1. The blogosphere is collaborative and interactive in nature. While it’s true that you can write blog posts in isolation, and hope that people stumble across your content, it is much more effective and rewarding to interact with other bloggers in your niche. Take time to comment on other blogs, and respond to comments on your own blog. But be careful, commenting and reading other blogs can consume much of your designated blogging time. Make sure you leave enough time to add new content to your own blog.
2. Participate in the music education blog carnival. In all honesty, I am a little disappointed that the carnival is published only once per month, many other niches like personal finance have multiple carnivals, and they are published on a weekly basis. But, as a whole, our lack of frequent posting is probably a good thing; we’re busy in our schools and concert halls, shaping meaningful musical experiences for our students!
3. Link to content on other blogs. While this is typically seen as a selfless deed, many bloggers will notice that you pinged their content, and return the favor by linking back to you. Karma of the blogosphere: what goes around, comes around.
4. Write meaningful, timely content. If summer is approaching, an article about marching band is probably more appropriate than in the winter (As a side note, I wish the major music journals and magazines would publish a proportionate number of articles about marching band, instead of making the concert band look like an afterthought).
5. Develop your own voice. As educators, we are taught two things very well: be careful not to step on anyones’ toes, and look to others for a model of success. What ends up happening often times, is that I see a number of blogs that look cookie-cutter copies of other successful blogs on the internet. While I love many music technology blogs, it seems strange to me that there are more blogs about music technology than music education. Develop your own voice as you write about music: what moves you, excites you, and empowers your students to learn and achieve? By writing content with a strong voice, you’ll find it much easier to write regularly updated content.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post Daniel! Agreed on the journal articles- cb does seem to get the short end of it. The nice part about blogs it allows concerned music educators to address these kinds of disparities with thoughtful writing.
Good point, Travis. Here’s to bountiful, thoughtful posts by music educators!
Orff-Schulwerk is a relatively small niche in the music education blogosphere. I don’t expect to have a flood of folks visiting my site. It is rewarding to see the comments from teachers who have benefited from the lessons, articles & links I post, tho it be a small number. I hope to help more. I’ll check out the carnival. Thanks.
Hi Jerry,
I agree, it can be difficult to get a lot of traffic with a small, specific niche. But 1600 people search for Orff -Schulwerk and 1300 people search for Orff instruments every month. Taking time to build authority and dominate the niche will bring you traffic, no matter how specific it is. I recently found a beatboxing community with thousands of visitors each month. If you build it, they will come
In the meantime, it is rewarding to see new comments, knowing that we have made a difference in someone’s thought process or practices!
Jerry,
I went to your website and was going to leave a comment, but you don’t have comments enabled! Any reason why? If you’re worried about spam, there are plugins that take care of that for you- then you only get the good comments delivered to you
I just stumbled across this in my Google search for “music education blogs.” I am starting a blog to document my first year as a band director and I really appreciate the pointers! Honestly, I am a little disappointed by the lack of fellow instrumental music education blogs out there. I have checked out the 2009 100 best music ed blogs but many of those blogs are no longer active. Am I missing something or is the music ed blog community really just that small? I am planning on hopping on the Music Ed PLN soon so maybe that will make a difference.
Hey K!
Thanks for your comment. The 100 ME Bloggers was a great launching point, but as you’ve correctly mentioned, many of these have fallen of the face of the earth! I think many music educators are excited to start blogging, lose momentum, and end up giving up after a few months. I think you’ll find that some of the richest interactions happen on the #musedchat on Twitter on Monday nights, as well as MPLN, and now on Google+. Let me know if you want more info on any of those, and I’d be happy to help get you involved! Congrats on your first year as a band director, and if there is anything I can do to be of service, please let me know- I am on my third year of teaching, and it was great to be surrounded by helpful friends and mentors!
Dan
I found this just at the right time! Just started a blog and I think this advice will save me a load of time. That twitter talk on Monday’s looks interesting, you mentioned a few others in the reply above. Could you expand on these further? Time for a shameless plug of my own blog. (as suggested in your post!) Musiceducationlife.blogspot.com.