Managing a leftwing blog

[leninwasarightwingnutcase]

I recently started a leftwing blog

http://leninwasarightwingnutcase.blogspot.com

I'm not at all experienced with blogging, and looking for advice. How to attract readership, how to advertise/distribute, leftwing blog networks, general advice etc. General discussion of blogging as a form of activism appreciated.

Cheers in advance.

[534634634265]

heyo.
i and some others are also operating a blog of political nature.
care to exchange links?

www.solidaritycharlotte.wordpress.com

[leninwasarightwingnutcase]

care to exchange links?Sure, done.

Any general advice for me? There must be leftwing blog networks for mutual aid purposes etc.

Cheers

[mikelepore]

I don't know much about blogging, but my advice is to plan for a good Google page rank. Choose carefully what words or phrases you want most to be indexed by, and then use those phrases in the title header, in an H1 header, and in complete sentences within the first few hundred bytes on each page.

[MarxSchmarx]

Any general advice for me? There must be leftwing blog networks for mutual aid purposes etc.


Yeah, update it regularly, many short posts frequently are more interesting to your readers than a massive post once every couple of days. The reason is in the latter case ppl will forget about it and move on.

Also strive to be timely in what you cover (like a recent march, organizing drive, etc...), or have something easily relatable (like the capitalist douche you came across the other day or some such) on a regular basis.

[narcomprom]

Alice in Wonderland wouldn't read books without pictures and witty dialogs. The modern public ticks alot like Alice. MarxSchmarx got a wonderful point there: give the public something to identify with. Speak to them, write in an informal style about personal issues with pictures and witticism. Be controversial and interesting and keep the story flowing.
Writing like the politburo of the communist party of USSR is the exact opposite of writing a popular blog. Everybody knows approximately what to expect from a dogmatic Marxist and nobody, aside from other dogmatic marxists, would read one except if she also writes on very undogmatic issues like cinema, video games, newest widgets, cooking or her sexual affairs.
Engels defined the best Artist as one who knows best how to conceal his personal opinion. What was written on art by Brecht, Lukacs &co. is still valueble to a modern blogger. Read them if you have the time.

I don't know much about blogging, but my advice is to plan for a good Google page rank. Choose carefully what words or phrases you want most to be indexed by, and then use those phrases in the title header, in an H1 header, and in complete sentences within the first few hundred bytes on each page.
Writing sex, sexy, mp3, britney, torrent, crack, warez, ipod and porn in your header will get you viewers, but not nescessarily the viewers you want or the viewers that want you.
I would suggest to propagate your blog through other blogs or other popular media. And if you don't have the time to fill a whole blog with daily propaganda you can stick to agitation on popular blogs and popular online publications that allow reader comments - times-online, NYT, or the economist serve as examples. Of course you will have to speak their language or face censorship.
Keep out of forums, especially political ones, as casual readers don't venture that deep.
And keep in mind that walls of text are not nescessarily the best means to propagate a point of view. The more pleasant a medium is the more attention it draws. While the left can't afford making own high-quaity hollywood drama flicks, it can afford dramatic innovation .
The German pornsite FuckForForest creates greater revenue and propagates the green agenda much better than a dozen of sensationalist environmentalist blogs. I'm not telling you to start making Leninist Porn but to be open minded about grabbing the public's attention with outrage and humour.

Of course I would do all of the above if I only had the time. ;)

[ellipsis]

Speak to them, write in an informal style about personal issues with pictures and witticism. Be controversial and interesting and keep the story flowing.
Writing like the politburo of the communist party of USSR is the exact opposite of writing a popular blog. Everybody knows approximately what to expect from a dogmatic Marxist and nobody, aside from other dogmatic marxists, would read one except if she also writes on very undogmatic issues like cinema, video games, newest widgets, cooking or her sexual affairs.
I would suggest to propagate your blog through other blogs or other popular media. And if you don't have the time to fill a whole blog with daily propaganda you can stick to agitation on popular blogs and popular online publications that allow reader comments - times-online, NYT, or the economist serve as examples. Of course you will have to speak their language or face censorship.
Keep out of forums, especially political ones, as casual readers don't venture that deep.


I agree with most of this. It took me a while to find my "voice" but once I did, once I had my own style that my blog started to be "good"/popular. I write about guns which brings in ALOT more traffic than my writings on Vermont socialism. Definitely commented on all kinds of blogs is a good way to boost traffic. This forum has brought me a fair amount of the kinds of traffic that I want, comrades while my other efforts bring in traffic that hopefully learns something about my politics while looking at guns. get listed on blog directories like blogged.com and others. it all takes time but eventually it all pays off.

[MarxSchmarx]

I would suggest to propagate your blog through other blogs or other popular media.

This is an excellent point. Your mentality has to be that links and blogrolls are part of the story you're trying to tell. You need to be willing to offer the reader the full context, and that way they can judge the merit of what you say for themselves.

Indeed, if a blog doesn't provide that context in the form of outside links, in this day and age, that's tantamount to a lack of transparency and is (rightfully) treated with considerable suspicion.

[leninwasarightwingnutcase]

Cheers for the advice.