Like most things in my life, I am an accidental blogger. I’m sure I’m not alone in this either as most people I encounter have just somehow or the other got blogging without a campaign, agenda or even a voice. For the past few years though, I’ve been trying to figure out where I’m going wrong. Why is my blog not rocketing me into the blogosphere? There are hundreds of people like me who are personal bloggers , whose grammar and syntax is even worse than mine, so why am I still not even poised for take off?

Last year, I decided to pay a consultant who sadly took me for a ride and the only lesson I learnt is that one should choose one’s consultant well. My wrong choice meant that I was that much poorer in wallet and down even more in confidence at having been taken in by a trickster.

This Tuesday I came across NK at a tea party. NK was a middle aged grandmother like me, a self taught computer geek but with an aptitude for branding and marketing which she had honed as a professional in the advertising field where she’d worked several years. She was on a diet and while she watched me down bhelpuri after pizza, patiently listened to my woes. One thing led to another and I landed up at her home where she showed me where I was going wrong.

Firstly she told me that a personal blog is fluff or in other words mere entertainment. This is a vast field and very difficult to crack when you are neither a celebrity or an academic. According to her the way forward is with Twitter. It is with Twitter that one can make a dent in the blogosphere and develop a brand and hence a following.

This was indeed a revelation because I always thought twitter was what Tweety Bird did and that twitter was for twits especially of the teenage variety and was quite puzzled by all the tweets and re-tweets and favouriting and symbols that made up a tweet. How can one convey anything in 140 characters? How can everyone come up with funny and smart one-liners all the time?

Well, Social Media is the way of the future and communicating is everything. Consistent tweeting, net surfing and engaging with one’s followers is the only way to grow an audience. Identify your area of interest, follow the leader in that field, make relevant tweets and you will see a marked improvement in your blog’s performance.

Will she be proved right or wrong? I’m going to give it a try before endorsing this method to anyone. At least this advice was for free and the only thing I stand to gain is a painful wrist with carpal tunnel syndrome if not a wider audience!