How Far Should You Push the Envelope on your Blog?

One classic way to build links and create a successful blog is by constantly pushing the envelop. I remember during the election season a few folks started political blogs just to stir controversy and engage blog wars. There were a few folks who started comparing Obama with Osama, calling the guy a certain terrorist, and questioned his country of birth. A few folks are still doing that, but we are not going to talk about the mentally challenged in this post.

The truth is, pushing the envelop is one of the best ways to engage users and get them to start discussions on your blog. If folks read your blog posts and feel nothing, then you are really in trouble. You are going to be very successful if you manage to invoke one of these feelings:

• Joy
• Fear
• Curiosity
  
• Anger
• Sadness

Now, you can break down each of those feelings and try to reverse engineer your way to a specific blog tone. But if you can’t evoke any of the above emotions, you are really in trouble. You can say that anger is probably the strongest emotion out there. Folks make irrational decisions when they are angry. They also go out of their comfort zone when they are angry, which means they are more likely to take time to put a comment on your blog or respond to other comments.

So how far should you go on your blog? It really depends how comfortable you are with pushing the envelope. You also want to consider your future. Anything that you put on your blog could be found by your future employer, so I’d be watching myself if I were looking for a job. Pushing the envelope doesn’t mean you should insult people. You can raise controversial points without insulting anyone (that’s what I recommend). Sometimes folks push the envelope and then go way overboard without realizing it. Certainly, being controversial pays in the blogging world, but make sure you don’t sink the entire ship in the process.