What Has Your Blog Done For Me Lately?

by Jackie Roy on July 15, 2011

what has your blog done for me lately, picture of a hand brushing people off

You probably fell in love with a blog once.

You subscribed to the RSS feed, liked it on Facebook, and followed it on Twitter so you never missed an update or witty remark from your editorial superhero.

Maybe you met through a friend or maybe you stumbled upon it (literally or figuratively). Regardless, you fell in love and you’ve kept coming back ever since.

But recently, you’ve started questioning your relationship. You’ve asked yourself: What really draws me to their content? Am I still getting anything out of this? Have I fallen for the bait and switch? Have I been tricked?

The line between love and manipulation can be a fuzzy one, and the only way to find out which side you’re truly on is to ask yourself, “What has this blog done for me lately?” 

If they’ve genuinely earned your love I’m sure you’ll have no problem with what comes next.

Blogs worth loving are the ones that tap into that subconscious desire you have and fill it with something you didn’t know you needed. In other words, they complete you. These blogs:

  • Share credible and thoughtful content
  • Respond to all comments and are excited to do so
  • Don’t take you for granted with aggressive upselling and shameless plugs

Those blogs who manipulate their readers don’t really care about the people reading, they just want good enough numbers to generate advertising and affiliate revenue. It’s kind of like that person on Twitter that has 3 million followers but only knows or talks to three of them. These bloggers may even ask you to sign up for their once a month newsletter or updates and then send handfuls of spam emails your way weekly with marketing promotions. They probably also:

  • Don’t respond to any comments
  • Follow you on Twitter only so you’ll follow them back so they can barrage your feed with meaningless information.
  • They make you rationalize: “Well they’ve had some good posts and thanked me for joining the newsletter.”

If the appreciation has stopped then it’s time to go find someone who cares.

So don’t be fooled by your beloved blog. The main concept of manipulation is to gain your loyalty so you stop looking for other options. If the blog has stopped loving you, look around for others that want to persuade you, prove to you that they’re worthy of your readership. Don’t let that blog constantly reel you back in with false promises.

There are other blogs out there that would appreciate your love more.

Jackie Roy

Written by: Jackie Roy

Jackie is a Digital Content Associate at TMG and loves any race that involves mud. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.


  • Troller

    Sometime a blog is just a blog. Blogs like the ones here at TMG are mostly about blogging/social media that aren’t meant to provoke much thinking about anything else or be as helpful as to help someone with their love life or getting through diarrhea. If the blogs happen to be political then you’re talking about a completely different beast. I’ve taken a look at the TMG Facebook and Twitter accounts and it feels dead. Not so much about updating the progress of the company except moving to a new joint and promoting other blogs outside the company. If you’re a custom publishing company, wouldn’t it be great if you can update your followers that aren’t employees about the many kind of titles you’re working on and something cool about a particular article or special report so that you can perhaps earn bonus points with the clients? And informing the followers?

    I’m not trying to insult TMG as a whole but it could use some advancing.

  • Troller

    P.S. Before going through the process of talking about other peoples blogs. Take a look at yours first. Just say’in!

    • http://www.twitter.com/roy_jackie Jackie Roy

      The great thing about blogs and creating content is getting feedback on how to improve it. This is my first post on the TMG blog and I appreciate what you have to say. I really think that every blog is in some sense a work in progress–we’re learning as we go. The beauty of blogs is having the ability to interact with readers; it allows us to take the feedback and tweak to what our audience wants. It’s definitely something for us to examine, thanks for stopping by.

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