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There are many bloggers who blog about topics related to cognitive science and psychology. Popular bloggers have large numbers of readers.

I'm wondering if there is a way that we could approach bloggers in the psychology space to post a review of Cognitive Sciences Stack Exchange.

Questions: This raises a number of questions

  • Who could we approach? Are there any lists of influential bloggers in psychology, cognitive science, etc.
  • How should we approach them?

Also this post is also seeking others to contact relevant bloggers to ask whether they would consider writing a post reviewing this site.

Existing reviews

It might be useful to keep track of existing reviews (feel free to edit this question to add more):

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Although advertisements of the site are useful, I think it is much better to link to or advertise specific questions or chains of questions. This way the posts are less like advertisement and more about content. In this case, it is really about bringing interesting questions and answers to the attention of bloggers. If you follow a popular blog, and they leave an open question (or better yet, there is a hidden open question inside their blog) then ask that question on cogsci and then leave a link in the blog's comments. That could draw the attention of the author to cogsci as a tool they could use themselves. If the author starts using cogsci, then they are much more likely to actually incorporate its questions and answers into their posts.

Another avenue to attract users via blogposts is to look at blogoverflow. Some of the non-beta sites have their own blogs established and solicit posts from their regular users. Unfortunately the two closest exchanges (UX and Skeptics) seem to not have a blog.

Stats.SE has one, so maybe once we have enough interesting cogsci related questions someone could post there? cstheory.SE has a blog that is aggregated by the TOC blog aggregator, and if we get more theoretical questions of the or I could submit a blog post there.

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  • I think these are all great ideas. I particularly like the idea about asking questions on this site that pick up on interesting open or hidden questions in blog posts.
    – Jeromy Anglim
    May 13, 2012 at 7:31
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Thoughts on traffic from blogs

  • I think people who arrive at the site from such posts are more likely to become active users. Instead of people arrive as a result of searching for content, blog posts often discuss how the site is used and how to get involved.

Make the request not seem like spam

  • When approaching people to write a post about a site, it's important to not appear to be spam. I receive a few requests like this each year, and they are typically from people running spam site like "myfreedegree.net". Cognitive Sciences Stack Exchange is of course different.
  • I think it would help to use existing social networks where possible (even online social networks). Explain a little bit of the history of the site and where we hope to see it go. Explain a little bit why the readership of the blog might be interested in the content.

Who is effective

  • Bloggers with large numbers of readers/RSS followers: You can get a rough sense of the number of followers by looking at readership stats for the RSS feed in Google Reader.
  • Bloggers with a focus on scientific psychology/cognitive science/etc.: Obviously bloggers that focus on the topic of our site will be best. In particular, I think bloggers that have a rigorous scientific approach rather than a populist approach are more likely to have readers who would enjoy getting involved in our site.

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