Whiny Bloggers Quit Because It Was Work

It is probably unfair of me to paint the bloggers in this article with such a broad brush. Yet, I can’t help but roll my eyes because what I read is so very silly. Take a look at the excerpt below.

“There are about 31 million blogs in the United States, a number expected to swell to 34 million by the end of this year. But Mr. Harbison is part of a small but growing trend of blog quitters. Last year, the number of blogging teens and adults ages 18 to 33 declined, in the first reported drop in blogging, according to Pew Research Center data.

Some have simply switched to another blog-like medium, say, Twitter or Facebook. Others have faced unpleasant facts about blogging. It’s cheap to do but usually doesn’t pay. Having a platform may be fun at first, but building a following takes much more work than simply typing and posting.

And millions of them go virtually unnoticed, despite the occasional breakout sensation like the humorous “Stuff White People Like” and the Julia Child-inspired “The Julie/Julia Project.”

When “people see these, they say, ‘I can do that—it will be easy,’ “ says Raanan Bar-Cohen, vice-president of media services at San Francisco-based WordPress, which hosts 16.5 million blogs. “If you’re looking for fame and fortune, blogging has as good a chance as any medium,” he adds.

But new bloggers misunderstand what the venture is really all about. “The best bloggers are good at highlighting, snipping and curating,” Mr. Bar-Cohen says. All that draws “the feedback that is as or more important than the actual posts.”

The effort involved in building a following caused Ray Silverstein to give up. Mr. Silverstein, 73, is principal at Pro Presidents Resource Organization, a Chicago-based small-business consultancy. Four years ago, he began blogging about small-business issues in order to draw traffic to his firm’s website.

He posted about twice a week but failed to read other blogs, comment and connect. “You really have to work the blog more,” he notes.”

If you are in this with dreams of getting rich you better hope that you love it too. There is a reason why I keep repeating certain truths about blogging. There is an exceptionally low barrier to entry. Anyone with a computer and internet access can start a blog. There are a million different voices competing for the same readers as you and many of them have no business sense/intelligence whatsoever.

But let’s ignore all that and read the last line of the excerpt I provided.

“He posted about twice a week but failed to read other blogs, comment and connect. “You really have to work the blog more,” he notes.”

Blogging takes time, effort and work. They call it social media because it requires many of the same social skills you would use in the real world. In the real world you build relationships first and ask favors later. Why would it be different here. What makes people think that if they simply write a story millions will come knocking on their door. Sometimes luck is more important than talent. We see that here all the time.

Sorry, I just don’t feel badly about this. If you start a brick and mortar business it requires time and effort to make it work. It requires commitment. Blogging is no different. If you can’t deal with it or don’t feel like it works for you than you really should find something else. In the end if you don’t love blogging you are going to find it to be more trouble than it is worth.