Blogging Memes: Are They Worth It?

Once you start blogging, there’s a good chance that someone will tag you to answer specific questions and share the link love. These “memetags” come in all sorts of varieties from listing your top 5 XX (top 5 songs, favorite movies, books) to writing random stuff about yourself (ie 5 things people don’t know about you). The gist of the game is that you post your answers, link back to the original meme invite, and tag five new people to continue the thread.

Recently, Denise of the BlogSquad asked if it’s worth it to play along. She voiced that there’s no harm in doing so – that it can lighten your blog’s tone and boost your online networking – but that she prefers to participate in memes that are educational rather than self indulgent.

I would agree that they are virtually harmless to participate in, but personally, I find them annoying. Perhaps that is because they remind me of all those ridiculous forwarded emails that never seem to die – from the harmless long lists of jokes and top ten lists to more annoying “if you forward this, Bill Gates will donate $XX per email to some charity or send you an Xbox” and “if you don’t send this to 10 people, your best friend will die”. (And here are 11 Reasons You Shouldn’t Forward Me That Email.)

In terms of my blog, I guess I just don’t see why people would care what my top 5 movies or songs are… or any other random facts about my life. It’s one thing to write on a topic that’s relevant to the blog – ie the “Top 5 Things I Learned From Blogging” or “3 Books I’d Recommend to Newbies and Why” – but all those other memes seem so pointless to me…

Which brings me to my next point – will the people you tag find the meme valuable and something they’d like to contribute to or does it just seem like another blogger begging for links?

My advice is – if you’d like to participate in the meme, go right ahead. But, be considerate of the people you tag. Don’t tag people just because you think it would be cool to get a link back from their site. Instead, go read their blogs – is this something they’re likely to participate in? Have they participated in other memes? Would this make for an interesting post on their blog? If not, consider tagging someone else.

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