The Power of Blogging

I was listening on the radio to a feature about a blogger who had apparently first suggested the idea of nominating Sarah Palin (Go Sarah!) as vice presidential candidate. He had promoted this idea through a blog entirely devoted to it. Palin had apparently telephoned him to congratulate him after receiving the nomination.

This blogger argued that it is possible for bloggers like himself to have a huge influence. Minor blogs get read by more popular bloggers and these get read by the household name bloggers, who in turn are read by the media.

It has been my aim with this blog to promote the lifestyle choice of keeping a 'no shoes allowed' home. I am thankful that unlike this political blogger I am not trying to achieve some incredible task. If I were trying to get a politician nominated to office, I would either succeed or not succeed (and it is not often that one achieves success in that). I may not succeed in making the shoes-off rule as common in Britain as it is in Sweden or Canada, but if I can persuade a five or six English, Scots, Americans or Australians to leave the shoes at the door, and ask visitors to do the same, I have achieved something.

So how does one have an influence through the blogsphere?

The first thing is to have a blog that is focused. When I first started blogging, I put my shoes-off posts on my personal blog. However, I decided as this was my favorite issue, I would be more effective by having an whole blog dedicated to the subject. Hence, if anybody puts 'shoes off' or 'please remove shoes' into a search engine, they are likely to find their way here.

The other thing to do is to post comments on other people's blogs, especially the big blogs, as that way people find your blog. I find this a bit tricky because it is time-consuming. I don't tend to read major bloggers much. I comment on the blogs of people who mention the subject of removing shoes and I visit blogs that interest me (fundamentalist Christian blogs).

I have been noticed by other bloggers and occasionally somebody will link to this blog in a post.

If any readers would like to set up their own pro- shoes off blog, I will happily promote it here.