Blogging is all the rage and chances are that most people who are articulate, well read and have a flair for writing think they can blog and take the plunge in to blogosphere.
While some of these people succeed at blogging and even get better at it over a period of time others end up feeling drained out and very often buckle under the pressure of coming up with new topics and content to blog about. Blogger burn out or blogger’s block is something that you are bound to encounter if you do not align your blogging goals with your expertise and ability.
To succeed at blogging you need to avoid certain mistakes but first you have to recognize and realize that blogging is a process, it’s not a task or an activity, it is a series of tasks and activities.
Assuming that you like me love blogging and want to enjoy it while making money, creating value and sharing your ideas here are 5 blogging bloopers to avoid…
I Don’t Know What My Blogging Objectives Are
“Well, at least I thought I knew but a few blog posts down the line, I really don’t know where this is going”. This is something most people who are not passionate about writing will feel that too very early on in their journey as bloggers.
I just mentioned that blogging is a process and the right way to kick start that process is to determine your objectives for blogging. Get this right…YOUR objectives not someone else’s objectives. Your objectives should dictate what you want to achieve with your blog.
Let’s say you want your blog to become a news source then you need to post multiple, brief yet informative posts. But if you want your blog to help market your writing skills then write lots of articles in various genres to help people discover your writing potential.
Don’t start blogging first and think about your objectives later.
Blogging is a Full Time Job
Blogging need not be a full time job, even if that’s the only thing you do. Trust me the time and effort most of the blogging gurus say go in to blogging seriously is about 20 minutes in a day. That’s all really.
While content is king, you don’t have to work at generating topics through the day and neither do you have to write around the clock. Bloggers who dump everything else to eat, live and breathe their blogs will soon run out of interest simply because they put too much pressure on themselves.
The thing about blogging is that when you don’t enjoy it, it seems like a monotonous chore and that will shine through your blog posts. Your readers will be the first to pick up these cues much to your own detriment.
Here’s another misnomer born out of everyone from parents, to teachers, to mentors and bosses egging us to work hard…we end up blogging hard not blogging smart!
Trying too hard won’t work so blog smart. Find areas and topics where people are looking for solutions. Don’t just pick up things because they seem to be in the news like a blog about World Cup Cricket will retain reader interest for as long as the tournament goes on but it is not a place people will come to for solutions.
I Have to Adjust to My Readers
No, it’s really the other way round. Your readers adjust to you. It’s true…consider this; you expect the newspaper to come every morning because that’s the publication schedule. But you don’t expect a monthly magazine to come every day or the Sunday edition of your newspaper to come more than once a week, do you?
The important thing about blogging is that you shouldn’t feel obliged to blog. Your pool of readers and subscribers can grow and traffic can increase even at your own pace of posting. You don’t HAVE to post everyday to get traffic; you can post just once or twice a week and still manage to generate traffic and interest in your blog.
People’s expectations will develop and grow depending on what you give them. Take it from there and see how it works for you.
Changing Your Vision
Clarity about what you want your blog to exemplify is one of the most crucial aspects of blogging. While reinvention is important changing your vision is not advisable. Your core values should remain the same. This requires a lot of self belief and patience.
If you give up too easily and keep changing what you stand for then people will end up confused about your core values. This is a fatal mistake in blogging and personal brand building. Consider the most enduring brands and you will learn that they have stood for essentially the same thing since inception. That is what sets them apart and you would do well to remember this.
Undermining the Importance of Social Networks
Facebook and Twitter are here to stay. If you’re not here you may as well not have a life! Sad but true in some ways…Apply the same to your blog.
Getting a Facebook page for your brand and “tweeting” your progress and sometimes not so great experiences are vital in leveraging your personal brand identity.
Don’t frown upon social networks, instead use them to build your following and watch your blog grow.
So there it is…blog smart, enjoy it and build your brand while you keep your objectives in mind and retain clarity on that front.
Do you think my ideas about blogging bloopers make sense? Have I missed out on something? I would love to hear about your thoughts on this!
I agree that it’s better to blog smart rather than blogging too hard. But of course overdoing it is easy to do.
One way around this is to just start other blogs on subjects that you are interested in. A change is as good as a rest, as they say. So you can hop from one to the other and always retain enthusiasm.
(Although if you’re not careful you can end up with too many blogs to update, which can be a different kind of problem.)
Right Matt, having too many blogs could turn out to be more of a mistake.. That’s not smart blogging (even if you know a lot about the matters on hand), how would you do justice to all that stuff? Hopping from one thing to another to retain enthusiasm is one thing but biting off more than you can chew and loosing focus is quite another and detrimental too.
Thanks Paul
Yes, one has to sit up and take notice if blogging seems all consuming and it is hard to accept that readers really adjust to you when you start out because you are really trying so hard to get people interested and retain that interest.
Mariam
You have made some good points. The part about blogging becoming a full-time job is true. By having your blog consume your entire life, adds that unwanted pressure of keeping up, and may also cause you to lose interest and faith in what you are doing. I try to publish 5 times a week, but I don’t stress out about actually publishing that many times.
As for adjusting to my readers? This one was a hard point to accept when I started blogging. I always felt that I had to live up to my readers expectations, instead of what I wanted to write. I learned that my blog belongs to me, and I have complete freedom what I want to write, and how I want to write it.