The Blog and Beyond: The Future of Write the Vanguard!!

The Blog and Beyond: The Future of Write the Vanguard!!

  Friday, July 11, 2014    byak

---

To be blunt, I want to do more.

Two days and seven months ago, I created Write the Vanguard, a blog that me and my friend would put our effort into in order to amplify the Cardfight Vanguard community. It's been a long and bumpy ride up to this point, and along the way I've had multiple concerns over its status and position. Managing a blog like this is super fun, but I do feel like I have the potential to manage a lot more. While content creators tend to keep their expansions to themselves, I want to be more open with what I want to do, as it involves the community around me in order for it to work.

The Problem: Content

My first concern rises from the content itself. To be more specific, I'm unsatisfied with the variety of content, frequency of content, and timing of content. While I feel it's unnecessary to load up the statistics of this blog, I'm still confident that a majority of the articles that I regularly write are Deck Checks. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, since you know, everyone loves to read about how new decks work, I wouldn't say it's a good thing either. I personally feel Deck Checks are growing stale. This doesn't mean I want to cut them out from the blog, it simply means I want other content threaded between them.

Back when I first started Write the Vanguard, I had three different types of articles in mind: Deck Checks, Vanguard 101, and straight up news posts. Deck Checks were certainly easy to get off of the ground, but I found it difficult to continue Vanguard 101. The thought of picking it back up has recurred to me multiple times, but I can't wrap my mind around what would satisfy the needs of a full length article that also applies to a majority of readers. I definitely want to keep writing Vanguard 101, but I can tell I'll need time to plan ahead for it, so stay tuned.

News posts still linger around from time to time, and I'm not upset at them. Of course, I'm not pleased either, since I either end up covering things too late or not at all, but they're not in that bad of a position. I need to get myself to be more consistent with news posts, so that's also on my to-do list.

The idea of news posts also ties into my other concern of overal content, frequency and timing. As embarrassing as it feels for me, Write the Vanguard has no proper schedule. It was originally planned to have a schedule, but we were unable to keep up with the theory. There have also been times where I've just straight up blocked on writing, being unable to produce content for a streak of days. Another problem I plan to fix, but of course, it won't be easy.

The Solution: Team Effort

Conveniently, the best way to tackle all of these red areas is to acquire more writers onto the team. If I want a blog that can output a variety of posts in short, yet lenient intervals, the easiest solution is to have more people writing them. While I won't quit writing posts for Write the Vanguard, it's definitely not entirely up to me to expand my team either, since this kind of job is voluntary. I'm not writing for a profit, and any other writers wouldn't be either, as it's all just for fun.

Do you like to write? Do you want to help open up the Vanguard community in a somewhat unique way? Consider volunteering to write with us! If you find yourself having trouble starting something like this yourself, this is the perfect opportunity. Given we like what you can do, we can put you on the team without any hassle, so you can get your voice out to the rest of the Vanguard community! You'd have the opportunity to start your own segments as well, and I'd definitely give you a say in team decisions. So if you're interested in a position, send an email to writethevanguard@gmail.com to apply and we can work things out from there.

And of course, if you're not sure yet, stay tuned, because I'll be putting out a more detailed post on the subject in the future. Feel free to ask comments down below as well if needed.

Community

Aside from content, another topic that has been on my mind is the idea of community. While I've been writing for a decent amount of time, I've never really felt like I've created a following as a result. The feedback has been very minimal, making it feel like people stumble upon this site from Google searches and leave, rarely returning for more.

I don't want to believe that's true, and I want to make changes that make you, the reader, more comfortable with providing your own input and becoming involved. Thus, I want to take advantage of social media to expand the influence of the blog.

Twitter

The first and most simple idea that came to mind was creating a Twitter account for the blog. It doesn't seem like much, but it's a simple approach to spreading the word of the blog, while also providing a service that can tell you when new posts come out! Of course, if you follow our official page @WTVanguard, you'll be able to catch when new articles are released from our tweets. There could be other potential things stemming from this, but that's a long way down the road.

I figured that the Followers feature that Google offers wasn't the most appealing and efficient way to "subscribe" to a blog. Twitter on the other hand is widely used and easy to use, making it easier for a reader to keep updated with the blog. The Twitter account is still in its newer stages and doesn't look very fancy right now, but eventually we'll be able to make it look nice, so no worries!

Youtube

Initially, before Write the Vanguard surfaced onto the internet, my plan was to start a Youtube channel, featuring content that would be a bit more difficult to display via a blog such as actual matches and more Deck Checks. Unfortunately, my current living situation has made the production of videos like those a bit difficult, and I set the idea to the side in order to start the blog. The idea still rolls back to me, as do most ideas I put off, and to be honest, I still really want to boot up a channel as an extension to Write the Vanguard. It's not going to be setup overnight, but it's also down the road, so expect it eventually!

Though while we may not be able to produce video content yet, another idea that I have is affiliating with other Youtube channels and content creators. If you have a channel that hardly racks up views compared to some of the other big names, shoot us an email at writethevanguard@gmail.com and if we like what you make, we can set up a partnership! Write the Vanguard gets a few hundred hits per day in its current condition, and if it picks up, the amount of hits it gets could go up even more, resulting in a lot of publicity for content creators who are trying to get off the ground. So if you're interested, speak up!

Even if you're a big name content creator yourself, we're still open for partnerships! Given that the partnership is mutual and both creators promote each other, Write the Vanguard is willing to work out a deal with you. So once again, if you're interested in a deal like this, speak up!

Feedback

When trying to sustain an online community, the most important factor by far is feedback, from both the content creators and the consumers. It means the world to me that my voice is being heard through this blog, but it would mean even more if my voice would spark discussion and conversation. Have a comment about a certain Deck Check? I read all of the comments that show up on the blog, and I'm always looking for discussion, so please, feel free to leave any comment you can. I would highly appreciate feedback on the ideas brought up in this post as well, because while I might have plans to expand Write the Vanguard, these plans can be improved based on input from you guys!

That's just about all I have for now. As I've said a thousand times before, I want to take this blog and bring it to greater heights. It's doable, but it's certainly not doable alone. Remember, if you're interested in writing for the blog or partnering up with your Youtube channel, our official blog email is writethevanguard@gmail.com, so feel free to contact us there. Additionally, if you're a content creator that doesn't use Youtube as a medium, we'd also be willing to look into a partnership, depending on what you actually do.

As always, thanks for reading, and the Witch Deck Check that I talked about will be out soon, so don't count us out for that. :P