Comments on: Building Community, Breaking Up is Hard to Do

By: Rachel M

Rachel M — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 20:25:13 +0000

Everything has a negative and a positive side. It is only natural that the blogosphere would. I understand that the more people that are in a group the harder it becomes to be personal with each one of them. On the blogs that I have recently posted on and recieved comments back on them the people behind the blog seem geniunely interested in what I had to say. I am not sure how large these communities are but the more I blog the more comfortable I become in the community. It is a lot easier to get things said, feel more comfortable and be able to communicate with a smaller network.

By: Mary

Mary — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 21:16:57 +0000

I am still in the stage of researching the blogging community. I participate in it, but am not at a level where I am completely comfortable. I think in order to become a member of the community, you have to do the research into what and how they think about different things. This class provides us the opportunity to be a member of one community where we feel completely comfortable while researching a community that we will all hopefully be a part of when we graduate. Becoming informed of this community will give us the knowledge to offer valuable insight to the blogosphere and other social media outlets.

By: Ashley Imsand

Ashley Imsand — Mon, 01 May 2006 18:33:30 +0000

I think as blogging grows it will have to struggle through some of the same things that the Internet as a whole has had to face. We will have to look at everything with a skeptical eye.

I’m sure at first when resources were so easily found on the Internet, people welcomed them with open arms, but obviously now you have to weed through the joe-schmoe websites that claim they are experts on anything.

And even though as all of us humble Auburn bloggers have mentioned, we aren’t exactly the A-listers in the blogosphere. But we do enjoy the credibility out there in the PR blogosphere right now, and I can’t help but feel a little disappointed that it won’t be so intimate in the future. But with everything, if it doesn’t grow it doesn’t reach it’s full potential even though there will be some negative aspects of the growth.

By: Amy

Amy — Mon, 01 May 2006 18:25:39 +0000

Kami, those are some very interesting thoughts. We always seem to think of blogging as being a completely separate thing from normal group communication; however I think it is very similar. You say that the social communities of bloggers tend to break down into smaller social groups, this is seems to be no different than actual, physical social groups of people. If you have an organization, such as the Auburn Student Alumni Association, the members will stay close and whole as long as the organization is relatively small. But, as the group grows it will begin to break down into smaller social groups within that organization. Members will group with other members that are similar to themselves. They are all still connected as a whole because of the organization, but they have simply broken down into smaller groups within a large one. I believe this is the same thing that is taking place in the blogosphere. While a blog following is relatively small the members of it will remain united because of one similar interest. But, as the following grows it is only natural for the members to break down into groups as well because that is what we typically do in social situations. I think people are just more satisfied in a smaller, more familiar group than in a large impersonal one, even when it comes to blogging.

By: Courtney

Courtney — Mon, 01 May 2006 14:57:17 +0000

Blogging is growing at a tremendous rate, and as PR blogging moves out of the early adopter stage it is currently in, people will begin to join out of necessity. That is the evolution I will be waiting to see.

Content will totally change when a group will use it to survive. Certainly there is a fear and respect for the blogging community and most will read before they jump in and blog on their own. When it goes mainstream, I think the thoughtful posts that we are accustomed to will be harder to find. The relationships that define PR blogging as we know it will undergo changes as well. There has always been a joyful, welcoming atmosphere when someone joins the blogging community and begins to post. There is link love. As blogging begins to saturate our industry, I believe there will be less of that which will decrease the probability of forming relationships between older and newer bloggers. I think one of the ways this segmentation will manifest itself is through older vs. newer bloggers.

By: Kami Husye

Kami Husye — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 20:45:04 +0000

Great question Amanda, one of the reasons I started blogging was to better understand the culture of of the blogoshere. What I found is that it wasn’t a monolith; however, bloggers universally like and dislike certain things.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:16:16 +0000

Hey Kami! Thanks again for talking to our Style and Design class two weeks ago. You and Susan provided us with interesting insight and advice.

This post was especially interesting to me. It is amazing to see how the blogosphere has really taken off in the past year or two. It seems that everyone from PR students at Auburn (like myself) to top PR executives are blogging and commenting to others. So, you’re right, there is a large community that isn’t as “connected” to each other as a smaller group.
However, like Dee said, I think that blogs are evolving as a tool for disseminating information not covered in the mainstream. Especially since blog posts can be set up so that posts are sent to the media outlets.

Like Wes, I sometimes feel that even though I read blogs and write my own posts, I am not really part of a blogging community. Do you have any advice on how to get “connected” in these blogging communities?

By: Kami Huyse

Kami Huyse — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 12:45:36 +0000

Wes; You bring up some fantastic points, namely that you participate in a community but don’t feel as if you are really a part of it. Maybe that is the diffrence between communities that form organically and those in which you are obliged to participate? I don’t know.

Katherine; As for starting smaller niche blogs, those who have been blogging for awhile especially seem to do this. I have only been blogging since last September, but even I participate in a few specialty blogs, such as Marcomblog here and the PRSA San Antonio blog, for example.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 02:10:51 +0000

Hi Kami! First of all, I just want to thank you again for speaking with our class on Skype the other night. I think we all gained a lot of insight into the roles women play in PR thanks to ya’ll.

I found this post very interesting. I think it is definitly true that blogging is becoming a large group of smaller “social groups”. Like you were saying when we were talking with you the other night, all those people who were commenting on the infamous blog were your friends. People are starting to form real relationships through blogging.

I can see how it would be hard to keep up real relationships with people once your blog draws a large following. I guess I can say that luckily, I don’t have that problem yet. I think once that begins to happen, people who are really devoted to their blogging should start another blog and make each blog more specialized in what it discusses. Maybe then, people will switch to reading the blog they are more interested in and it could be easier to keep up with comments and relationships. Just a thought.

By: Wes

Wes — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 21:09:14 +0000

As as student I do not consider myself to be in the A-listers group. One, I am not influencial in the industry. Two, I have a very small audience.

But I find myself reading the A-listers’ blogs daily and only commenting once a week for my class. So that poses the question what small group do I fit into?

Kami you brought up those that simply just read the blogs, but what group do they(we) fit in?

Do the students here at Auburn form a small community? I think it is possible. I would be the first to admit that I only read about 3 or 4 blogs from my classmates. Even if we don’t each other’s blogs, we still do the same things every week:
We comment on marcomblog.
We write two posts on our personal blog.
We read blogs from a particular list and comment on at least one post….

Therefore, I think we do make our own small community here at Auburn. Some members of our small community branch out to other communities. But as a whole we are confined to marcomblog contributors and other key influencers.

But do I fit into that marcomblog small community? I don’t think I do. I just read it and comment on it.