There are many ways to gain credibility in blogging, but I’ll just focus on one of them (to avoid confusion, side issues and what-nots).
When you write something in your blog and it gets read by lots of people, and then you subsequently edit a significant portion of your blog post (i.e., a key word or two), please disclose that fact right there in your blog post.
Of course, this is not some kind of rule of law. It’s really up to you, as a blogger. Hey, it’s your blog and your community. 🙂
Not that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s move on to other places on the web that talk about blogs and credibility…
Blogging, Journalism and Credibility (TheNation.com) — “We are entering an era in which professionals have lost their monopoly over information–not just the reporting of it, but also the framing of what’s important for the public to know. Have blogs chipped away at the credibility of mainstream media? How have they influenced the way news is being reported? Is credibility a zero-sum game–in which credibility gained by blogs is lost by mainstream media and vice versa?”
Building Blog Credibility – 11 Tips (Problogger.net) — “Perhaps in a similar way the opinion of other bloggers can be a factor in measuring how credible a blog is. This can be measured to some extent by the number of links a blog gets but probably some more in depth analysis of the type of links might be worth looking into.”
What Makes a Website Credible? (Slideshare.net) — Slide 7 shows that “credibility” is believability or a perception based on two factors: Trustworthiness (unbiased, truthful, good, honest) + Expertise (experienced, intelligent, powerful, knowledgeable) [hat tip to Lizz Fransen’s Why Should I Believe You? The Credibility of Blogging (LizzFransen.wordpress.com)]
Anyway, it’s interesting to see how some of the things you blog can influence other bloggers (i.e., their writing/editing style, their blog post disclosure behavior). No wonder some anonymous commenters view blogging as vibrantly dynamic. Now is that incredible or what? 🙂
