Who’s Your Blog Coach?

Exposing The Phonies For What They Really Are 

Ok folks it’s that time again when the Bloke needs to dole out some digital tough-love to his so-called colleagues (because after all that’s what I’m known for).

Every day it seems there is another self-proclaimed blog guru showing up on our doorstep, and the favorite buzzword that’s been going around lately is the term “Blog Coach”.

On the face of it the term would seem self-explanatory, but the long and short of it is these so-called experts are posers recruiting minions to click on their ad-laden blogs or hire them as consultants/speakers and make them rich. (Or at least that’s the plan).

I won’t pull any punches here and I consider them phoney baloney opportunists for lack of a better word. I will not mention any names at this time to save them the embarrassment but you know who the fakes are (and so do they).

Someone has to make sure that standards are met and next time the Bloke might not be so congenial and decide to take these charlatans to task, one phony at a time.

Let me be clear — my beef is primarily with those who are trying to raise themselves to a level above the vast majority of bloggers in order to make money. But if they are going to call themselves expert then shouldn’t they at least adhere to some sort of reasonable standard?

Otherwise in my humble opinion they should just shite and get off the post pot.

What I find humorous about these characters is most of them are newbie bloggers themselves — some not even blogging hardly a year (if that). Please don’t bother bragging about how much money they make off the poor saps out there as if it were some badge of honor, because otherwise we would be handing out medals to bank robbers wouldn’t we. (That’s a rhetorical comment and needs no reply).

So what’s going on here? Don’t you think they ought to at least learn their chosen field first and become real experts before calling themselves one? (Or am I just being old fashioned). That includes learning the technical side of blogging as well.

Thank God my Dr. didn’t start practising on me before getting his credentials. It seems reasonable to me (or is that why they call it a medical practice). Whatever.

Most of them can’t write code, maintain or optimize their own blogs if their lives depended on it. Most of them don’t really understand the subject of blogging, can’t write a post worth a damn, and they copy, massage and paste information (I call it CMP) that they’ve stolen from Google.

But I have to admit they are very good at the art of bullshit and finding suckers who are happy to part with their money (and self respect). I’ll give them that.

Some even have the misguided audacity to mock basic blog maxims … saying things like it isn’t necessary to adhere to any sort of standards or to even spell check their posts for that matter. Crikey, I see this sort of arrogance as being akin to paralegals with little or no training and marketing themselves on the same professional level as lawyers.

A word to the wise — before you decide to follow the pied piper ask them how long they have been actually blogging. If one can really become an expert blogger in such a short time then I’m wondering what label I should be giving myself? Master Blogger perhaps?

Damn, someone’s copied that too! So who’s your daddy (or your mommy)?