Shaun Low

Ok, so what is a meme?

Well a blog meme is basically an easy way to build relationships and most importantly links with other blogs. So how it works is a blog or group of blogs comes up with some sort of idea…it can either be a post asking other bloggers questions like: Why do you blog? or 10 random facts about you. Whatever the meme theme is, it requires an initial action of a blogger to get the whole thing started. After the blogger decides on what kind of meme he wants to create he must reach out to his fellow bloggers by “tagging” them. All that means is link to their blog letting them know this meme has begun and hopefully other bloggers participate in it. If you want more examples of this I recently participated in two memes you can them check out here and here.

 

To keep the meme alive there must be strict and simple rules. Most memes I’ve seen are really simple, there’s normally a line saying “Start Copy” then there is the body of the meme, and a line saying “End copy”. The rules of the meme will let you know how to participate and keep the meme alive.

How do I get involved in a meme?

So now that you know what a meme is, it’s probably in your best interest to get involved in one! It’s easier said than done. You need to have built some sort of relationship with other bloggers to get tagged by a meme. If you have no friends and nobody knows about your blog you’ll probably never get tagged therefor won’t be able to enjoy the fun. If you have a new blog you should go around linking to other blogs, commenting on other blogs, participating in forums, do whatever it takes to build relationships with other bloggers. Darren over at ProBlogger has a nice article on building blogging relationships . And if it really comes down to it and you never get tagged you can always start your own meme .

I’ve been tagged, what do I do next?

This is the fun part! If you’ve been tagged just simply read the rules and follow them. Don’t make yourself look like an idiot and make a mistake when participating. Follow the rules exactlyand help the meme grow as much as possible. Just because you’ve been tagged this does not mean the incoming links will start rolling in and you can sit on your ass watching your Technorati rank jump through the roof. Actually it is the exact opposite of this. Once you’ve been tagged you have been basically been invited to help the meme grow. It started with one person and made its way to you. Your link will not be on the other blogs that have already participated in the meme.  Now that you have been tagged it is your responsibilty to tag other bloggers and get your link out there so you can start seeing the easy links coming in.

The best way to keep a meme alive once you have been tagged is make sure you tag other bloggers. Don’t go tagging the “Pros” like John Chow or Problogger or Engadget, they simply don’t participate in these nooby ideas. Their blogs are already great and their links come in naturally because they are so popular. The best thing to do is monitor other blogs to see who actually participates in these “link trains” or memes. Once you have figured out who actively participates in memes tag them! Note: To maximize the possibility of having everyone participate you should e-mail the bloggers that you’ve tagged to make sure they know what is happening. You can even just let them know by leaving a comment on their blog and link to the meme that you just participated in.

If you did your job correctly, didn’t make any mistakes, and if luck is on your side the people you tagged will participate and you should now see your links come in. Remember if you tag blogs that aren’t getting very good traffic, odds are even if they do participate, your end of the meme will die shortly and the links will very quickly stop coming in.

Memes not only give you a burst of links in a short period of time, it will also bring in some decent traffic. If the meme does well and there are many participants you can easily get a bunch of traffic to your site. Memes will not only generate some raw traffic but they will greatly increase your search engine rankings therefor giving your more search engine traffic.

Simply put, when a meme rolls around to you it is your responsibility to keep it alive if you want the flood of links to coming to your blog. If you do nothing to promote the meme then it will die on your end of it, but it might still keep growing with other blogs that participated the “right way”. Memes, if done correctly, can actually be very interesting. You can gain insight to other bloggers personality’s and their history. I strongly suggest bouncing on any opportunity you get to be included in a meme now that you know how to do it the right way .

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Blogging, The Net. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.