Proverbs for Christian Blogging: Don’t Make Your Audience Throw Up

If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it. Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor’s house, lest he have his fill of you and hate you.

I’m in your house right now*. Kind of creepy, eh? It’s okay you let me in. I’m not some creeper that slipped in unaware. I knocked on your door and you let me in. When you clicked on this link you decided that you would give me an audience in your home. I’m honored.

I’ll only stay in your house for a short time. I’ll make a couple of salient points then quickly leave your home, hoping that it was a good enough experience for you that you’ll let me into your house for coffee again.

But what would happen if after our meeting I knocked on your door again…loudly…and then again…and again…and once more. Each time that you let me in I either bring up a point that I forgot to mention OR I essentially say, “Remember that time we had that awesome conversation? How bout you let me back in your home?” 

This is what it feels like on Twitter/Facebook at times when dudes link to their article five to ten times per day. No matter how creatively you reword the title or pull quotes out of that article, whenever I click on it and it sends me back to an article that I’ve already read, my stomach starts to churn a little.

Here are a few “rules” that I’ve set up for myself:

• Link to an article once when it originally publishes and once later that evening so as to catch a different crowd, never more
• Don’t re-tweet someone else’s comment about my articles or book. Only time I do this is if it benefits the person tweeting it
• Don’t write more than three articles per day
• Don’t troll around other sites trying to pimp my articles
• Point to other peoples articles more than my own
• Make sure that over half my tweets, etc. aren’t simply links to my articles

How about you? Do you get a little sick to your stomach when you click on a crafty link that sends you back to an article that you’ve already read?

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*Or I’m in your office, your car, or any other place that you’ve decided to read this article. Hopefully not in the bathroom because that’s just weird for both of us.