Yes friends I, Stephen Reynolds from a small town in Sussex England, have failed my readers.

With the fog of success surrounding me, and the urgency to follow up with a decent post, I have fumbled my way into writing an article that was lacking in original content from me. Whilst I put a lot of effort in, describing how jQuery UI elements can be used and running video demos of their functionality, this wasn’t enough and I apologize.

It’s a good early lesson for me and any other bloggers out there, you’ve got to add your own spin on the content you’re delivering to your users. Give some value add. Title your articles appropriately, and don’t sell it to the wrong demographic. I’ll digress…

Learning 1: Give greater value add, more original content.

With my blog, I have always strived to focus on the common man. I’m not an über nerd. I’m a generalist. I know enough about many things to succeed in my goals. If you’re looking for me to drill down into the very depths of jQuery sourcecode, you’ve come to the wrong place, sorry.

Learning 2: I need to make sure that I don’t suggest to new potential readers that I’m about to do be super nerdy. Set accurate expectations.

Whilst stats-wise the article in question was a resounding success, there was some backlash which ultimately has stopped the article in it’s stride. I titled it completely wrong, it’s not in depth, which misled my HN readership. By setting their expectations to a high bar, my article never eclipsed that imaginary target, and people got pissed. I value the HN readership feedback, they expected more and so, I will give as best I can next time over.

Learning 3: Title your content appropriately, don’t mis-sell it.

I’ve reached a turning point which most bloggers don’t get to, or don’t even realize. The early success on my blog has been nice, and the pressure is always there to follow up with bigger and better content… just dont lose sight of what you are trying to achieve. If you’re a potential blogger, learn from my mistake, take your time and let your content explode.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 and is filed under Social-Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.