Why It Is Important to Read Other Blogs

So here we are, another short post to end this blogiversary week. I think that this is the most important one. I think every blog writer should at least have a passing familiarity with other people’s content in some creative ways. I am trying not to say this in a self important way to lift myself up even if it might end up being or feeling that way as I type it. I really think that it is an important thing to take some time out of your day, maybe half an hour or so, to read other people’s material. Especially since there is a small life time measurement for blogs themselves. As some of us have noticed, it is easy to think about the idea of creating and writing a blog, but hard to continue doing it for an extended amount of time. Not everyone has that gumption and its sad to see such great bloggers disappear when they just got started.

So the obvious reason at first is to support other bloggers younger or older. A person starting out a blog sometimes has some opinions that they are going to gain traction very quickly and then start flowing in followers and attention while the reality of the case is that it almost never happens that way. Some blogs do take off ridiculously quickly and gain all the traction they want but its very rare. The rest of us have to work from the ground up for a long time until a following appears. So, searching for other blogs to read and follow everyday at least gives them some sense of an audience behind their words. A little fire to keep them going and writing in a time where that wouldn’t happen otherwise.

A lot of the time, a new anime blog starts following me and I follow back to see what they have because I want to at least be one person that reads their content as little as that really counts in the end. Maybe it’s a big enough change for attention and maybe it isn’t. Its hard to really tell with everything that goes on with the world around us. One small view might not be enough to change anyone’s perspective. Then again, it might be able to change someone’s entire world. Give a person a spark to keep going when they don’t have that energy anymore. So yeah, read other blogs for this and create a community. Having that community in the first place is great for building any sort of support network.

The next reason is a little less obvious or maybe its about the same level of obviousness. It’s seeing what other content creators are doing and getting influenced by them. This is the same thing as watching some television program or youtube video that you want to replicate in the form of an anime blog or something else. There is that idea of “I like what they are doing” and then trying to do that in a similar yet different way for blog. It isn’t exactly like a copy and pasting job because it’s an influencing thing. The way one person writes is never going to be the same as how another person writes. Not even twins will write anything the same way even if they have the same experiences through out their lives. That’s how human minds work.

In a lot of ways, writing blog posts are like a conversation with other bloggers. Some blog posts are obviously influenced by other people’s posts in good ways or some are just direct responses in some very cool and innovative ways. I think that is what is the best part about blogging. Either corrections or the continued conversation off of one post that moves onto another post in some pretty interesting ways. No post is going to take up the same spot as another post and that is why all blog posts that are written are important in some way. Not just for views, but because of how only one person can create the blog posts they can create and there is only one way to find out who does that and how. Reading them online and supporting your fellow blogger in anyway that you can.

Now, I know that there are some bloggers that don’t follow other blogs, don’t communicate with the community they are apart of, and just write and forget about the sort of responses they get. I can get that. I mean, I can imagine what it is like to come home from working 8 hrs, probably watching or unwinding with something, and then writing about it. Include meals and sleeping and other social interactions and that is a full-time life. No one can blame other bloggers for doing that because of how busy people are and we are mostly anonymous people who know each other through screen names and the identities we want for ourselves. I get that. But if you can, please read what other content creators are doing too for your and their growth.