’s blog and follow John on twitter. He also has 49,000 RSS subscribers who are probably regular readers like me.
John has a belief that everyone should blog about something they are passionate about. So why do you think 49,000 of us read John’s blog regularly? Because, in the first place, we and him are like-minded and share the same ideas!
All of us regular readers have already shared the same belief, or we have been influenced and are now convinced by John’s idea that “everyone should blog about something they are passionate about”. That’s why we feel connected to him, trust him and become his regular readers.
On the other hand, people who think that his idea is nonsense will not return to his blog again. Or maybe they will return to flame him. But I digress.
Now here’s something interesting about us humans…
If you were to ask people why they visit so-and-so’s blog, they will probably say it in more logical terms, “Oh because the blog has great information”. They will never say “Oh because I feel connected with the blogger and his/her ideas”. Never!
But as all experienced marketers would know, we humans are irrational and emotional beings. We may not realize it, but we visit blogs based on reasons that are more subjective than we think - whether we agree to the blogger’s ideas, opinions, views and beliefs. So, armed with this information, here are some things you can start doing immediately:
1. Share your ideas!
Shoot your opinions. Give your views. State your beliefs. Whenever you give information, include your ideas about your topic. Give opinions like “SEO blogging is useless, you are better off concentrating on delivering value”. Then back it up with some of your own or other people’s experiences. These strongly-opinionated posts can become your pillar articles (as termed by Yaro Starak).
You can also do it like what Darren Rowse at problogger suggests - write a link post by sharing your ideas and opinions about what other bloggers have posted.
2. Tell little stories about yourself
If you observe the way top bloggers write, you notice they always share little tidbits or stories about themselves and their ideas. I suggest you do the same - whenever you want to write an article, consider giving a little story about an experience you had, and the opinions and views you got from it.
People love to read stories, and there’s only one you in this world, so don’t deprive them of yours!
3. Don’t apologize when people disagree with you
A few people will disagree with you and dislike you in the process. In fact, if you start to have negative comments, do what John Chow says – celebrate! Because this means you are doing it right.
It’s no big deal to have negative comments. It’s just that their ideas are different from yours. As long as you are respectful of their opinions and you stay away from sensitive topics like religion and politics, you’ll be fine.
The worst thing to do is to be double-minded and not make a stand for what you believe. Consistency is critical to building trust with your readers, but if you always waver with your opinions, they can’t trust you.
There will be a bunch of people who share similar views as you. These are the people who will feel connected to you and stick with you, and these are the ones you want to focus your attention on.
All these may sound simple and even trivial, but don’t underestimate the underlying psychological force at work in your readers’ minds.
So, what are your ideas on this?
Charles Yang writes for Big Idea Blogger on the lesser known but critical factors behind successful blogging. He currently does internet-marketing for an offline business.
Find out what I’m doing right now by following me on Twitter.
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译文:
宝贵的自我观念
你可曾听过这句谚语“人以类聚，物以群分”？
这句话主要是说我们喜欢与志趣相同的人呆在一起，因为这样彼此容易产生共鸣并且能友好共处。
但是，许多博客论坛者没有利用这一有力的社会现象，并想知道为什么没人光顾他们的博客。
虽然，这并不会发生在你身上。因为你明白为什么你以及你的博客对别人有如此大的吸引力。
首先，让我们先弄清楚什么叫做“观念”。
观念就好比我们的个人哲学------我们的见解、观点以及信念。我们的生活经历和人际关系已在我们的意识深处留下印象，这就造就了我们各自的世界观。
正如维特.施瓦布所陈述的那样：“我们的意识是蒙太奇匆忙的印象、模糊的概论、普通墙上的格言、自我辩解以及多愁善感。”
例如，我对名牌产品的看法是：“买名牌产品简直是浪费钱。” 这只是我个人的看法。
当然，你有你自己的观点和看法，也许你觉得：“买名牌产品是物有所值。” 然后我们各执己见，不相上下。之后你可能不太喜欢我了。但如果我们的看法一致，那么我们似乎志趣相投，然后你就喜欢我了。
有一点很重要
当我们搜寻信息时，我们倾向于向我们信任的专家咨询。
但是，人类的天性是，我们倾向于相信我们喜欢的人，而且我们倾向于喜欢那些和我们志趣相投的人，因为他们的价值观、世界观与我们的达成一致。
我们的信任是建立在一种根深蒂固的感情的基础上的，这种感情源于我们于同我们情投意和的人的交往之中。
迈克尔.迈特生，胜利的掌控信息发送企业的人，成功地拥有30亿资产。他是这么说的--
“我们想知道如何能以一种有意义的方式来度过一生。我们有自己对整个世界的看法——世界观。”
不论我们选择那种信息产品，我们都希望它至少在某些方面与我们的世界观吻合。
如果你发现有一个人在那，告诉你这个世界如何运作，甚至应按照你的观念来运作，那么你一定永远认可他。
这对博客的读者来说也是一样的。人们经常浏览某位博主的博客，是因为他们相信那个人的意见和观点。他们信任并且喜欢那位博主是因为他们的观点刚好与其相符。他们之所以志趣相投是因为？
他们拥有相同的想法、观点、见解或者信念！
为了更好的阐释这一点，让我们在分析别的例子。我是约翰博客的忠实读者，并且追随他的《鸟鸣》。同时，他同样也拥有49000名订阅者，这些读者很可能和我一样喜欢他。
约翰认为, 每个人都应在自己的博客上写他们感兴趣的事情。为什么约翰拥有49000多名忠实读者呢？那是因为我们和他见解略同，志趣相投。
所有的忠实读者都持这样的信念，又或者我们都受约翰观点的影响：“每个人都应在博客上写他们感兴趣的东西。” 甚至被他的这一观点所折服。这就是为什么我们支持他、信任他、成为他忠实读者的原因。
另一方面，如果有人认为他的观点毫无意义，那么他们就不会再访问他的博客了。有或者他们会返回去热烈拥护他，但我离题了。
现在，这儿有一些关于我们人类的有趣的东西......
如果你问及别人访问某一不知名的博主的博客的原因，他们也许会用更多的逻辑术语回答：“哦，因为这个博客上有大量信息。”他们绝对不会说：“因为我觉得和他很投缘。”绝对不会！
但是，正如许多有经验的经销商所了解的那样，我们人类是感性的、富有情感的动物。也许我们没有意识到，我们的确是基于主观因素去访问别人的博客的，即我们是否同意博客主人的看法、见解、观点和信念。因此，基于这一点，你应该立即着手做一些事情：
1. 分享你的观点
说出自己的观点，表达自己的看法，陈述自己的信念每当你传递信息的时候，包括传递你对某一话题的见解，你都应该表达自己的观点，像“SEO博客毫无用处，你更能传播有价值的东西”。然后用自身的经历或者别人的经历来支撑你的这一观点。这些带有强烈的固执己见的色彩的文章可以成为你的经典之作。
你也可以像达伦.罗斯所建议的那样：就别人在博客上发表的文章来表达你的想法和意见。
2.讲述有关自己的小故事
如果你注意观察有名博主在博客上所发表的东西，你就会发现这样一个规律：他们总是乐于分享自己的小趣闻或者是有关自我或自身想法的故事。我建议你向他们一样——每当你要发表文章的时候，你不妨考虑讲述关于你所经历的小故事，有或者考虑写一些你就此而产生的想法和观点。
人们很喜欢看故事。因为你是世界上独一无二的，所以你不应该剥夺人们了解你的权利。
3.当别人不同意你的观点时，没必要道歉
.
在此过程中，有部分人会不同意你的观点甚至不喜欢你。事实上，如果你在一开始就得到别人的消极评论，那么你就按照约翰.乔所说的那样去做吧——庆祝！因为这意味着你所做的是正确的。
别人给予你负面的评论并不是什么大事，这只不过表明他们的看法与你的不同罢了。只要你尊重他们的观点，远离像宗教、政治等一系列敏感的话题，你就会不会烦恼。
对你来说，最糟糕的情形要数你的反复无常、信念不坚。立场坚定是建立读者对你的信任的一个至关重要的因素。但如果你总是摇摆不定，立场不坚，那么你就会丧失读者对你的信任。
总会有一些人的看法与你相同，他们感觉和你很投缘，而你也很想关注他们。
也许这些听起来简单而又无关紧要，但不要低估这些作用于读者思想的潜在的心理力量。
那么，你对此有何看法？
查尔斯 杨为闪光电子之博客写文章，这一博客虽然鲜为人知，但却有许多隐形的成功因素。他现在正为离线企业做网上营销。
到与我共同鸟鸣上看看我现在在干什么。
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