Until my house sells, allowing me to move closer to work, I have a lengthy daily commute. During my drives to and from the office, I keep myself entertained by listening to talk radio.

There’s actually a very strong parallel between talk radio and blogging, and it turns out there’s a lot we can learn about blogging by listening to some of the most successful talk radio hosts.

Here are 5 things I’ve learned about blogging from talk radio:

• You don’t always need new material - just new callers
  Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman are both wildly popular financial gurus with talk shows (both on radio and television) and a very limited set of talking points.Every show consists of the following advice: Spend less than you make, work 2 jobs if you must in order to pay off your debt, don’t buy extravagant things you can’t afford. Despite the repetitive advice, people love to listen, because they love to hear the success stories and failures, and they like to see how the advice applies to others.Likewise with blogging - Shoemoney could post about how various advertising formats have worked on his sites daily and people would gladly come back for more.
• Being controversial is frequently better than being smart (or right)
  If you’ve ever taken a minute to listen to political talk radio, you’ll surely understand that the goal of many popular radio personalities is to excite their audience, not to accurately inform them.I’m not suggesting that we should slander anyone or try to offer inaccurate information, but if you can put a fun / controversial spin on your content, it will attract more attention.
• Let your audience do some of the talking
  Talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glen Beck could easily fill their entire shows with their own monologues… but that wouldn’t be nearly as interesting as engaging the audience, now would it?The same goes with your blog - afford your audience the chance to reply and reward them for doing so. It’s the reason many blogs (this one included) utilize Top Commentator plugins (or set comments to do-follow). Start the conversation and ask your readers to continue it.
• It matters how you say it
  Bad talk radio is REALLY bad. Good talk radio is really entertaining. The big difference? Rarely is it how knowledgeable a host is. More likely, it’s how the content is delivered. How confident is the host when making a point?Does Rush Limbaugh ever meekly make a point? No. Rush delivers everything as if he is THE authority on it. This emboldens people who agree with him and antagonizes those who disagree. Like him or hate him, he elicits a response from people.Do the same with your writing - if you think it’s worth writing, you should be able to write it with confidence. Anything you have to offer up meekly shouldn’t make it out in public.
• Tell people how great you are every now and then
  Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn a bit… maybe not as much as Rush (Excellence in Broadcasting network?), but if you have something worth crowing about, proudly announce it… and then use it to illustrate a point (this last part isn’t from talk radio, but it’s still worthwhile). People won’t mind your bragging if it’s used to help them some way.

So what have I missed? What else can talk radio teach us about blogging? Lines are open - comment below.