Free Advice – Write for your Audience, not for your Peers

The wine blogg-o-sphere seems sick right now, contaminated with a nasty, dangerous virus and full of evil overtones. There is a self-absorption infection that is destroying that which makes us unique, and quite honestly, it’s making me sick. However, I’m curious if it will function like a blog-based form of natural selection, weeding out the weak in favor of the strong.

This infection seems to have caused perfectly good wine bloggers to stop talking about wine, and instead, to focus on their own insecurities precieved or real. Lately, we’re losing wine bloggers right and left in favor of wine blog critics or MSM (main stream media) bashers.

It needs to stop.

This BS in the wine blogging world is destroying that which we’re fighting for, to be taken seriously. If you want to write about wine, while gaining the attention of those around you, then start writing about wine and quit kvetching.

Wine bloggers are important; we all know that and MSM knows that. We are gaining respect, and we are making a difference. NO SANE PERSON CAN SAY WE AREN’T, but we won’t be making a difference if we keep whining about people not looking at us or arguing about ethics on our wine blogs, because that’s what the OWC, the EWBC and WBC are created for. Your blog is for your readers, wine lovers (or so I hope), and not for other wine bloggers. Aren’t we supposed to be expanding our circle of influence beyond our wine bubble community?

Now, if you’re Tom Wark, KVETCH away! Your audience is made up of wine bloggers and industry professionals who need this conversation, that’s why they read your site. But if your not running a blog whose audience is devoted to bloggers themselves, get over it and move onto the conversation about wine. Quit defending yourself and write something interesting about this beverage we love; something that will draw in non-blog readers to our small world and expand our influence. Look at Gary Vaynerchuck! This is a man who realizes that money and readership is based on people who are not wine bloggers. He’s talking to wine drinkers, not wanna be wine writers. He’s stepping outside the world of journalism and looking at wine consumers. He’s smart! There are others, and I’m not saying all of us are poisoned, yet. But there does seem to be a lot of wine bloggers right now who are confused about the wine part of their title.

Finally while I have you here, another thing that is irking me, please quit telling me about your new fancy way to rate wines, new disclosure policy or personal manifesto! TELL ME ABOUT WINE. Do some research on a wine subject and share. Cater to your readers,  but more importantly, write for the readers you WANT TO HAVE. Ideally, these are the same people who have no clue what Twitter is. These are wine consumers, the core readership that we want to convince. It does not matter what your “ethics code”, “tasting policy”, or “mannifesto” says if it’s not backed up by lot’s and lot’s of well written content. No one cares if you have a well written code of ethics if there is no wine content for it to relate to. Oh and guess what you can build trust and show that you are ethical but writing about wine! Often, and well.

If you want to rant about how unfair MSM treats you, fine, go for it, but do it someplace appropriate, and don’t complain if people don’t come to you for wine advice. Let’s see wine blogging rise up and become important, the only way we can, by writing about wine.

Ryan

BTW this blog is ABOUT wine blogging, so expect some more of this…if you have something you want to say to wine bloggers, tell me, we have room for wine blogging criticism here. Think of it as a safe place to talk to your peers, without polluting your own site! Where we can offer up tools to use, and ideas to improve our writing.