Print This
Email This
Warning: This post does not have subheads, bullets, or lists. Just good old fashioned prose will fill your RSS feed today, so if you don’t have the time to read full paragraphs, I suggest you save this for later (or cheat the system and mark it as read, if you’d like). While I hope you stick around, I won’t be offended if you leave. We’re a fast-paced culture, and I don’t know about you, but I need a breather. Join me, if you can.
Last night, I had the fantastic opportunity to hang out at the Capital City Brewing Company with some of the brightest bloggers from Gen Y. As many of you know, I am part of the growing BrazenCareerist blogging community - a group blog written by Gen Y professionals - and the guys behind BC, Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh, hosted a meet up for those in the D.C. area. Besides being a great time, the event also rekindled my passion for writing… which was the whole reason I started blogging back in November.
While sipping a beer and mingling with my new friends, Ryan Healy made a joke about how all he seems to blog these days are “5 ways to do this” or “7 ways to do that.” I laughed, and nodded in agreement - my post from yesterday was exactly that.
“But, that’s all people seem to read,” Ryan said.
It’s true. According to my WordPress stats, my most popular posts are my “how to” guides. If a post doesn’t have subheads or lists, I can almost guarantee my readership will be below normal. I stood there thinking about that, when I realized something: I’m not getting paid to blog - I’m doing this for me to help hone my writing skills, to do something I love doing, and to interact with others who might have similar interests.
But the blogging community can be harsh. When I graduated from college and made the move to D.C. to start my first job, I stopped blogging with any sort of regularity. It was a very stressful time for me and blogging was one of the last things on my mind. I knew I was losing readers and fewer people were linking to me or stopping by for a chat in my comments sections. It came to a point where I dreaded looking at my site stats almost as much as my depleting bank account. Both result in unnecessary bouts of high blood pressure.
Slowly, I started blogging again but nothing changed. Visits to my site stayed static, even on days I posted I’d only see a slight jump. Defeated, I’d hang my head over my battered keyboard. Not even a year old, and my blog had already lost its momentum.
I would ask questions on twitter and no one would @reply me. I wrote what I thought were interested or helpful posts, and even asked questions at the end, with little to no response from my once engaging and insightful readers. I started feeling… invisible.
Talk about depressing.
I thought I had blown my chance and that my blog was fading from the tiny radar it was on a couple of months ago. Then, as I talked to the talented bloggers from BC last night, I realized how whiny and narcissistic I was being. I don’t mind if 500 readers turns into 200, and 200 turns into 10 - those are still 10 people I’m connecting to through my writing, something that would be much more difficult to accomplish without social media and blogging. Just look at all the great people I met last night, people I would never know if it hadn’t been for PR Interactive and BC.
For more timely, relevant, and engaging articles, subscribe to Brazen Careerist.
Recent Comments
Popular Posts
12 RESPONSES TO "I FORGOT WHY I STARTED BLOGGING IN THE FIRST PLACE. DID YOU?"
It's a good question to ask ourselves about most things. Recently, after years of amateur photography, I've started asking myself why I spend so much time and money on something that I have no plans to really go any further than posting on my flickr account. It goes a little further than personal fulfillment - when we create something, we want attention for it. But perhaps when we change our mentality to creating for ourselves rather than for others, we can achieve more than what we previously thought.
I feel like I'm not very clear - so simply put, when we do things for ourselves instead of for others, we aren't bogged down with others concepts of achievement and success. Now this may not work if this tool, blogging, isn't for self-fulfillment but professional/monetary gains. In that, it becomes a business and a job where you will lose inspiration often and will have to undoubtedly force yourself to "create".
@The Office Newb - I personally really like your blog. Its a shame that people act like that under anonymity. Don't give up - look at PT's blog. She gets the nastiest, personal comments I've really seen in whatever 15+ years of being online. But at the same time, its her being open about this stuff that really makes her advice more worthwhile and her writing better than just "do this, do that" type of advice.
Meg,
So true, I launched my blog 3 months ago and I often feel like I am writing to myself. We all have delusions of grandeur, I think, and think if we can connect with one, why not 3000 or 30,000.
Of course I won't give up dreaming but you nailed it on the head and so have many of the other comments.
From today on I write for myself, and you can check it out on my blog if you like, be sure to subscribe while you are there.
Brian
Sounds right on. The thing is, we have to remember anything we say has most likely been said before. BUT, not by us, not today, not in whatever way we have to say it. So, it bears repeating.
Humans love doing the same thing over and over, reading the same thing over and over. It's totally fine. Write what you like. Whenever I start to worry too much about what I write and want to censor myself or craft something targeted for a certain group, it is fear-based and that makes for bad writing (for me at least).
I figure, I've got to say what is on my mind, if I lose readers I lose readers, the ones that leave would go for some reason that I could never anticipate anyways. I think you have the right attitude, realizing the intrinsic value in blogging, for yourself, for the people who do find what you have to say valueable, etc.
I've stopped reading anything that starts with "X ways...". I never get much from them, and they are obvious Digg & StumbleUpon fodder. We all read ProBlogger; we all know how to drive the numbers. But do you know how to build a community? Otherwise, your Google Analytics account has more peaks and valleys than the Himalayas with a bounce rate that makes my bank account look good (hard to do).
I love to blog. I love giving a bit of myself in the process. And there's no way "12 ways to build an engaged community" could capture that. ;)
I enjoy blogging for the same reasons you do: because I love to write, connect with others and engage in intelligent discussions about real issues.
However, I've recently began to doubt whether about whether I want to continue blogging after a rash of negative, personal attack comments posted on my blog.
My policy is to not take these types of comments personally, but I find it difficult when the comments are a direct attack on me personally (not in any way related to my post).
How do other bloggers deal with negative feedback or, in Meg's case, lack of any feedback?
Milena and Holly: Thanks for your great insight. I hope I'm finding my way again, and even though I might still slip in some posts with lists and "how tos", I'll be sure to include personal posts, too. I definitely think I was being too critical of myself... exactly as you said, Milena.
Meg, glad you find some new insight to blogging and writing. I honestly can't stand the 5 easy steps to...posts. I mean yes, they're good but they're cliche. Maybe that's why I have a very low reader count? Hahaa. Here's to blogging just for the hell of it and the cool people you can meet along the way! Cheers!
The Office Newb: I'm very sorry that happened. I've never experienced personal attacks on my blog, but I have written controversial posts that generated a lot of comments that came close to personal attacks when people disagreed with me.
If these comments are the only reason you are considering putting an end to your blog, I wouldn't. If you blog about something you are interested in and enjoy doing it, keep on keepin' on.
But if these attacks are frequent and are really starting to bother you, I would consider putting up a "blog policy." I've seen some great ones that go something like this: This blog is my space, kind of my home away from home. While I welcome your opinions and value your insight, please treat this space as you would someone else's home. Voice your opinion without trashing me, and we'll be okay. However, if you are being too disrespectful, I might ask you to leave. Just because blogs are meant to be transparent doesn't give someone the right to bash your character on something that is just that... yours.
That's what I would do.
As for lack of feedback, I have decided to be more proactive - writing more, reaching out to other bloggers, reading more blogs and commenting on them. The usual formula. Hopefully I'll see some improvement, but in the meanwhile, I'm not too worried about site stats and metrics.
I blog almost entirely because I like writing and adding to a conversation in my niche. Nothing makes me happier when another blogger links me or references something I've written in a post. I probably do this to site's detriment, because I don't focus on the stats and traffic as much as I should.
Blog because you like to write and socialize with other intelligent, creative writers.
I blog to have a place for my overanalytical self to vent --- in a year of blogging I've gone from 350 to 3500 hits a month, so I'm also assuming that some of what I'm writing is relevant to someone some of the time -- but I'm not going out of my way to court comments and new visitors.
it's also depressing to note that all 3 top posts from last week are list positings. . . sigh
zak - I noticed that yesterday! I thought that was pretty interesting... and supported my theory a little bit.
GOT SOMETHING TO SAY?