How to Revive a Stagnant Blog
February 11, 2009
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Getting back in the game.
Sooner or later it happens to most every blogger. One day you turn around and find that your blog has been neglected for far too long.
Unless you are remarkably disciplined, have an incredibly structured life that never has surprises, or have partnered with a co-author or two life is bound to get in the way of your blogging. And it is especially true if you are blogging for your business.
As an entrepreneur you may be in a situation where you have to do it all. Keeping up with your blogging can be especially challenging.
Starting Back Up
How do you get started again?
This is going to sound overly simplistic. And it seems kind of obvious.
What you should do is sit down and write a blog post.
No secrets or tricks required. Just start posting again. Blogging is not rocket science.
Keeping What You Had
One of the beauties of blogs is that even if you neglect them for a bit, whenever you do decide to get back to them they are still there.
All that page depth and the incoming links that you built up when you were blogging will still be there when you get back to it.
Sure you may lose some of your audience, but if you had been emphasizing RSS subscriptions, many will still be there once you come back as well.
Big Mistake
Here is one thing you shouldn’t do. Don’t apologize for being away. Your readers know.
Besides how many blogs have you seen that have several irregularly spaced blog posts all saying, “sorry I haven’t posted in a while”?
There’s not much that will scare away readers faster than that. You’re better off offering a post with some value to your readers and moving forward.
You also might want to avoid making big promises about how often you are going to be posting moving forward. While it can be motivating to have the accountability of announcing your intentions it can also turn into a huge discouragement as well if business ends up overriding your intentions.
That discouragement can make it even harder to get started blogging again the next time.
Bottom Line
The bottom line is we all have seasons when our blogs get less attention than we’d like. Don’t let it get you down. Just write another blog post and move forward. Leave the past behind.
Sarah Palin in Savannah
December 2, 2008
I don’t usually get into politics around here. While I like reading about political stuff on my own time I have found over the years that some people take political stuff a little too personally. Besides, people come here for info on social media, not politics.
So I generally keep it off the blog here.
Sarah Palin speaks in Savannah
But then yesterday I did something I’ve never done before. I went to hear a live political speech by a national level figure. I started a new Twitter account to talk politics stuff on because I do find it interesting. One of the oldest folders in my bookmarks, from back before the days of feed readers, is one I labeled “Propaganda” and it’s where I keep links to my favorite politics web sites along with links to the news sites I frequent.
Yeah. I am a bit cynical at times.
I took a while to decide if I wanted to join the conversation about politics for a number of different reasons. Mainly I figured that many of the people who follow me at places like Twitter did so because of my social media focus. And they may not be at all interested in my politics.
The solution I came up with on Sunday was to open another Twitter account where I could focus on politics stuff. That way those who are interested can follow me there and the rest can ignore it if they like. So I’m now tweeting on things politics @CREEativeRight (and I’ll let you guess which way I lean.) It also helped me with a little social media experiment I was doing which I’ll share more about later in the week.
Anyway…
So I found out about Sarah Palin coming to town via @CREEativeRight and decided that there was enough hubub around her in the election that I’d go downtown and check it out.
Between live Tweeting her speech, taking photos, chatting with Jeremy Davis who ended up next to me, and getting text messages from friends who couldn’t be there I kept pretty busy.
The whole reason for the event was to promote the reelection of US Senator Saxby Chambliss who is in a runnoff election today with his opponent. I won’t go into the politics of what all she was talking about here.
But I would encourage all of you who are in Georgia to go vote today. Turnout for runnoff votes tends to be much lower than for general elections. Your vote will count that much more because today as a result.
I posted some more of my Sarah Palin photos on Flickr if you are interested.
Bed Head Gallery is Live
July 30, 2008
Bed Head Day 34
A few months back I ran a series of posts I called the 40 Days of Bed Head. The idea was fairly straight forward.
Each morning shortly after I woke up I took used the web cam on my laptop to take a photo of myself. And my bed head.
Yes my hair sticks up in the morning. It’s always sticking up, but hardly ever in the same way twice.
I’ve gotten a lot of feed back on the project, and lots of laughs. Folks have been telling me that I should bring the photos together all in the same place.
So I finally put together a little photo gallery with all the photos in one place. One glorious frightful display of wild hair captured for your amusement.
So go check out all the bed head photos. Click though to the individual posts if you want to see what other folks had to say about the photos. And feel free to add your own comments.
Enjoy!
Sunday Morning Goodness – July 6 2008
July 6, 2008
This week I’m bringing back our Sunday Morning Goodness feature that’s been on hiatus for nearly a year.
You see there is so much good stuff being published out there. And some of the things I find in my feed reader are simply worth sharing.
So grab yourself a cup of coffee, click through the links and enjoy your a great start to your Sunday.
Let’s start with a quote from an author who never fails to amuse me, Douglas Adams.
“He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.”
Now on to some good blog postage…
- If you’re having trouble getting your blogging groove on check out Chris Brogan’s Sample Blogging Workflow. Not only does Chris address some good blogging strategy ideas, but he then goes on to share some critical tasks, and some tools to make blogging easier. Then he ends with some ways to get your creative juices flowing when you run short of post ideas.
- David Bullock give us a social media explanation using a senator, Twitter & you. David takes a look at how the radically different approaches of the Obama and Clinton campaigns towards social media in general, and Twitter in particular, produced an Obama victory. David’s spot on. Back in February I pionted out that Hillary’s approach to social media killed her campaign not realizing then that she’d hang on as long as she eventually did. Wonder if things might have gone differently for her if she’d changed strategies then?
- Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team, takes it offline for a bit analog advice with some great tips on How to Stop Junk Mail. Tired of a mail box stuffed full of unwanted catalogs, direct mail pieces, and a flood of credit card offers? Matt gives has some great suggestions on how you can some headway towards reducing the junk.
- Finally there’s a fun post from Christine Kane called 22 Sparkly Ways to Shine Your Inner Bling. I had to include this one because the dog photo made Goregous laugh out loud when she read the post. (Click through and you’ll see what I mean.) And despite the, um, less than manly sounding title, there’s some good advice in there from Christine for all of us.
Have a wonderful Sunday. Enjoy!
Photo Credit: Konaboy
2008 Age of Conversation Author List Finalized
June 30, 2008
This means the book is one step closer to final publication, currently slated for later this summer. In the meantime I can offer you a sneek peek inside.
Check out some of these blogs from the list below. Be sure to subscribe to the any that strike your fancy. Read more
Value in Getting Away
May 12, 2008
Note: This post is part of a group writing project for HighCallingBlogs.com for this month sponsored by Laity Lodge and which we’re hosting here at SuccessCREEations, Inc. The topic is Retreat! Retreat! Retreat! While the main drawing has already happened you can still participate in the writing project until the end of the month and get a discount on selected retreats for you and your readers.
Connectivity Culture
We live in a culture that is continuously connected. I’m as connected as anyone because of what I do here at SuccessCREEations, Inc.
Between blogging, a bunch of email addresses, four instant messaging accounts, Skype, 300+ feeds in my feed reader, and all the various social media sites I’m active on it can be a never ending stream of information.
And it’s getting worse, or better, depending on your viewpoint. With services like Twitter that can follow you around on your cell phone it is easier than ever to keep yourself wired in.
Out of the Vacation Habit
I grew up in a family where most all vacation time was spent going to visit family, usually over holidays. Most of you would probably agree that visiting family often isn’t really a vacation at all. Sometimes it can be even more stressful than every day life!
Gorgeous is from a family that had more healthy vacation habits. But unfortunately in our marriage we’d fallen into my way of doing things what with parental failing health issues and all.
In the ten years of our marriage we can only remember one real vacation where we weren’t visiting family or attending a conference or some such. Read more
Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!
May 5, 2008
Have you ever felt the need to get away from it all?
Have you ever had to chose whether to take some time away or keep pressing on?
Which way did you decide to go?
What happened as a result?
HighCallingBlogs Group Writing Project
This month we’re hosting the HighCallingBlogs Group Writing project here at SuccessCREEations, Inc.
We’re going to take the next few weeks to share some of we learned learned from a time when we decided to get away for a while, or from a time when we decided not to get away (but maybe we thought we should have).
Win Your Own Retreat
Laity Lodge is sponsoring the Group Writing Project this month. That means they are doing 3 things for those who decide to enter a blog post.
- 50% OFF FOR YOU – selected retreats for any participant in this group writing project. (You don’t have to be a member of HighCallingBlogs.com, but we hope you’ll consider it.)
- 25% OFF FOR YOUR READERS – Anyone who reads your blog can register for 25% off. When they call to register, they need to ask for “the HighCallingBlogs.com discount.”
- A FREE RETREAT – On Friday, May 9, at noon Central Time, we’re going to put the names of this Group Writing Project’s participants in a hat and draw one out. The winner gets a free retreat for a married couple or an individual. Marcus will announce the winners that afternoon
How to Enter
To enter for your chance to win, or to just participate in the writing project you need to do three things:
- Write up a blog post on the importance of retreat
- Link to the sponsor, Laity Lodge
- And also link to this post so I know to include your post in the list of submissions that will be accumulating right here.
We’ll also post a link to your post over at HighCallingBlogs.com!
Update: Mark pulled a winner for the free retreat! Check out the video to see who one. But just because the winner has been chosen doesn’t mean that the project is over because we can all still be winners. Remember you can still get 50% off of selected retreats just for submitting your blog post to this group writing project and your readers can still get 25% off. So if you’re like me and haven’t submitted a post yet, there’s still time to be included. Keep writing!
I Caught a Cold at a Redneck Wedding
April 1, 2008
Gorgeous and I attended a redneck wedding this weekend.
Now before you get all scandalized about my using the term “redneck” you should know that’s how the bride and groom described it. In fact the bride actually came up to us at the reception and asked, “So, have you ever been to a redneck wedding before?”
In point of fact, we hadn’t.
The ceremony was held in an outdoor chapel. The bride word flip-flops. The reception was held at the home of the parents of the bride. There were two tents pitched in the front yard not too far from the bonfire. One of them had a sign that said, “Honeymoon Suite”.
The food at the reception included the requisite dinner mints, mixed nuts, and pulled pork bar-b-que. And to top it off the bride and groom arrived at the reception on a tractor.
Culture Everywhere You Go
Gorgeous observed that when some people complain that there that there is no culture in whatever city they’re in, as some are prone to do about Savannah, what they really mean is the established “fine arts” may be a little lacking.
In actuality there is culture everywhere you go.
Sure it may not be as refined as some are looking to find. Even so, there is still culture, a way people do things, just about anywhere there are people.
Our friends are wonderful people and we saw a culture that we’d only heard about, usually in mocking connotations before. It was a little foreign to us. But they are wonderful folks and we were honored to be invited to their wedding.
Big Temperature Drop
Unfortunately the temperature dropped about 25 degrees during the 4 hours we were at the wedding & reception. When things kicked off it was about 82 degrees and that’s the weather we were dressed for. By the time we got home that evening it was 57 degrees and windy.
I brought a little sinus crud back from Colorado but had nearly kicked it before I got my self thoroughly chilled at the reception.
The key word there is “nearly” because it all came back with a vengeance and by yesterday had developed into a full blown cold. It is bad enough that I cleared my calendar for two days and spent most of yesterday on the couch.
I am just starting to do a little better now with all the cold remedies I have on board.
Oh, and here’s a photo of the happy couple arriving at the reception.
40 Days of Bed Head – Day 40
March 29, 2008
This is the final entry in my 40 Days of Bed Head project. We set out to explore the wonderful world of bed head and found it to be, well, um… mostly silly.
Before we get to the final entry, here are a few highlights of some of my own favorite photos from the series.
- Vertical Peaks Bed Head
- Reverend Jim Bed Head
- Varmint Bed Head
- Swamped Bed Head
- Up-do Bed Head
- Wizard Bed Head
- Donald Trump Bed Head
- Surfing Bead Head
Coming up I’ll put all these bed head photos into a gallery so y’all can look through them all in one place. In the meantime here’s the last entry for your viewing pleasure.
Enjoy!
40 Days of Bed Head – Day 39
March 28, 2008
We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.
We’re getting close to the end of this silliness but I still got the vertical action here.
