Rubbing Shoulders with the A-Listers

According to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, "An A-list blogger is someone who blogs and has a real or imagined large readership, and real or imagined influence upon real or imagined other bloggers."

What the hell does that mean? If I have an imagined readership and an imagined influence then I am an A-list blogger? I guess that I am an A-list blogger then. Woo hoo! Well, maybe not. I don't really have an real or imagined audience or a real or imagined influence.

If being an A-lister were that easy, we would all be bloggers. It seems like some people are shooting for that though. The numbers of bloggers are growing every day. According to technorati.com, there are about 70,000 new blogs created every day.

Click on above image to see larger graph.

With numbers like that, how in the world can a blogger rise to the top of the pile. According to Earl Mardle, in order to be an A-lister you have to "be wise, amusing, informative and get very lucky."

From what I've read on the Web (and, no I don't believe everything on the Internet) the blog world seems to mirror the business world. It's about who you know, who you associate with, and who you suck up to.

Mardle went on to say in his blog that, you have to write a lot and post a lot. Well, that make sense to me. As he puts it, "otherwise why would anyone visit?" Good question. He also says that it is important to contribute to other people's pages. In other words-€¦Network. Comment on other people's blogs, and then link back to your comments in your own blog. (But not just anyone's blog. It needs to be an A-lister.)

Further in my research, I found that having a niche is another key to becoming an A-list blogger. Scott Allen put it eloquently when he said, "First and foremost, as with any market, you first have to define your target, your niche. What do you have to say? And what's your unique angle on it? Figure this out before you start, because the blogosphere doesn't need any more navel-gazers."

I guess it all comes down to marketing yourself. Rub shoulders with the right people and write on the hot topics. With any luck you'll be able to break into the upper echelon and become a blogger with a real following and a real influence.