Academic Blogs

[pinoysoc]

Does anyone have advice on starting, maintaining, and promoting an academic blog? I've been interested in it, but I'm scared to start one!

[Adelaide9216]

I am just commenting to see everybody's answers. What's the added value of maintaining an academic blog? 

[maxhgns]

On 12/11/2017 at 4:53 PM, Adelaide9216 said:

I am just commenting to see everybody's answers. What's the added value of maintaining an academic blog? 

It increases your professional visibility. The more recognizable your name is, the better--provided it's not recognized for really bad reasons! Name recognition gets you speaking engagements, collaborations, publication invitations, and helps to prevent your job application getting tossed out of hand. Blogging's not the only way to get name recognition, obviously, but it is one way of doing so. The academics in my field who blog regularly enjoy pretty inflated reputations and professional status (and I don't mean that as a criticism!).

 

On 12/11/2017 at 12:22 PM, pinoysoc said:

Does anyone have advice on starting, maintaining, and promoting an academic blog? I've been interested in it, but I'm scared to start one!

I don't blog, but I do regularly read a few academic blogs. I tend to favour blogs that deal with professional gossip and news, and commentary on current events, though. I find the ones that offer mini-papers kind of boring. I read lots of papers anyway; I don't need to see a new paper taking shape before my eyes.

From what I've seen, the former kinds of blogs attract a larger and broader audience; the latter attract mostly people already in the blogger's professional network (or their subfield). The latter seem to have readers who are far more dedicated to the blog, while the former draws a lot of irreverent and troll-y commentary. Most single-author blogs seem to peter out and die pretty quickly. The challenge is (1) to build an audience, and (2) to sustain it. And to do those things, you have to be pretty active (and patient!). The most important thing to do, I think, is to post regularly. It doesn't have to be frequent (although posts shouldn't be too distant in time, either!), but it should be at pretty predictable intervals. The blogs I visit most are those which have new content daily or weekly. Sporadic blogs get sporadic visits (from me), and sporadic visits make it much less likely that I'll participate in the comments.

Are there any group blogs in your field that you could join as a contributor? I think I'd try that first, mostly to get a feel for things without the pressure of having to generate lots of regular content. Plus, it'll help to build your audience a little.

Once you have your blog, I think the easiest way to build your audience is to be active on other blogs and social media platforms. Just make sure that your posts are connected (by hyperlink, I mean!) to your blog or the name under which you blog. Share your posts on FB and Twitter. Your goal is to get re-blogged, so that traffic is driven to your site.

[pinoysoc]

12 hours ago, maxhgns said:

It increases your professional visibility. The more recognizable your name is, the better--provided it's not recognized for really bad reasons! Name recognition gets you speaking engagements, collaborations, publication invitations, and helps to prevent your job application getting tossed out of hand. Blogging's not the only way to get name recognition, obviously, but it is one way of doing so. The academics in my field who blog regularly enjoy pretty inflated reputations and professional status (and I don't mean that as a criticism!).

 

I don't blog, but I do regularly read a few academic blogs. I tend to favour blogs that deal with professional gossip and news, and commentary on current events, though. I find the ones that offer mini-papers kind of boring. I read lots of papers anyway; I don't need to see a new paper taking shape before my eyes.

From what I've seen, the former kinds of blogs attract a larger and broader audience; the latter attract mostly people already in the blogger's professional network (or their subfield). The latter seem to have readers who are far more dedicated to the blog, while the former draws a lot of irreverent and troll-y commentary. Most single-author blogs seem to peter out and die pretty quickly. The challenge is (1) to build an audience, and (2) to sustain it. And to do those things, you have to be pretty active (and patient!). The most important thing to do, I think, is to post regularly. It doesn't have to be frequent (although posts shouldn't be too distant in time, either!), but it should be at pretty predictable intervals. The blogs I visit most are those which have new content daily or weekly. Sporadic blogs get sporadic visits (from me), and sporadic visits make it much less likely that I'll participate in the comments.

Are there any group blogs in your field that you could join as a contributor? I think I'd try that first, mostly to get a feel for things without the pressure of having to generate lots of regular content. Plus, it'll help to build your audience a little.

Once you have your blog, I think the easiest way to build your audience is to be active on other blogs and social media platforms. Just make sure that your posts are connected (by hyperlink, I mean!) to your blog or the name under which you blog. Share your posts on FB and Twitter. Your goal is to get re-blogged, so that traffic is driven to your site.

Thank you for the information! I do agree updating/constant activity is the hardest thing to do! Do you know anyone in your field that does this? Or maybe a great example?

[Jay.B]

I don't think starting, maintaining and promoting an academic blog varies from a normal blog. I would say try to have a social media presence because LinkedIn and Facebook have blogging groups, plus, Twitter and Instagram have hashtags which can help you find other bloggers. I would also add that creating useful content and search engine optimization can be essential. SEO is a long process and you can't expect to see results overnight. Part of SEO includes using keywords like for example, does your blog come up when people Google the blog's name etc. Maybe you should take a look at this to get a glimpse of free blog providers available https://www.1and1.co.uk/digitalguide/hosting/blogs/tips-for-successful-blogging-part-1-creating-a-blog/

Which academic field do you specifically want to blog about??