Does anyone read the BiggerPockets Member Blogs?

Question

Im new to BP and posted my first blog entry at http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs
I was expecting some insightful comments and criticisms. Did not get any.  I noticed none of the other blogs dating back weeks appear to have any interest either. So at least I'm not alone ;)

Is this a section of BP that no one looks at? What is the section of the site people use most?

Seth Williams · Answer

Huggy Baird, try putting a link to your blog in your signature and profile.

...but even more important than that, I've found it also helps if you get involved in this forum on a regular and ongoing basis. Help people whenever you can. Offer valuable feedback. Ask questions that help others. Motivate other people to take action. The more you can connect with other investors on a meaningful level, the more likely they are to show an interest in you as well.

James Vermillion · Answer

I posted on the member blogs 9 times prior to becoming a contributor on the BiggerPockets blog.  Of those 9 posts 4 of them had over 1000 views and several of them had over 500 views.  In addition, I received a wide range of number of comments (you just never know what is going to resonate with readers).

Also, it does take some time to build an audience, you cannot just post once and expect everyone to be interested in what you have to say.  Posting on the forums and being active in this community will help build that interest.

Joshua Dorkin · Answer

The forum gets far more traffic than the blog section of the site, Huggy, but your comparing apples to oranges, IMO -- they are two different kinds of mediums, IMO.

BTW - You can track views of any forum post by going to the category it is posted in and looking at the view count.

That said, we ask that you not post the same thing in both the blogs and forums for the sake of not confusing people and splitting them...

Joel Owens · Answer

When building a business or investing there are many, many different ways to communicate and grow your business.

Everyone has a different communication style and something you enjoy.

Some might like posting blogs and love to write. Some might love the forums and connections and posting on topics on the fly. Others might enjoy doing videos or podcasts of themselves discussing various topics.

Some might be into the social networking scene growing their followers and be great at it posting little blurbs everyday. The point is that done correctly ALL the mediums work and have success if you do them consistently and it is something you enjoy.

Blogs for me I have not gotten around to it. I have excellent knowledge but putting it in a writers style that some do is not my thing as much and doesn't come as natural for me then being on the forums does. I really enjoy the forums and the interactions that come with it on a daily basis.

So in short do not push a form of communication you are not comfortable with or like because you will not stick to it and will have sporadic results. People can tell when you are passionate about something and when you are just posting info to try to drum up some business for an activity or profession that you have limited interest in.

Some nights I am so excited to get up the next day to see who is going to post something or talk about commercial real estate. I am that passionate and enjoy it that much that I do not even have to communicate that I am that way it just comes across naturally.

So for those trying to chose a medium of marketing or communication to put into action write down all the ways you could connect with an audience or peers. Then write down the positives  and negatives of each and how much you enjoy each one. By doing this exercise you might gain insight into what form of communication you need to employ on a day to day basis that will bring you success ,happiness, and a ton of connections.

Joshua Dorkin · Answer

Huggy Baird - Any well written post on a blog on our member blog system will be highlighted on the front page of the system.  Posts there get hundreds of views each, with the most popular doing even better.  In fact across the entire user blog system, the average time on page is 2:42 -- in other words, people are absolutely reading these posts.

As for the interaction, that's something that doesn't magically happen.  I think the one thing that most new bloggers assume is that they will automatically get comments because they wrote something good.  It takes work.  You need to be active and engage on other blogs (either here or elsewhere) and build rapport.

Once people begin to know you, they will jump in and start commenting.

I hope that helps.

Huggy Baird · Answer

Thanks for the tip on how to see forum viewership.  And I'll refrain from the confusing re-post of the same content.

Using your tip, This (different subject) thread had 232 views in 1.5 days versus the blog receiving 63 in 2 days.  So a rough rule of thumb would be for every view on the blog we'd expect 4.9 views on the forums... but this number would have a high variance depending on factors like topic, followers, etc.  This satisfies my curiosity.

Huggy Baird · Answer

Yeah, I am suggesting posting a thread topic with the same content as the blog I posted here: http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/3600/blog_posts/25694-quick-tip-profiting-from-seasonality
I'll remove the graph and the table and simplify everything for a forum topic.   It would just be a social experiment. The same person who no one has ever heard of... posting the same basic analysis in both the forum and the blog and tracking total number of page views for a two day period.  The only challenge is we can't see the page views ourselves for forum topics.  W'd have to ask Joshua if he'd have any interest in this social experiment and posting the page views for us here on this thread

I'd imagine the same experiment for for someone who is well knows would have drastically different viewership numbers.

And obviously the blog is a different medium with richer content delivery of graphs and tables.  It's by no means intended to "beat up" on the blog area of bp.  It's more just a social experiment of viewership

Will Barnard · Answer

Blogs are certainly read and commented on. Those who have made a name for themselves on this site and who have more colleagues/followers are obviously going to get more exposure and traffic. That said, to answer your question, if you want to give and get back with the most activity, I would suggest posting a thread topic. This of course is not to say to stop blogging, just a thought.

Huggy Baird · Answer

Thanks everyone for the replies but most are targeted towards social networking.  I'm a introvert who is not even on the facebook or the twitter. My goal is not meeting people or having followers.  My main goal was honestly giving back to the BP community some analysis and profit maximizing advise I had not seen quantified before.  My secondary goal was to see if anyone had feedback I had not considered.

I did not mean to imply it is a ghost town.  I bet every section of BP gets tremendous traffic as a credit to value your site provides to us.   Your alexa and compete.com rankings speak for themselves.

Rather, my guess is for every 1 page view on the member blogs user's would expect 20 page views on the forums.  The blog I posted had 63 views after two days.  Which, is honestly good traffic and not to be slighted.  But,  out of curiosity, I was thinking about removing the graphs and table but posting a simplified summary of my research in the forum to see how much traffic it receives.  But, I dont think we can see views on the forum.

Joshua, would you have any objection to this?  could/would you post the view count here at day 2? This almost sounds like i'm up to something fishy, but really i'm just fascinated by how things work and numbers

Glenn Espinosa · Answer

Is it bad form to post your member blog post in the forums?

Does anyone read the BiggerPockets Member Blogs?

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