Blogging To Increase Your Audience

As posted by the Theologians Cafe

I have noticed with time that there are a certain group of people that appear to think it is evil for a person to attempt to increase the number of people that read their blog.

I first came across this mentality with one of my first friends on xanga.  She was going to school to be a writer.  Her stated goal was to be a professional writer.  So one day I told her something like, "You have great writing skills and with a little bit of marketing, you could be one of the most popular people on xanga."  She responded with something like, "I don't care about being popular.  I write for myself."

Now I probably used the wrong word.  I probably should not have used the word "popular."  But what I meant was that she could increase her audience because people would like her writing if they found her. 

But it has always struck me how so many of the people on xanga that indicate they would like to be a professional writer of some sort, will tend to act as if they don't care if people read them.  I would think that it would be the goal of the professional writer to be read.  I would assume that professional writers need to sell books. 

I think even William Shakespeare sort of hoped people would come and watch his plays.  So I would assume that the goal of the writer is to be read.

Now you have a second group of people on xanga and this is the group that do not want to have people read their site.  They just post in a public forum.  I am not sure why they just don't write and put it in a word document on their computer.   But they actually post their thoughts online in a public forum.

This leads me to believe that they want people to read their post and to respond.

But you have people that will always comment on a post like this and indicate, "I write for myself.  I don't care if others read."  I tend to think this inaccurate for the most part.  That is like going to a party in college and saying, "I am going to this party but I don't care if people talk to me when I talk.  I only go to parties for myself."

So at some level, I think most of us come to xanga and want social interaction.  I don't think it is evil to want social interaction.  In fact, I don't think it is evil to want more people to interact with you socially.

Do you think it is wrong to have a goal of increasing the number of people that read your site?