Credit: soooo

Just like any career, blogging has its own myths. Blogging is obviously a hot buzzword these days. It has been for a while now. So it’s no surprise that people have some assumptions about what bloggers do and how much money they make. But those are people looking in from outside. There are plenty of newbie bloggers who have a set of unrealistic expectations when they get into this business. It’s too easy to assume that if Darren Rowse is making thousands of dollars a month from his blog, so can you. You may also assume that you can run a blog for just a few dollars a months, essentially keeping most of everything you make for yourself. In reality, things don’t work that way. A lot of things that people tell you about blogging are myth. The sooner you realize that, the better off  you are.

5 Blogging Myths

Get Rich Quick: there have been bloggers who have made it big time in a fairly short period of time. But 99.99% of bloggers don’t get to that point. And those who do have worked very hard for everything they have achieved. It’s easy to get encouraged by those $100K Adsense checks. But don’t ever assume anything unless you have all the facts.

Free Web Hosting: many new bloggers start their blog on WordPress.com or Blogger network. There is nothing wrong with that, but if you are serious about blogging, you should always take time to register your own domain and host your own website. As your blog becomes more popular, you will have to spend more money on hosting. But consider it an investment in your business.

Platform: many bloggers assume that if you choose Drupal or WordPress for your blog, you are going to have much more success as a blogger. I admit that WordPress has been a great help for me. The platform is very easy to get a handle on, and the plugins make it much easier to enhance my blog. At the same time, the same things could have been accomplished with Drupal or even Joomla. You certainly want to take advantage of a decent CMS for your blog, but don’t assume that you are going to make it big if you suddenly switch to WordPress from your old CMS.

Post Frequency: many bloggers assume that the more articles they write a day, the more traffic they are going to get. That could be true as long as your posts are all of high quality and valuable to your readers. But if you are writing extremely short posts that don’t add anything to your blog, then you may be better off posting less frequently to focus on the quality of your posts. Besides, after a while your readers get used to your posting frequency. Make sure you don’t set the pace too high to handle.

Social Media:  I admit that social media has been a game changer for bloggers. Sites such as Twitter and Facebook can drive lots of traffic to your blog and help your posts go viral. But don’t take social media as a silver bullet. Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites are not all about you. So don’t ever think you can just post your blog posts to Twitter and suddenly become a superstar. Getting traffic from social networking sites may look easy, but if you are not taking time to contribute and add value to the community, you are going to turn people off.

There you have it. One thing I have learned about this business (the hard way I must add) is one should not assume anything in the blogging world. If something looks or sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If you are planning to start your own social networking community, here are 5 content management systems you should try:

WordPress MU: the multi-author version of WordPress is very dear to my heart. A few years ago, I started a network to allow people to start their own blogs using my host. That was based on an early edition of WMU.  The solution is much more powerful these days.

BuddyPress: if you thought WordPress MU was great, wait till you check out BuddyPress. It adds a “social” layer over your WMU installation and makes it easy for you to grow your community and build your own social network.

Elgg: one of my favorite content management systems on the market. It’s a very powerful service that makes creating a social networking website around your niche a whole lot easier. Your visitors can have their blogs, participate in forums and groups, and do a whole lot more on your Elgg website.

Pligg: it’s actually one of the tougher content management systems to master but it’s one heck of a solution for anyone who is looking to start a social network. It certainly saves you money as you won’t have to start from scratch.

Ning: perhaps the easiest way to start your own social network these days. You can always use their free service or sign up for their premium features to use your own domain name to host your social network upon Ning platform.

Your turn: What’s your favorite social content management system?

When it comes to social blogging, there are really three solutions that matter. We’ve got WordPress Mu, which is the multi-user WordPress platform. We’ve got Elgg, which has won the 2008 social networking platform of the year award. Finally, there is Pligg which has been used for many popular sites such as Sphinn

So which one should you use? I think at the end of the day it all comes down to what you have in mind. WordPress Mu is, well, WordPress on steroids. It allows users to sign up for blogs and get their unique URLs on your server. I personally have tried Mu and failed a few times due to not being able to keep people conforming to my rules. Besides, it’s hard to keep spammers away from your blogging platform, so if you are thinking of setting up a WordPress social blogging network, then you may want to start thinking about hiring help. WordPress Mu does have a good community behind it so you are not alone if you get stuck.

Elgg is an elegent, facebook looking, social platform, and it’s a pleasure to work on. However, Elgg does not have as strong a community as WordPress Mu, and the new version which will be released soon promises to be much different than the old version. I am not sure you want to invest time into a technology that will be obsolete in a month. The are not many templates out there for Elgg either. So you don’t get all the benefits that you get with the WordPress platform.

Pligg is an excellent Digg clone social networking platform. It’s highly customizable, and it does have a community behind it. Just like Digg, you get featues such as “Spy”, and you can vote for stories or even bury them. Pligg is a high scalable yet demanding social networking platform. Sphinn, one of the most vertical social networks, runs on Pligg. But don’t expect Pligg to work like a charm with a shared hosting account. Pligg is too demanding not to have its own dedicated server. I have personally owned many Pligg-based websites, and in most cases they haven’t performed well on cheap hosting accounts. So if you are a start-up or afford your own dedicated server, then Pligg is an excellent choice.

When it comes to choosing a social blogging platform, you want your CMS to be highly scalable, flexible, and easy to use. At the end of the day, it all comes down to your taste. I personally like WordPress Mu as it allows me to host others’ blogs for free. At the same time, I can write code for it as I am somewhat familiar with the WordPress architecture. Many Web 2.0 gurus swear by Pligg or Elgg but it’s all a matter of what your want to do and which CMS you feel the most comfortable with.