Overwhelmed. That’s often how I feel upon sitting down at my computer some evenings: too much to do, too little time, and, when the formers are conveniently in abundance, too little motivation. Am I lazy, overextended, or lacking time management skills? Nope. I’m just a growing blogger.
More than we bargain for
When most individuals get into blogging for the first time, whether for pleasure, practice, or profit, the expected return on investment is quite high. Spend fifteen minutes writing a blog post, tack on a picture, hit “publish,” and BAM– instant success, right? Not so easy. A blogger can have the most fantastic ideas, writing style, and talent and yet still fall her face if she never leaves her own website.
A successful blogger engages in dozens of activities in order to promote, enrich, and share content. Whether it’s building successful friendships on social networking websites, advertising to business and corporations, or doing extended research for a longer article, there’s always work to be done, even for a casual blogger.
What’s required?
What must a blogger do to stay on top of his or her game? I subscribe to Wayne Smallman’s theory of the “Social Loop”– that is, write, share, and promote. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it sounds: these three functions, simple while separate, quickly become an unworkable tangle to the amateur once they’re mixed together. It’s kind of like a game of rock, paper, scissors where nothing beats anything:
- Writing requires a firm knowledge of the subject at hand and up-to-date awareness of recent events and press releases, if the topic is timely. The unique format of blogging dictates that a successful post build in references (i.e., hyperlinks) to establish and maintain trust.
- Sharing the quality content of others is a necessary social good to ensure an audience that you have a wide-encompassing perspective that includes more than just yourself. A successful sharer is engaged on a number of sites including Digg, Mixx, Google Reader, del.icio.us, and others. Unfortunately, becoming a well-respected contributor on these sites requires a good deal of time that might detract from the quality of your writing.
- Promotion can only occur when the Internet trusts and is interested by you. You can’t hope to successfully promote your content on sites such as the ones listed above unless you’ve proven yourself as an individual that intends good for the whole community rather than your individual interests.
Altogether, proficiency in these three categories requires familiarity with an overwhelming quantity of software and Internet utilities: content management systems such as WordPress or TypePad, social bookmarking websites, microblogging services, and more; the list goes on and on.
Something’s gotta give
The above list of requirements, fearsome as it is, only pertain to the “simple” act of blogging. When you consider that these activities must compete with real-world activities such as work, school, or hobbies, the blogging balancing act becomes significantly trickier. Can a blogger successfully eschew any of these activities?
Surprisingly, the community seems to suggest no, one can’t.
Daily posting seems to be the baseline, at a minimum. Attention to social media minutiae is a must. Self-promotion without reciprocation is unheard of. Fall short on any one component of the Social Loop, and the entire construction collapses.
Does this sound wrong to you?
I don’t know about you, but some of these expectations seem a bit unreasonable. As much as I love technology, the Internet, and computers, there’s no way I can make the sacrifice to tether myself to a machine all day to expertly execute all the concepts of the Social Loop.
The question is: do you judge me for this? Do you judge other bloggers for this? I’ve always thought that when an individual reads a blog article, they consume the content with an educated grain of thought. If this isn’t the case, perhaps I ought to buckle down and quit my day job!
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Somethings got to give, there just isn’t enough time in the day to do it all. I find it harder and harder to keep up, and giving up sleep isn’t a practical option. I’m trying to find the balance, lately I’ve been taking turns. I’ll write a bit one day then try to catch up on other people’s blogs another. Of course the unread list on Google Reader keeps growing, I’ve not Stumbled in weeks, and sometimes one just needs to turn off the computer and read a book to clear the mind!
Maybe there is a better way to do time management, perhaps a schedule, Tuesdays for blog reading, Wednesdays for Digging and Stumbling, Thursdays for Mixx or FriendFeed. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s all interconnected. When I start reading, that’s when I comment, that’s when I save to de.licio.us, share to Stumble, post a link on Pownce, etc. So perhaps, for me at least, that should be the focus. If one can start by consuming information (via blog reader or other) then the other bits naturally follow.
Instead of starting with Pownce or Plurk (which I’m cutting back on) I could start with Google Reader and work back out to the social world. You have to acquire knowledge to share it after all. So I’ll try that approach…as soon as I get back from holiday!
p.s. Is it just me or does your site design change weekly?
Heidi: Great thoughts. I absolutely echo your sentiment that it’s getting trickier and trickier. The literature I’ve read suggests it didn’t use to be so tricky, but the advent of Web 2.0 really muddled the whole thing up.
I’ve tried a schedule myself and it rarely works in my experience, too. For instance, my part-time work schedule over the summer is completely unpredictable, leaving me without any good time to write articles on a regular basis. It’s hard to cope with all the flux! The interconnectedness you describe is a great verbalization of some of my recent thoughts as well.
Starting with Google Reader is a great idea. Let me know how that works, okay? But enjoy vacation first, for sure.
(Yes, I have a problem. I wanted things more readable. This one’s going to be here for a while, though, as I invested in a premium theme in order to ensure the highest level of support, typography, and accessibility. [Not to mention shelling out cash makes it harder for me to submit to my own foibles and change designs again!] Your expert design critique is welcome as always.)
Blogged about it here, by the way: The Week of the Redesigns
I also find it crazy to try and keep up with all the things required as a blogger, but there are a few tools that can help you keep your head above water.
1. Ping.fm allows you to keep your followers up-to-date across multiple services (status messages and full-blown blog posts)
2. FriendFeed will help you to stay on top of the latest news if you don’t really have time to catch up on Google Reader. Try doing a search for “service:blog” or “service:googlereader”.
3. Leading off with reading is a great tip because this naturally leads you into commenting on other blogs, stumbling, Digg’ing, bookmarking, etc..
Rahsheen: Thanks so much for your comment and recommendations! I’ve been trying to get into Ping.fm a bit more myself– it’s tricky to walk the line between efficiency and content duplication, and that’s been something I’ve been trying to master.
What a great search recommendation! I’m definitely going to use that to start me off tomorrow instead of bushwacking my way through hundreds of new tech stories.
And I think you and Heidi are on to something with the lead-off strategy. Definitely going to make that the core of my plan of action.
Rahsheen: Thanks so much for your comment and recommendations! I’ve been trying to get into Ping.fm a bit more myself– it’s tricky to walk the line between efficiency and content duplication, and that’s been something I’ve been trying to master.
What a great search recommendation! I’m definitely going to use that to start me off tomorrow instead of bushwacking my way through hundreds of new tech stories.
And I think you and Heidi are on to something with the lead-off strategy. Definitely going to make that the core of my plan of action.