The secret of the popularity of Blog

This guest post is by Ankesh Kothari from SuccessNexus.com.

Psychologist Antonius Cillessen of the University of Connecticut wondered how children became popular. So he began research into social behavior and peer relations of early adolescent children in American schools. And he found something very interesting.

He found that each school had a bunch of very friendly children who is socially accepted and loved by everyone. But they are never considered popular.

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The children that are considered popular are often just as friendly as universally loved children, but with a difference. The popular kids draw a border around them, and a few "outcasts" exclude from their circle.

Professor Anthony found that you can not popular unless you learn to exclude. He stumbled upon a truth that Chinese philosopher Confucius who years earlier had described:

"Small community to build and thousands will want to join."-Confucius

The truth is that a high-end clubs also have realized. The harder they are excluded (men) from their premises, how popular they get. Facebook grew when Friendster and other social sites don't. Why? because of their first exclusivity — should only people with a .edu email address to sign up.

Apple. Rolex. Rivendell cycling. All of them are insanely popular because they are just one type of audience targeting and exclude.

If you make your blog popular, you must also learn to exclude. You don't have to cater to everyone. Only by creating exclusivity you can the crowd noise for what you offer.

Decide who is your ideal reader. What is their one attribute that you above all value? What are their quirks. What they love? What they hate? (Or if not hate, what are they indifferent?)Draw a border around yourself based on what your ideal reader likes and hates. Write posts on certain topics and catering to exclude a certain group of people.Let the world know (your about page or your sidebar) that you are excluding and why.

I used this process to create a sense of exclusivity around my own blog. The first thing that I did when I started was to focus on who would be my ideal readers. I zeroed in on people who would take action without making excuses, and that already have achieved some success and are hungry for more.

I know that if I grow my readers blogs can help, my site will automatically grow. And so I just wanted to concentrate on readers who are willing and able to put in the work to do and grow their blogs.

That's why I about the exclusion of two types of audience that slow or inconsistent when taking action aimed at:

Beginners: people who just don't have the skillset or the resources to carry out things and take action.Hot News chasers: people who get excited by any new shiny thing that comes out and wasting their time jumping from one thing to the next.

On the about page of my blog I clearly mention that the above the audiences are not welcome.

The added advantage of this explanation is that the my audience for my taste polarizes. The beginners and hot news chasers go somewhere else. Meanwhile, the action-takers will not realize that there are a lot of fluff on my blog, and subscribe in higher numbers.

How can you become popular? Simple: not everyone.Target the right people. Do not write for everyone.Mention on your about page: which topics you will never cover, and those people who you will never meet.Be picky and selective, and your fame and influence will grow.

Have you tried this approach on your blog? I would like to hear your opinion about it in the comments.

Ankesh Kothari is the founder of SuccessNexus.com — an affiliate management application for blogs and forums. He also runs the advanced Internet marketing strategy blog — that you should not visit if you have just started Blogging or value not found in this post.

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