Successful Blogs: Greek Tragedy Case Study

On Sunday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a piece from the New York Times News Service about Stephanie Klein‘s Greek Tragedy blog. Klein is basically the Carrie Bradshaw (HBO’s Sex and the City sex columnist character) of the blogosphere.

The article claims Klein’s blog is in the “top 1 percent of all bloggers” in terms of popularity. Klein is clearly doing something right because her blog has netted her a book deal and an NBC sitcom.

Greek Tragedy has such tremendous appeal because Klein comes off as disarmingly honest and breathtakingly candid about her own life and voyeurism has it’s own special appeal. Klein accomplishes what I always preach when people talk about wanting to do a blog: Be compelling and be consistent.

Consistency simply means that you have to commit to posting on a regular basis; once a week at the very least, ideally, every day. Your posts do not have to, nor should they be, long: It depends upon the audience, of course, but as a rule, brevity is better in this medium. So consistency is easy in as much as it’s simply a matter of discipline.

To be compelling, is a different story because it can be defined in many ways. There are a few elements, however, that most compelling blogs that I follow, share: They are 1) well written, 2) informative in a valuable way to their audience, and 3) personality driven (i.e. the personality of the writer shines through in the blog and that establishes trust).

Greek Tragedy shares all three of these elements. I only needed to read one post by Stephanie Klein to see that hers was a good blog. I’m too much of a cynic to not think that Klein knows the Sex and the City formula all too well, because her posts read like they were ripped from the pages of any City script. But, clearly, it works because her personality shines through the blog so it feels like she’s talking to you, it’s extremely well written, and it’s life-as-a-single-person-lookin-fer-love theme is informative for single people everywhere who share her feelings and/or experiences.

When people ask me for a good example of a blog, I usually cite my favorite Minnesota Twins blog, Bat-Girl.com or the ePR blog, Micro Persuasion, for the very same reasons I like Greek Tragedy: 1) well-written, 2) informative, and 3) personality-driven.

Keep these things in mind when planning your own blog.