Where Are You At In Your Blog's Development?

[Michele Martin]

An interesting article from Skelliewag on the two phases of development in a blog. She suggests that there's the Chrysalis stage (500 RSS readers or less) and the Butterfly stage (more than 500 readers) and that if you want your blog to grow, you need to be implementing two different types of strategies depending on whether or not you're in the Chrysalis or Butterfly phase.

Go take a read and then let me know what you think.

[Talia Carbis]

I am definitely in the Chrysalis stage. But that's okay. :-P

I am always trying to plug my blog,and find other blogs similar to mine, but I find that sometimes I feel that I get away from my blog topic of 'being a 20-something newlywed' and get more onto the topic of 'life- funny things I've done and learnt'.

So I guess I am going to always try and stay more true to my niche, even if that means keeping my same posts, and just 'twisting' them a bit.

I don't want to have just a boring, mundane blog, which I worry sometimes I have.

So I guess that's the thing I've learnt from this article- to stay true to my niche and make quality posts I can tell others about and be proud of.

[bmtrnavsky]

Great post.. I found in writing my first blog that a combination of writing GREAT posts, and substantive comments the referred back to my own posts have been very helpful in the initial stages.

[Nadiva Olivier]

Thank you for the info which I loved. This theory gives a good frame for figures in the blogsphere.

I am not Chrysalis. Nor butterfly. I have started my blog some months ago but right now just a few guys went there. It is about Brazil market and is written for foreign people. I assume it is very difficult to reach foreign readers. My blog is coachnadiva.wordpress.com. Could you give me an idea in order I can turn to chrysalis? Nadiva.

[joy simpson]

Is there a pre-chrysalis stage? I think there might be. The one where you have no commenters. I think it might be the grub stage! I run a blog for the literacy consultant team in Devon (UK) that shares literacy resources with teachers in Devon or anywhere. One of the issues is that I don't know how many literacy subject leaders in schools are linked to a personal learning network or read blogs. In fact I do know - very few so I am aiming at an audience that doesn't use blogs in any great numbers. This means that we promote the site orally when we meet the teachers. Part of the reason for having the blog is to try and engage literacy subject leaders in blogging.
So what is becoming clear to me is that you need to be really clear about who your audience is and then look around at other blogs that are in the same area.

[BJ Bagwell]

My blog, Tenth Muse, is approximately 6 months old. Skellie's article makes a great deal of sense. I am definitely in the chrysalis phase at Tenth Muse. Today I started a 31 day challenge to better blogging. I think the challenge, combined with knowledge and understanding from Skellie's article, will be very beneficial to my continuing journey into the blogosphere. BJ