We are now on day 24 of the Social Media Club South Florida’s 30-Days of Blogging Challenge. Traditionally I am not a very verbose blogger, preferring with post pictures up on my blog, and deliver any commentary via 140 character snippets on Twitter.

The 30-day challenge forced me to think ahead, line up interviews and then down and think a little more about what I was writing. This has been both fun and challenging.

One of the pitfalls of people who are just beginning to blog is that they focus on a very small group, specifically by blogging about Social Media. The trap here is that Social Media people are very active and you’ll find a quick audience, however you will find that it’s hard to reach out and get the attention of your non-technical audience which is a much, much bigger audience.

I try as much as possible to stay away from blogging about blogging, but in this case I’ll make an exception.

To try and figure out what people are interested in I cornered Alex Thompson and asked him some questions about his blog reading habits.

aGoC: How long have you been reading blogs for?
AT: About 5 Years

aGoC: What is your favorite blog
AT: Kentucky Sports Radio. I also read webpronews, because one of my buddies writes there and I generally like his writing style so I try to keep up.

aGoC: What makes a blog interesting
AT: When a blog can take topical content and mix it with Pop culture, I might not be interested in every single blog entry, but if they are well written I’ll come back for the content. GrantLand is like that.

aGoC: How many articles out of 10 would you need to enjoy to keep you coming back to a blog
AT: If I’m interested in 1 out of three

aGoC: Would you ever read a blog on a topic that you’re not specifically interested in?
AT: No, I only read blogs that I’m interested in. Sometimes if I see a lot of comments on a blog entry there are a lot of comments and I see that it’s getting juicy.

aGoC: But you read my blog.
AT: No, I just read the headline and see if it’s something that I’m interested in.

aGoC: Do you go to blogs or do you pop up on the facebook page
AT: Outside of KSR 80% of the blog entries I read come from my facebook

aGoC: I’m going to list some blogs, tell me if you read them

Gawker: Not really
QZ: NO
The Onion: only a link appears in my Facebook feed
People.com or gossip blogs like Perez Hilton: No

aGoC: Do you ever read any blog entries on Social media or marketing
AT: No

aGoC: Do you read political blogs
AT: If it’s funny, I guess I’ll read it. I read enough to keep the blood pressure elevated.

aGoC: How many times a day do people send you emails with links
AT: I don’t know, look in your sent email box.

aGoC: Do you ever comment on blog entries
AT: Only when people are being especially idiotic.

aGoC: Do you comment more when a blog has a Facebook Comment or a generic blog comment form.
AT: Generic form, I don’t like it when it leads back to my facebook.

Well, that’s about as far as our discussion on blogs went. While it was short it did provide some insight about what “normal” people are looking for in blogs.