Blogging Don'ts #7: "Don't talk down to your readers," or, "How Joe Morgan ruined major league baseball for me"

Don't ever treat your readers like children. Treat them like intelligent adults. Write your posts assuming they have a basic knowledge of what you are writing about, because lets face it, if they didn't, they wouldn't be reading your blog anyway.

This means that there is no need to explain every little thing about your company or product in minute detail so a third grader can understand it. That type of writing is called boring and fails to teach anything to people who were savvy enough to find your blog in the vast space of the internet in the first place. Let AOL cater to the dolts of cyberspace, you want people that actually know how to use the internet to get useful information. Your job is to fill your blog with exactly that useful information, delivered in a concise, intelligent manner.

I used to watch baseball with my father every Saturday during NBC's game of the week when I was growing up. This is when I first drank beer poured into a Tupperware cup by dad, while we listened to Vin Scully and Joe Giragiola make jokes, talk about the teams, and generally give an entertaining play-by-play.

Those days are over. It's difficult to find announcers that are the least bit entertaining these days, and impossible if the game is being broadcast on ESPN or Fox. The announcer that especially gets me going is Joe Morgan.

Joe Morgan was a great player, but frankly his baseball career should have either ended there, or as a coach. As an announcer, he's unlistenable, at least for me.

Why? Because he talks to his audience as if they have recently arrived from another planet and have never seen a baseball game before. (And he has no sense of humor to speak of, but that's secondary.)

One of the great things about being a fan about a sport, a tv show, or a blog, is that you have "inside information." You know things that non-fans don't know. That's what drives you to watch your team, your show, or read your favorite blog.

Joe Morgan spends his time as a commentator telling you what he thinks are insights to the game, but in fact are usually the very basics to anyone that has watched more than a season of baseball on television. Boring. It's almost as if he is trying to bring baseball down to a level where anyone can understand it. While this is great for my girlfriend, she isn't the one watching the game, I am.

So don't be like Joe Morgan. Be like Vin Scully when you write your blog. Entertaining, informative, and never one to talk down to his audience. Even if his play-by-play is absolutely heartbreaking:

Little roller up along first . . . behind the bag! It gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight and the Mets win it!

Comments

[Dawud Miracle]

Great post. You did a nice job at getting the point across. I think personality is as much a part of blogging as anything else. So I would add, give your readers a real taste of what you're like. Let them experience not only what you know, but who you are.

[eljefe]

Wow, that's tough. You might as well say "be a golfer like Arnold Palmer." If I could be 1/10 as good as Vin Scully I'd be thrilled! No one can call a baseball game like he can... but I do get the point - nice point, and post!

[Brian Brown]

Well...if you're going to be a golfer, I suppose you should try to be like Arnold Palmer. This is why I don't golf!

Actually, in describing golf to my girlfriend the other day, I told her it was the worst game in the world. No other game frustrates 120 times in one game, yet if you succeed just once (one good shot), it brings you back again and again for years. I hate golf (and love it).