My thoughts on Project Blogger

By: Dave G.
Date: Wednesday, April 11th, 2007
Departments: Rants

project blogger
At LakePlace.com, we started blogging in 2004 with our downhill ski reports blog, fishing reports blog and birding reports blog (all hosted at blogger.com). Our target audience is the outdoor enthusiast and we thought this would be a great way to connect to people who would otherwise not be looking for us. We fell off the blogosphere after 12 months and did not get back on until July of 2006.

Fast forward to 2007. Blogging by real estate professionals is huge and getting “huge-r.” Minnesota is actually home to one of the best real estate bloggers out there – Teresa Boardman of the St. Paul Real Estate Blog. Her writing skills have gotten her national attention and she is frequently quoted and linked by the big players in the industry. Another highly skilled writer is Greg Swan of the Bloodhound Blog. The first time I read Greg’s blog I thought to myself – “this guy should be writing for the Times or the New Yorker.” I also enjoy reading Greg Tracy of the Blue Roof Blog. Greg tells it like he sees it and does not pull his punches…it’s another great read. The Inman News Blog, as of late, has also become one of my favorites - they have done a great job over the past few months.

Anyway, the point of this post was to talk about the latest idea in the real estate blogging world. They call it Project Blogger and it is hosted at Active Rain and co-sponsored by Inman News.

“The goal is simple: over the course of about 4 months, each participating blogging coach will aim to develop the most successful real estate blogger they can.”

I just had to take a minute to point out how stupid this seems to me. How do you “teach” or “coach” someone to blog? What’s the point? Can you actually teach talent? Did the bloggers I mentioned above have someone “coach” them to become great bloggers? I am pretty sure they didn’t.

If you are a talented and creative writer – and you have a lot of extra time on your hands, you can become a great blogger. If you are not a talented and creative person (with or without time on your hands), you will not be a great blogger. It’s a pretty simple equation.

I can just see a blogging “coach” with a whistle in his/her mouth, corresponding over a yahoo chat client, “ I NEED YOU TO TYPE ‘THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG’S BACK’ – Again (whistle blows)…and Again (whistle blows)…and Again (whistle blows).”

How ridiculous. And even worse - who in the heck is signing up to be the student? How would you like to be standing in that line?

If you are a real estate professional and you really want to be a good real estate blogger – start reading great blogs (these ones are great too), sign up for a free WordPress account, and start writing. Signing up as a student for this Project Blogger thing is not going to be your best use of time. Reading some good blogs and writing your own will get you a lot further - a lot faster (IMO).

(AND…If I practiced what I preached, I would have a better ending to this post)

Good Luck.

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  • Jason Benesch Says:
    April 11th, 2007 at 5:58 pm

    Hey Dave,

    I am a first time visitor of your site and I love the graphics!

    You are absolutely right that you can’t teach someone how to write, or even what to write, or even force them to write enough. There is certainly a skill to engaging people with the written prose.

    I do have to take issue with you though on a number of points you made in your post. There is a lot to learn as a newbie blogger and with some coaching/teaching someone may be able to achieve where they want to be within several months instead several years.

    If someone was born with a great voice, should they not take voice lessons?

    You can absolutely coach someone on how to blog. How to write better headlines, how to highlight certain points by making them bold, how to interlink articles, or link to outside sources to illustrate a point, how to organize categories, how to add HTML to their sidebars how to stack articles with juicy keywords, how to engage or provoke comments with an article how to leave thoughtful comments on other blogs, how to research other blogs in their market. Just to name a few.

    Most agents have never heard of digg, technorati, reddit, stumble upon, wordpress, rss feeds, sitemeter, feedburner, mybloglog, blogtopsites, vflyer.

    We can effectively take a blogger (anyone no matter how well they write) and generate an enormous amount of start up traffic and interest within the first month.

    So yes. It is true that content is king and Greg Swan should be writing for the New York Times, but for an average agent who would like to enter the blogosphere without spending months researching topics, a coach is exactly what they need.

    I will add you guys to my reader and look forward to some more thought provoking articles.

    Keep up the good work and make sure to follow the project blogger as we will continually track our progress.

    Jason

  • Dave G. Says:
    April 11th, 2007 at 6:05 pm

    All very good points, Jason. But these are not “blogging” skills you mentioned…I think they would be classified, or “tagged” for you 2.0 folks, as web design, viral marketing, and seo skills. All things that can help your blog get noticed, but not make you a better blogger.

    Thanks for visiting.

  • Hosting Blog It and Earn It, April 17th Edition at egonitron Says:
    April 17th, 2007 at 7:13 am

    […] Dave G presents My thoughts on Project Blogger posted at Pine Needle Lawn. […]

  • Terry M Says:
    April 18th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

    Thanks for the info Dave. I\’ve been reading your blog for a bit…good stuff. I\’d love a chance to buy you a coffee and share some ideas.

  • Mary Pope-Handy Says:
    July 20th, 2007 at 1:11 pm

    Hi Dave,

    I am one of the 12 apprentices who just finished Project Blogger on Sunday. (Results to be announced August 1st.)

    While you’re absolutely correct that good writing cannot be taught in a blogging contest, blogging and writing are not exactly the same skill set.

    When I started Project Blogger, I was already a pretty good writer - or so people tell me (I won a writing contest when I was 17 and took Creative Writing and Journalism in high school, both of which have served me well over the years).

    But blogging effectively is another matter.

    What did I learn in Project Blogger? Obviously, not writing. I got a crash course and intense tutoring in a variety of blogging things, including a basic vocabulary that I didn’t have before (eg widget, blogosphere, technorati, pinging - just a few).

    I learned from my mentor and from other participants about “link love”, about targeting posts, about how to get photos to use and how to shrink them so it doesn’t waste a day doing it.

    Technical stuff.

    Who will “win” Project Blogger? ALL of the Apprencices have WON Project Blogger because all have made a huge effort in a short period of time. It was a crash course. Like a language immersion program.

    We apprentices of Project Blogger are not done learning. I’m still battling SEO issues. But I learned as much in 14 rapid, intense weeks of this contest as it might have taken me 2 years to learn otherwise.

    Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

  • Dave G Says:
    July 20th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    Hi Mary - I think I wrote this post a little too quickly - before I had a chance to really think about it. I had not looked at this post for a while and after reading it again - it is obvious that I did not think my argument through.

    I am sure having someone bring you up to speed on certain technical issues & topics would be helpful for 99% of all re.pros out there.

    Anyone who participated in this crash course most definitely walked away a winner (and I am eating crow).

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