Blogging is like being in high school-but, in a good way

Upon reading blog post after blog post about how blogging is sooo like high school, I sat back and thought about it. Yes. It is like high school-but, this can be a good thing. Learning from when we were back in school can help us know what to do-or what not to do- to be a successful blogger.

Comparing blogging to being in high school.

Blogging is about journaling your thoughts and dreams. It can also be about telling wonderful, sad, and funny stories about your family and daily life. You pour yourself into your blog and just like when you were in school, you want to be popular and for people to like you (and your blog).

Don't be a wall flower.

To be successful at blogging, you need friends (readers) who come to visit daily. In order to have friends, you need to be sociable. Just like when you went to dances at school-you can’t hide in the corner and expect to get asked to dance. You need to get out there and be sociable and make friends. You can’t be anti-sociable and expect to be popular.

Being the good friend.

Think back to when you were in school. Being a good friend and a great listener attracts people like flies. Visiting other blogs is a must. Genuine comments will be noticed. Really caring about the person behind the blog is a great way to make friends. You won’t have faithful readers unless you ‘connect’ and are faithful to your readers.

Taking advice from the popular girl in school.

Remember when you were younger and the rich popular girl always had huge birthday parties with real ponies to ride and huge party bags for her guests? Everyone wanted to be invited to her parties. Well, you can do the same with your blog. Having giveaways that are worth people’s time gets people to your blog. It’s not like you are bribing them (not really), you are just finding a way to get them to your blog so they can see how wonderful and witty you are.

Don’t be the girl who stays home every Saturday night.

Blogging can be a lot of hard work if you are trying to make a brand for yourself. You can’t just ignore your readers and expect them to stick around. Just like you were in school, if you keep turning down hanging out with your friends, they’ll soon stop coming by. If you don’t want to be forgotten, you have to stay sociable with fellow bloggers. Go to events, do a contest together with another blogger-don't turn down offers or chances to get notice.

Blogging doesn’t have to be a competition.

There is no need for us bloggers to be in competition with each other. We are all equal and there’s plenty of popularity to go around. Finding your group of friends to ‘hang’ with is all you need to feel successful. There will still always be that one blogger that will seem to be the most popular-don’t be jealous of her. Take pride in your blog and be proud of your accomplishments. If you still feel a bit of the green-eyed monster coming out towards that blogger, maybe you can hope that her blog will get fat and bald 15 years from now, like all the popular people do after high school.