Although I am trying to get some work done, I did take a look at a few of my favourite blogs today… and I’m disappointed. No stellar posts, too much junk about viral videos, posts that were just boring… hopefully, I can supply people something that bucks the trend with this post.

I will say that I’m tired of writing “useful” content as I’ve tried to do a lot of that for the blogging magazine – anyways. You see, one of the biggest things you’ll hear in the blogosphere is how networking is important, how networking is key, how networking will help you advance your blog. I certainly agree, however there’s been an insane number of posts on how to network, so I thought I’d take a light hearted look at it – things you should NOT do if you want to network with bloggers. If you want to piss them off though, feel free to use these tips.

1) Confuse them.

Bloggers hate being confused. Most bloggers (myself included ), think they know everything, so you confusing them will not just embarrass them to the extreme but also leave you with a laugh as you enjoy their reaction. Telling a blogger something like “the typographical layers of your posts do not capture fully the elements of thought that you were trying to impress upon your readers”, even though that doesn’t really make sense will confuse the living hell out of bloggers… and leave them scrambling for a dictionary while you try and stop snickering at their befuddlement.

2) Criticize aspects of their blog.

Criticizing aspects of a blogger’s blog is a great way (not) to make friends, especially if the only reason you contact them is to do so. Rather than being mean spirited, make suggestions for small improvements, then change your opinion after they do it. For example, telling them that the sidebar they have on the right would look better if it was on the left, letting them spend hours to move it the other side and then telling them that you were mistaken and the old style looked better is sure to win you their admiration.

3) Tell them Twitter sucks.

These days more and more bloggers are using Twitter… some of them swear by it, and will defend it strongly against any criticism. Telling a blogger who uses it that Twitter sucks might make him/her very angry, or worse they might even cry. Mention how distracting it is, how the whole website is essentially an expansion of Facebook’s “What am I doing API” and they’ll get even more distraught. Note, I’m still learning Twitter, so if I turn into one of those addicts, I have an excuse – peer pressure.

4) Play the guilt card.

Everyone hates feeling guilty. What you do is your approach a blogger, make friends with him/her. Make sure you let them know you admire them – that works well. After a few days, ask them if they can write posts on your blog unpaid for a month, because you’ll be on holiday and can’t be bothered to update. When they try and worm out of it, as well… no sane person would agree with such a deal, play the “I thought we were friends” card – adding a sad smiley face if you’re on instant messenger works even better. Telling them that they are selfish and you expected better of them is something that will make them feel even better about life.

5) Become their groupie.

Every blogger loves having fans – the only person I write this blog is because of the people that read it. However, you can annoy a blogger by going a bit too far. Set up a Google Alert so that you can be notified every time the blog name or personal name of the blog owner is mentioned, and leave comments on all those posts proclaiming your love for the blogger (or bashing the writers of those posts if they are negative).

Eventually, if you leave comments on enough blogs (leave some on irrelevant posts too, just to really work it), the blogger will notice, as most bloggers read blogs in their niche, especially when they see the pingbacks under their Wordpress dashboard. Telling the blogger that you are getting tshirts made to support his/her blog, or if possible that you are going to name your next child after him/her is something you can further do to build a promising relationship with them.

6) Try and stamp your views on them.

Know a blogger that feels strongly about something? Be it using a partial RSS feed, how Entrecard sucks or even that John Chow is the king of the blogosphere… what you do is you take that view, twist it around and argue the opposite. Even if you don’t believe in it, argue for the heck of it – bloggers tend to get riled up fairly easily when talking about topics they have a strong feeling on, and all you have to do is mention the word to set them off.

Do not agree with what they say, even if you feel likewise – remember, I’m teaching you how NOT to network with bloggers. The bigger a blogger gets, the more s/he tends to expect people to agree with them, so buck the trend and have some fun

Note, this post is not serious, and as long as you don’t do the above to me go wild I don’t recommend that you do the above to any blogger. Hope it made you laugh, and if not I’ll try to work on my comedy. Beats a video talking about shit any day, doesn’t it?