Broadcasting Brain

 In this series of articles, I’ve been comparing blogs to islands. After introducing the concept in the first article, I described some of the possible pitfalls in having a blog that’s like a remote island that no one knows about, no one can find, or that they might not like to visit.

Today I’d like to look at this model from a slightly different perspective. How do you get in contact with a blog (or, more accurately, the blogger or editor who publishes the blog)? Maybe you want to comment on a blog post – that’s easy enough. But what about asking a blogger for:

• Their opinion
• A link back to your site
• A guest posting opportunity
• Help in a business venture

Please note that this article is intended for you to make benign, mutually beneficial contact with other bloggers. In no way, shape, or form do I condone anything that even remotely resembles stalking or harassment. People have a right to privacy, including the right to be left alone if they wish.

Although the Web is capable of linking any website to virtually any other site, communicating with people is not the same thing.

Dunbar’s number (normally represented as 150) is often cited as limit to the number of relationships that any one person can have (although this article does make an interesting analysis of this topic.) Whether or not this value is correct or not, it does make sense that there are limits to the number of meaningful relationships that one can have or acquaintances one can develop, if only because we all have limited time to socialize.

In the Bridges game, I noted that any one island can only directly connect to up to four other islands. This isn’t realistic either: most of us will develop relationships of some type with dozens if not hundreds of other people. Some of the relationships will be deeper and more meaningful than others. It might seem to be impossible to get in touch with an A list blogger (those mighty souls with enormous subscriber counts that get talked about and linked to by a lot of other people) who is, at the end of the day, human like the rest of us.

If we limit our thinking to the Bridges game model, we might despair because the limitations on personal contact are so striking in this model.

However, here’s three possible ways to work past this potential limitation.

1. Go direct

Fortunately, most bloggers include contact information where you can somehow get a message to them by E-Mail. If you’re really lucky, they may publish their Instant Messaging account ID or a telephone number.

You could also comment on their blog. Unless they are so completely swamped in their work and personal lives, the vast majority of bloggers read comments (I know I do!)

You could also link to their blog, which they can normally detect through their blogging software. You can use trackback functionality to turn a link from your blog post into an entry in the comment section of their blog entry.

If you do want to contact a blogger directly to get their assistance, I recommend that you read Darren Rowse’s post on how to pitch to a blogger.

2. Go through an intermediary

The silver lining in the Bridges model cloud is the knowledge that every island ultimately links into an unbroken chain. As the famous experiment once showed, on average there are no more than six degrees of separation between any two people because of the way our networks of relationships develop. Ultimately we are all connected.

The answer here, then, is to examine your own network of relationships to see how close you can get to the blogger than you want. Maybe one of your friends is a friend of the blogger in question, or a friend of a friend. If you look long and hard enough, you should be able to find a connection

3. Join the same groups and use the same media

If you do some of the same activities, join up with the same networks, or otherwise “shadow” the other blogger’s activity, you may be able to create a situation where you can get in contact with the blogger in question. I’m finding that Twitter is turning about to be a great way to do this. I’m actually being followed by a couple of A List bloggers through Twitter, mainly because they like the ability of Twitter to facilitate quick and easy communication with many other bloggers.

Message boards, Ning groups, and other social news/social media sites are providing other great ways to make these contacts. It’s especially useful if these groups are ways to share and promote common interests. Just make sure that you understand the rules of conduct for each site that you sign up for!

So there you have it. Bridges is a concept to help illustrate the opportunities and challenges inherent in getting in contact with other people. Although direct communication is sometimes challenging, remember that we are all connected in some fashion. Use this concept to stimulate your thinking and come up with practical and creative ways to reach out to other people.

I hope you’ve found this short series of articles to be entertaining and useful.

Please let us all know what you think about these ideas - leave a comment!

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