Blog to win friends and influence people

In the vein of Dale Carnegie’s classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Steve Rubel provides some excellent blogging principals to live buy.

Steve summarized Carnegie’s principals adding his own comments in italics.

Fundamental Techniques for Handling People

• Don’t criticize, condemn or complain. Advance or build on the dialogue, even if you disagree.
• Give people a feeling of importance; praise the good parts of them. Link to the posts you disagree with, but point out the parts you agree with too.
• Get the other person to want to do what you want them to by arousing their desires. Put another way, make dreams come true.

Six Ways to Make People Like You

• Be genuinely interested in other people. Read lots of blogs for different perspectives.
• Smile. Put your picture on your blog.
• Remember and use people’s names. Remember where you read things and credit the bloggers who wrote them.
• Encourage others to talk about themselves and listen to them. In other words, welcome comments.
• Discuss what the other person is interested in. Add value to your readers.
• Make the other person feel important. Take all your feedback seriously and adapt if needed.

Like Steve, I don’t always follow these principals. I especially need to work at taking criticism constructively and not condemning folks (unless they deserve it;) ).