Blogging for Fun and Emotional Profit
If you blog as a bit of a hobby like I do, you do it as entertainment - somewhere to let off steam, share the funny moments in life, your photos, family, opinions or even get your house in order.
But sometimes blogging can become a chore. A monkey on your back. Something you HAVE to do to get the comments, the ratings, the stumbles….
Perusing the forums you will hear about Stumbleupon, Alexa, BUMPzee, My Blog Log, Entrecard…… a million ways to get more readers, more hits. It is easy to start thinking you have to do all these to become a successful blogger. While all this might be true, at the end of the day you have to slap yourself around the head and say:
Why am I blogging?
I started blogging to let off steam. To talk about my boy, Boo. The good, the bad, the fecal murals. To share what it is like to have a child with a disability that you love so dearly, but will eventually send you to an early grave thanking sweet Jesus for the sleep in.
And then it morphed into something more. I ‘found’ my blogging voice - albeit potty mouthed. I started blogging about the stupidities I saw in the world. The funny in the minutiae of life. And people enjoyed it. And people commented. And people linked to my madness.
Then for Christmas my husband, MPS as he is known on my blog, gave me the gift of self hosting.
And a whole new world of plugins, java script, communities et al opened up to me.
And CSS. Man, I hate CSS. More than fecal fingerpainting on the walls. Well not that bad. But I don’t likes it I tells ya.
So I started on my new site. And most of my lovelies followed me over. But my rankings fell. And I started obsessing.
That post got 30 comments, but this one only 18!!! OMG what am I doing wrong???
So and so stumbled my post but I am only getting a trickle of traffic! What do I do?
My Technorati rating is so bad and I don’t have as many fans as that blogger……
Rocking in the corner. WHAT have I done????
I was sitting up late into the night reading, reading, reading… obsessing on what to join and what to add.
The worst night came when I realised that Boo, accustomed to pulling all night dance raves in his room, was asleep hours ago and I was still up. Reading and researching.
STOP.
Pull back.
WHY am I blogging?
Oh yeah. For fun. And this isn’t fun. Bring back the fun, girl.
For the majority of us blogging will always be a hobby. Precious few make enough money to quit our day jobs and holiday in St Tropez with Posh and Becks.
In the great scheme of things blogging is a cheap hobby with wonderful benefits. The thrill of a new comment, a new blog to read, catching up with friends, meeting amazing people from all over the globe.
Or on our own doorstep.
And being a ‘top’ blogger? Icing baby. Just plain old icing on the most fabulous cake in the world.
And icing just adds extra calories.
You’ve hit the nail on the head.
Personally, I’m an old fashioned girl. All of this Entrecard and pleadings for ‘linky love’ and ‘puhleeze stumble me!’ smack of the sweatiest desperation ever. (And I’ve been on enough blind dates to know that pong isn’t sexy.) (Not that I’ve ever been smelly. But the stories I could tell….)
I’m of the whacky opinion that if you have the content, then your audience will gradually find out. And they’ll come and see. And if they like what they read, they’ll keep popping in. And they’ll let others know. And so it goes. Organically.
Which I think is growth that, while slower, is by far more solid than other growth won by hysterical pleas….
(Of course, I’ve only been blogging since September. What the heck do I know?)
Well said.
)
If blogging stops being fun, walk away and reconsider.
Word of mouth works very well so don’t sweat the stats - lurkers breed on every blog (that might explain the pong Frogdancer smelled
Besides, Posh and Becks are sooooo last season !
Nice one, hon.
Excellent post — I couldn’t agree with you more, even though my situation is a little different. I’ve been blogging for only a few months now and, so far, haven’t really told anyone but my friends and family about my blog. In doing so I’ve discovered that readership numbers just aren’t important to me. I have about four or five regular readers and, in some ways, my blog has become a substitute for e-mailing those people (all friends or family) with updates on my life. The few others who drop in every now and again are, like you said, icing. Instead, I’ve found that what I really enjoy is the writing, the story-telling, and the venting.
Who knows, though, there might come a time when I start to obsess and worry about readership numbers like you did. When that happens, I’ll be sure to refer back to this posting for a much-needed reality check. So, thank you in advance!
Great post Kelley.. I never stress about that stuff. I blog for me… there is a little button on my sidebar saying I blog guiltfree.. next time you come over to my blog click it..
There is one thing I am stressing about though.. How do I get my name on the blog roll over here??? hehehehe cheers Kim
(or don’t Tasmanians count as proper Aussies *snort*)
Great post. Good reminder about why we blog in the first place.
Excellent post. Exactly how I feel about blogging….I love the community feel about it but if nobody read my blog I would probably still write it (even if it is only my mum reading) I started to keep in contact with friends and family back home but in the end most of my readers seem to be other foreigners living in Japan, in similar situations to me!
I had never heard of stumbleupon until I joined aussie bloggers forum!
Looking forward to other posts by you Kelley!
Brilliant post.I agree 110% -
I would be sad if I didn’t get one comment but if 1 person is commenting that’s okay .
I love my hobby and my cyber friends
Hey Kim, you leave a post on in the right thread over at the forum to get your link put on the blogroll here.
Great post Kelley. I’m not worry about all the entrecard/stumble/etc stuff. The extra comments are nice and all, but this is more about me having fun and letting off some steam than knowing that bucketloads of people read my pearls of wisdom every day.
Well put, Kelley! We all need to have a reality check every now and then so that ratings beast doesn’t suck as in.
I don’t mind all the entrecard and stumbling etc…to a point. Its a good way to meet new bloggers and expand your readership, BUT only so far as it doesn’t overtake the actual blogging.
I’ve recently jumped on all those things and have found they do increase hits, but more important has been getting involved with things like Ausse Bloggers that increased readers. I’ve found that having more readers has increased the pleasure of blogging because there is more conversation now - not just for me on my blog, but for me on other people’s blogs.
I can see though that there’s a tipping point - the point at which all the other stuff detracts from the blogging and we all just have to find that balance.
spot on Kelley! It’s easy to get sidetracked and feel we have to do it all, and then forget why we started blogging in the first place. I had a bit of this myself a not long ago.
I get really sick of all the obvious ‘linkey love’ roundup ‘posts and a few months ago I got heaps of spammy crap comments from people wanting PR4 backlinks… I obviously annoyed someone who reported my blog as a spam blog and got it shut down for a few days when I disagreed with them.
Just before Christmas I thought about stopping blogging and then I realised I was blogging for ME. I don’t want to censor myself to keep a readeship, I just want to say whatever I think, and I don’t want blog promotion to overtake the fun of blogging.
[...] important to remember why we started blogging in the first place. Kelley wrote about Blogging for Fun and Emotional Profit: But sometimes blogging can become a chore. A monkey on your back. Something you HAVE to do to get [...]