Imagine that you've been provided the opportunity to hold a daily public conference. Six days a week between a dozen and a few hundred people gather together for the sole purpose of hearing what you think. Some of them find you insightful, even brilliant while others think you're a blithering idiot. Each day, though, they come to hear you give an opinion about current events, expound upon an obscure topic of personal interest, or hear you share an amusing anecdote. A few stay thru your entire oration while others leave after only a few words. But every day someone shows up for your briefing.
How would you handle the pressure? How much time and effort would you put into your remarks? How would you use such an incredible opportunity?
While this may sound rather far-fetched, the fact is that millions of people already have a similar opportunity. I'm one such person. I suspect you are too. We're called bloggers.
Unfortunately, we bloggers rarely appreciate the power we possess. Instead of being constantly amazed at the potential influence we wield, we carp and whine (if only to ourselves) that we don't have the links of Glenn Reynolds or the site hits of Daily Kos. We believe that since thousands of people could be reading our blogs that we should have thousands of readers. If we don't then we judge ourselves to be inadequate.
But how important are links and hits? Try this experiment: write down (a) a list of 10 blogs that are the most linked, (b) a list of 10 blogs that receive the most traffic, and (c) a list of 10 blogs that you regularly read that make you think for the equivalent of five minutes a day. Once you have your list you can check the links and the hits at the TTLB Ecosystem.
Now how many on (a) and (b) did you get right? How many of the ones on (a) and (b) are also on list (c)? My guess is that you were only able to name (at most) five of the ten blogs on the first two lists and that only one or two show up on your own list. What this shows is that measurements we often use to determine a blog's "success" have little to do with their actual ability to influence.
If you are like most blog readers you have clicked on a link from a high-traffic blog hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. Yet how many of those links resulted in you adding that blog to your own blogroll? Almost never. Since it doesn't have a long-term impact, why do we spend so much time fretting over site hits or hoping to get linked to Instapundit? What we should be focused on is harnessing the power we have to achieve our goals and purposes. If we truly want to have a bigger impact we need to start by thinking smaller.
If you have a blog that is read by more than a few dozen readers then you are making a bigger impact than you probably realize. If you have 50 people reading your blog then you have more people in your "classroom" than most professors at Harvard. If you have 90 readers then you have more people in your "pews" than most pastors have in their churches every Sunday. And if you have more than 1000 readers a month you have a larger "circulation" than most poetry and short story magazines.
But having a larger audience doesn't necessarily translate into having more influence. As Malcolm Gladwell argues in his book The Tipping Point, the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship is about 150. In blogging terms, this means that when your readership grows, you're ability to have a true one-on-one relationship with them decreases significantly. This is not to say that you should attempt to limit your readership to 150 readers, turning people away when that number is reached. What it means is that if you want to maximize your personal influence you would focus on establishing strong bonds and deep interaction with at most 150 readers.
Now consider what would happen if each of these 150 readers read and thought about what you wrote on your blog for five minutes every day. Five minutes may seem insignificant but it has an exponential effect: with only 5 minutes every day, six days a week, every month, you will have the reader's attention for more than one entire day--26 hours--every year. With only 150 consistent readers you will have gained the equivalent "mindspace" of one person for one entire day for almost five straight months. This is what I call the "5/150 Principle": capturing the mindspace of 150 people for 5 minutes can create an astounding opportunity for influence.
The question then becomes how you will use the principle. Your audience is giving you two of their most precious possessions - their time and their attention. What are you doing with this gift? Are you using it to improve their life, influence their worldview, feed their mind? Or are you wasting it by giving them junk food, blather and trivia which provides a momentary amusement but has only a fleeting impact? What will this person gain in return for loaning you this treasure for 26 hours every year?
While the 5/150 principle may be simple to understand, achieving it can much more difficult. Developing a core constituency of 150 dedicated readers will take a considerable investment of time and effort. And since most blog readers spend less than 90 seconds reading a post, you will have to find a way to get them to fill the other 210 seconds by engaging or thinking about what you've written.
But consistently striving to apply this principle will have far more important impact than would chasing after the ephemeral attention span of a large blog reading audience. You'll get to know your readers as people rather than as statistics. You'll engage with them and sharpen your own thinking in the process. You'll find that your readers shift from being a passive audience to a part of a thoughtful community. Mostly, though, you're blogging will gain more of a purpose - and you'll begin to understand what it truly means to be a successful blogger.
Note: More of the "How to Blog" and the "Notes on Blogging" series can be found at this index.
1
Thanks, Joe. Christian bloggers need to be mindful of what we're doing. My blog is a bit atypical, I guess. I get around 1000 unique visitors a month and around 100 visitors a day, although most do not comment. What really excites me is that I see the countries they visit from. Some are places where you can get arrested for sharing the good news of Christ or promoting a Christian worldview. If it wasn't for the tools provided by eChristian Web Hosting, I would be completely ignorant of this. This is a constant reminder to me that our blogs are impacting people in ways we would never guess. Passport? I don't need no stinkin' passport!
posted on 09.08.2005 2:16 AM2
Right you are, and very convicting. Many of us struggle with the typical American sin of "bigger is better". Jim Collins dismantles this error in his book Good to Great -- he talks about the hedgehog concept, which is the defining specialty of your company (church, organization, publication, blog)-- what is it that you do better than anyone else? Focus on that thing and do it with excellence. you may not get all the attention, but you will have lasting results. It seems you're saying the same kind of thing here. Let us thank God for every hit on our blogs, and pray that He would ust those hits for building His kingdom!
posted on 09.08.2005 7:12 AM3
Good points. I've already decided that I do not want to be "big." I do not care for media attention, and I do not want the pressure to perform which inevitably comes with popularity.
Your comment about "junk food, blather and trivia" made me think of "cat bloggers." Not to throw off on anyone, but what could be more inane than that? I am amazed that people want to see pictures of other people's cats.
4
Though Instapundit and the other biggies don't change many hearts, they do much to define the parameters of the conversation. That's where their influence lies.
posted on 09.08.2005 9:35 AM5
Very good points. Blogs, I think, attract people who are curious and eager to learn. Blog-people (those who read and those who write) tend to ruminate on ideas, then start spreading those ideas around. It's sometimes impossible to trace where the idea came from, but that's not always important.
The secret is finding your "niche". My blog's niche is even smaller than others. My hope has been to attract military cadets, mids, and young officers who are just starting their military careers.
My blog's "audience", if you call it that :-) hasn't yet been who I thought it would be...but who am I to say that that isn't good? If God wants to use my blog in any way He will draw the people He wants to it. It's hard to remember that on a daily basis, but it really is true.
posted on 09.08.2005 10:05 AM6
Russell, I hadn't heard of the "hedgehog" concept but like it. Thanks...I'll get that book you mentioned from the library.
posted on 09.08.2005 10:08 AM7
I'm still figuring out what to do with my blog.
I'd like to strike a good balance between writing what I want to write about, and writing what people are interested in reading. It's fun to try to figure out what to write about, especially when something I write draws more interest than I think it would.
Joe's blog is a good model, so I'm happy to get his advice. But I think everyone has to figure out for himself exactly what he's trying to do. And more often than not, it won't be something very similar to the Evangelical Outpost.
Joe's goals and motivation and commitment are not going to be similar to most other people's. Everybody has to figure out his own definition of success.
posted on 09.08.2005 11:00 AM8
Good post Joe. I'm always encouraged by the number of visits from around the globe and the emails I get from time to time. As you suggest I often have more readers on my blog than I'm privileged to preach to on Sundays. In this respect the great amount of time I spend studying does double duty and has a broader reach when I post a sermon on the blog.
posted on 09.08.2005 12:17 PM9
Very encouraging and thoughtful stuff, Joe. Thanks very much, and will take it to heart.
Bloggers also have an influence through collaboration. Just like a denominational network of small churches, we can use blogrolls and links to lead folks to other folks' resources/info that will bless them too. For instance, I've been carrying links and posts about a new congregation starting here in San Diego, and have a blogroll full of links and ads to other Christian environmental websites.
If your 5/50 combines with my 5/50 (and so on), the influence extends further.
Reminds me of two quick thoughts:
- If you told only 2 people about Christ and each did the same, the Gospel would get around the world in no time.
- Using the web for Christ is much bigger than any one of us (1 Corinthians 12:12, Colossians 1:18), typical of any ministry effort.
It's a blessing to be associated with all of you.
Grace and peace,
Don Bosch
San Diego, CA
evaneco.com
10
I'm like the guy who watches his meter to see where they come from. What a trip! I just wish I could get it to stop counting me. I have really low traffic, but it's okay, the people who come by seem to like what they read. I have yet to post a cat photo. "Not that there's anything wrong with that." ???
Thanks for this insight, Joe. When I decided to start a blog, much of what you're saying here was on my mind. I wish I could remember where my first readers came from. That would be interesting. I may offer a little fluff with the stuff, but like I said, they seem to be enjoying it.
11
Thanks, Joe for a healthy perspective. It seems that too often we're caught up in wanting to "enlarge our territory" rather than be good stewards of the territory God has already given us.
posted on 09.08.2005 7:53 PM12
Sorry about the double trackback! When I first pinged, I got a message that the trackback wasn't successful, so I tried again.
Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful and insightful comments on blogging, Joe.
posted on 09.09.2005 7:50 AM13
Great post. This is a really good insight. You can't deny that a larger readership does give you a better "slugging average" - especially if you leverage it into other avenues, like Hugh Hewitt. But you're probably right, too, that your most direct, personal impact is going to be at the low level. And that's where a lot of practical work gets done.
In blogging terms, this means that when your readership grows, you’re ability to have a true one-on-one relationship with them decreases significantly.
This doesn't mean I'm not still expecting you to buy me lunch.
posted on 09.13.2005 1:50 PM14
I plan on using your observations in my updated We Know More Than Our Pastor--I never argued this point of view
http://www.e-church.com/resources.asp
I wonder if this is going to be part of the logic behind the Blogging Church book,
http://www.bloggingchurch.com/
Also I may be worth noting that Barna's research indicates that Christians get more spiritual information from "Christian" media on a weekly basis than attend church services...
posted on 09.14.2005 10:33 AM15
Oh, for those interesting, you can start a spiritual blog for free at...
posted on 09.14.2005 10:34 AM16
As I've said before in this fine venue, what would be the blog equivalent of Galilee?
posted on 09.14.2005 1:17 PM17
I really liked your comments here. I hope you're going to update your site soon. small ship set out: http://www.cosmicbuddha.com/blog/archives/001169.html , There was once this guy
posted on 10.10.2005 7:02 AM