The Value Of A Blog

So I have finally succumbed to the idea of setting up my blog in a little more personalised state.

So if you head over to http://jamespoulter.co.uk you will find “Sunday Latte Lamentations” in a somewhat under construction phase.

I am setting up on WordPress (hosted by lovely fellow @leesmallwood – a thoroughly decent chap) . Which obviously means a overhall of themes and widgets, but also a re-evaluation of why I blog, what I blog and how I blog.

After a lovely morning spent down in Kent @ Huggies HQ (Client: Kimberley Clarke) meeting some of the UK’s finest Mum bloggers (@glowstars @YoungMummyUk @Kellyfairy to be precise) really made me think.

I started out blogging as a way of documenting my thoughts and poetry that I began writing in a more serious fashion about 3 years ago (hence the title of this blog – spurred by a poem I wrote by the same name). It really was just the thoughts, ideas and melody that roll out of the life rhythm that is being a Londoner. However over time that changed and moulded into what my blog is today, an amalgamation of social communication-marketing-culture thing, with a quasi-Christian slant on the world. Which interestingly is never what I set out to be about, it just kind of happened that way.

After chatting to the Mums this morning it appear that my experience is not to dissimilar to a lot of bloggers out there, we all start with a passion, a realisation that others might give 2pence about our thoughts, and a desire for a connection with those who share that passion, but over time things get in the way that dilute that (SEO, Google Analytics, #tags).

By no means am I saying that this dilution is a bad thing, I think is just inevitable, however I do wonder what it is that keeps people like you coming back to read these musings.

So that leads me back (kind of) to where I began, as I re-evaluate the way I blog I would love to know why it is you read what I write. What topics interest you, what would you like more of or less of? Or do you honestly just end up clicking inanely on whatever tweetdeck serves you up? (I know I am guilty of that).

I am not out just to please the crowd, but if writing, blogging, journeying, or whatever you call it is truly about passions, and a desire for connection, then it’s always nice to know what you connect with, what you are passionate about, what makes you tick.

So please – let me know.

TweetManager – Filter or MegaPhone?

For more thoughts on TweetManager – see http://www.litmanlive.co.uk – http://bit.ly/VjSM

TweetManager - A help or hinderance?

It seems to me that if someone is only using tweetmanager to auto-follow other tweeters, then they really have missed the point. Twitter is not about just building up followers for the sake of numbers, or assumed popularity. It, like all other social platforms, is about engagement. Active, personal engagement, from one user to another, or many others.

Yes, TweetManager has some useful functionality, Feed being an obvious one, but do we really want people following us for the sake of it? I don’t think so. Twitter in recent weeks, thanks to the likes of @wossy and other celebritwitters is heading main stream, and as many of us early adopters feared, heading in the direction of advertising, propaganda and “noise”.

This is inevitable, any good idea will always be plagued by it’s own success, so lets not get bogged down in it. Well done to all at TweetManager for creating a very useful tool, DualManage, Feed, and to an extent Auto-Reply are helpful additions. However maybe seeing an additional tweet tag #TM (tweet manager) would be helpful for those of us who only want geniuinely interested followers, filter out this “noise” that everyone else seems so worried about.

Got to go now @wossy is at it again…