On The Air: Kevin McCullough

I suppose like many of you. I received an email this week from Kevin McCullough of the appropriately named Kevin McCullough Show. I've never heard the radio show but from the looks of it he seems like a devotee of Hugh Hewitt, the patron saint of many conservative bloggers. (I'm still a little bitter about Hugh though since I've never been able to penetrate the "inner circle" of bloggers he likes to mention.)

If you want to have a popular blog you should take a few lessons from what Kevin is doing...

Before you let your expectations get too high, remember that anyone who has a radio or television talk show has a built in web audience. Their volume of hits exist on a different plane than the rest of us normal bloggers. However, there are some things he's done lately to really kick up his numbers and those things offer some good lessons for the rest of us.

KMC's blog strategies:

1. He makes a personal connection. He recently sent out emails asking to be including on the blogs of others. Instead of looking like a form email (which it was), it looks like he's picked your blog from among many because he finds your posts so engrossing and profound. The reality is that one of his staff did some research and found a collection of blogs that roughly correspond to the same political and religious views. Because those are potential listeners and readers, he invited them to link to him knowing full-well they would come visit his weblog.
   
2. Nearly every post has at least one link back to a blog and prominent mention of that blogger's views. All it takes is one post like that and many bloggers will feel indebted for life.
   
3. The stories he does are all very mainstream. In other words, they're things that nearly everyone can relate to. Many bloggers make the mistake of getting so deep into the subject that they run the risk of boring readers to death. I enjoy researching things and getting every little tidbit of information, but in reality, most people probably don't want to read that much. Most people, it seems, just want a quick little blurb that makes a point so they can move on to something else.
   
4. He keeps it light. I suppose this is very similar to what he does on the radio. No one wants to feel bummed out when they listen to the radio or read a weblog. Even serious subjects are given a lighter touch and he's not afraid to poke a little fun of himself either.
   
5. The weblog is easy to read. There isn't any complex design. It's just real straightforward - almost a little cluttered at times - but you don't have to look real far to get a good idea of his views. (A pet peeve I've had lately is blogs that don't fit into the browser horizontally. Instead you have to scroll to the left or right to see the whole thing. I hate that!)

However, there are a few things that I'd like to see him do differently.

First, I can't find anywhere to leave comments. I'm sure people can do this on his talk show but I don't see anywhere to do that on his weblog. Second, I don't see a way to link to individual posts. If I link to him, I'd like him to know it and I'm also going to be a little more hesitant to link to yet another website outside of his blog. For example, I'd like to comment on the post about Dodgeball which he references on his blog. But to even find the link I had to follow another link to yet another blogger who found the dodgeball article he had written at WorldNet Daily. (By the way, I love dodgeball. Always have, always will.)

Finally, Kevin has taken the liberty of sending out daily email updates pointing back to his weblog. As much as I enjoy them, I don't necessarily want a daily email to add to the tons of spam that I currently receive. Maybe a weekly update would be better?

I enjoy checking out KMC and I would encourage you to check out his site too. He's doing some good things there that can teach a few of us some new tricks and he's fighting the culture war along with the rest of his. He needs out support so let's give him some.