Comments. The most important thing you can do in order to participate in the genealogy blogging community and to get your own blog noticed is to place comments on posts by other bloggers. When you make a comment – even as simple as saying, “Hello” or “I really enjoyed your post,” you not only recognize other bloggers but you create a link back to your own blog and profile on the Internet. Very often others who read comments will be curious as to who you are and what you blog about.
Carnivals. A blog carnival is an organized on-line event in which bloggers create blog posts around a specific subject. Most genealogy-related carnivals accept posts from blogs as long as they are in keeping with the theme or subject matter and are submitted by the set deadline. The carnival host will create a “round up” posting listing all the posts submitted by other bloggers, sometimes with descriptions. Participating in a carnival is a great way to get a new blog noticed and to not only gain new readers and followers but also to create links back to your blog. Some examples:
• A Festival of Postcards
• Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy
• Carnival of Genealogy (the grand-daddy of all genealogy blog carnivals!)
• Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture
• Graveyard Rabbits Carnival
• Smile for the Camera
Memes. A meme is similar to a carnival but it has a looser organization and usually does not involve a summary or “roll-up” post on another blog. Think of a meme as being similar to the game Operator that you may have played as a child: you basically say something (by posting on your blog) and the next person picks up that same phrase and posts to their blog about it. Many times a meme can literally “spread like wildfire.” Memes usually involve fun activities that allow your blog readers to learn a little bit more about you. Bloggers like memes because it means one less idea you need to come up with for a blog post!
Some memes are scheduled on a weekly basis, publicized by GeneaBloggers and focus on specific topics:
• Black Sheep Sunday involves posting about a ne’er-do-well or black sheep ancestor in your family tree. Posts have included photos, newspaper accounts of crimes, etc.
• Madness Monday is a dual-purpose meme: participants post about an ancestor the may have had a mental illness or some other affliction or an ancestor that drives the blog owner mad because they can’t be located or key information about them is missing.
• Tombstone Tuesday is one of the simpler memes and involves posting a photo of the gravestone of one of your ancestors. You can choose to add a comment or back story or not.
• Wordless Wednesday is a meme whose popularity is not just limited to genealogy blogs but can be found across the Internet in blogs of all types. A photo is posted with only credit information (title, date, location and who owns the photo).
© 2009, copyright Thomas MacEntee
