Authority in your post is very good because you give your readers an impression of knowledge and self-confidence in what you are saying. However, will not be better if discussion rather than dictation pass on that authority? What if your readers…

Hey, let me slow down a bit. Right now I sound like a dictator. I will have to use the democratic approach.

Blogging to most of us is fun. Some of us place our priority first in the entertaining part of it, then social networking, Knowledge sharing, and Money making. What am I saying? These are my priorities in blogging, from the most important to the least important:

• Fun
• Making Friends
• Sharing Knowledge
• Making Money

If you are blogging, then you have to choose a blogging style related to the way you govern your blog. You are the admin and ruler of your blog. Your readers, visitors, subscribers…etc are all your subjects. How do you rule over them? Is it a democracy or dictatorship? Are you imposing your views and opinions or ideas to them or you are presenting them in an objective way so that at the end of the day, everyone will analyze them and you all try to see where to fit the ball? You must certainly be Completely Democratic, a Stunch Dictator or a blend between the two (if in anyway there exists any blend).

Democracy or Dictatorship on your part as a blogger will depend on both your priorities and content. Someone blogging mainly for fun or making friends will certainly use a different approach from someone blogging mainly for knowledge sharing. Someone blogging for the sole purpose of making money will also have an approach different from anyone else. Talking about content (which is what I base my mind more on), someone sharing his/her life on a personal blog will have an approach different from another person reporting news and biographies of others. Likewise, someone running an educational blog on the sciences (Chemistry for example) will use an approach completely different from one running an educational blog on the arts (Literature for example). Honestly, this is what I believe, and I am pretty sure you can figure out which approach I will use in different blogging objectives. What I am saying is that a blog is made up of the blogger’s personal opinions (which can be dictated) and the view of the general public (which can be discussed). The authority style you use on your blog / post will partly depend on how you balance up your personal opinions with general views.

What type of blogger are you? A Dictating Blogger or a Democratic Blogger?

A Dictating Blogger

A dictating blogger will tell you:

• this is this, that is that
• this should always be this, that should always be that
• this has always worked this way and is fine, that has always worked that way and is very poor
• never you do it like this, always do it like that
• I will do this for you if and only if you do that for me

Is Uncle Che saying there is something wrong with using phrases like the above? No! Absolutely not! At times, they are very necessary. You need some authority to pass on a message, lesson or an opinion. You need to let your readers know you know exactly what you are talking about. You want them not to sense any doubt in your words. But wait a minute. Can’t you still achieve this the democratic way?

A Democratic Blogger

Consider the five points I outlined above about a dictating blogger. How would a democratic blogger handle them?

• From experience, more than 50% of cases I have observed proves that this is this and that is that. However, yours can change depending on the surrounding circumstances in which you find yourself. For example, don’t tell someone “activate the plugin and you will see a large banner appear on the screen”. What if his/her host doesn’t support that? Because it works for you, don’t expect the same thing to work for everybody.
• Under normal circumstances, this should always be this and that should always be that but do not rely on it 100%. If I were you, considering that very few things are 100% efficient, I will give some allowance for possible environmental or self-made errors.
• I have always been using this under these circumstances and it has produced favorable results. I have never had any luck with that. Maybe if you seek advice from those who say that works well for them, they will tell you the exact “magic” they use for it.
• I have always done it like this and it has worked very well. I am not claiming this is the only way of dong it or it is the very best way. In some situations, the route doesn’t matter. Only the destination does. You can experiment other ways of doing it and choose that which is best for you.
• When people do this or that for me, I feel very happy and I find it necessary doing it to others also, hoping that it will help them. If it does help you, please kindly consider doing it for others too, including me if necessary.

You Really Want to Dictate?

If you have once been a kid ( I am pretty sure you have) then I hope you fully understand that taking orders is something humans are not very good at. To my humble opinion, an ideal blogging environment should be one that’s democratic.

Have you ever asked yourself why at times you feel comfortable reading a post that is 10 paragraphs long than another that is just three paragraphs long? At first, I thought it had to do with just interest. I really don’t think so. At times you may be reading something that you have never had an idea of (where is the interest here) but you find yourself holding on and on, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, and all of a sudden, you click “Next”. It has something to do with the way the writer sounds, and it is very easy getting the tone from the very first paragraph.

How Do You Dictate in a Democratic Environment?

I mentioned earlier that dictatorship or democracy will depend on your blogging objectives and your content. I think I will put my interest more on content. There are certain things we write about that are so fixed and redid that they give no room for modification or options. You should keep in mind that it is the content that is rigid, but your visitors and readers obviously want to be flexible. How can you handle such a situation?

Blogging is not like writing a book. On a blog, you expect “immediate” feedback on what you write. Commentators are always waiting to read and comment. It will be advisable you write in a manner that gives room for this. When you just pass on a memorandum, what do you expect them to say?

If you believe your content needs so much authority, you can still present it in a democratic way by

Admitting you don’t know everything: this is very difficult. Everybody wants to be looked upon as a genius. If you admit there are certain things you are still to find out, your readers will be challenged to do some research.
Admitting there are several ways to flush a rat out of its hole: because you know method A and B, please don’t force those two on everybody.
Admit your inexperience: You haven’t tried all the e-mail services on the web. Why should you then impose on your readers that Gmail is the best in “every” aspect? If your conclusion is that Gmail is the best, allow them the chance to talk bout features lacking in Gma

il but present in “smaller” e-mail services.
Create a conversation: Will you believe I intentionally leave out certain things in a post so that someone else would talk about it in the comments? That helps create or spark up a conversation.
Be objective: always taking sides with the “winning team” is not a really good idea. By the way, how far are you sure they are the winning team to everyone?

OK, now I admit I am stuck. Honestly, I don’t know how to end this post. Can anyone help this poor and miserable Uncle Che? Oh, never mind. I think I figured it out. What about this…

A blog is like an administrative unit where the blogger is the ruler and all the other participants are subjects. Generally, the citizens will prefer a democrat to a dictator.

My Opinion!

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