I would rather you didn’t…
Apologise for being authentic
You matter and you have a right to be here:
Whether you are just starting or you have had a long time to hone your craft, whether you have no one else reading or the whole world hanging on your words, whether you are expert in your field or a novice offering their humble opinion, whether you are on a free platform or you own your domain, assert your right to be seen and heard.
If you cannot unapologetically be yourself in your creative space where else will you be you?
Your blog is whatever you believe it to be and no one else can tell you otherwise.
Let your content proudly reflect, flaws and all This Is Me.
Blog as a hobby
Contrary to popular opinion blogging is not a hobby, while yes you can do it just for fun, if you sit down to think about why you press that [publish post] button you know, there’s deliberate intention.
Are you in the business of randomly sending your nudes on the internet? I would think not, right? But in a way, to blog is to share a very intimate bit of your soul and identity, that’s why it’s so scary to hit the publish button, why we refresh that notification screen a thousand and one times, to see if anyone out there in the world saw us, to worry over what others will think of the bits of our mind they have glimpsed.
Even if your content is not personal, a part of the creator is always infused and visible in the creation, it’s almost a philosophical debate whether you can fully separate the art from the artist, the words from the writer.
Do people go to school as a hobby, no, do people read books as hobby, well, yes but that’s not the only reason people read…..
Blogging is many things, do not simply dismiss it as just a hobby.
Cancel interactions
I have seen sites where the owners do not respond to their comments or mentions have always wondered why;
•Are they too busy?
•Do they not have the time?
•Are they so awed by the comments that they are having a heart attack?
•Are they too good for their fans ( well that’s the image you portray when you don’t)
There was an interesting social media storm when a prominent musician dismissively responded to a fan who had mentioned how they had been snubbed a selfie moment with the celeb, it became very messy real quick, things could definitely have been handled better.
Anyway unresponded comments are like a snub to whomever decided to take the time to not only read your content but to write a response (if you do not wish for unsolicited feedback from your readers then disable the option to comments, than simply ignoring)
Also the blogging space thrives a lot on reciprocity, I have received a lot of questions on how one can make their blog more visible and when you ask in return if they read and interact with other blogs, you will find they don’t, so you want people to read your content and yet you have no time to read and engage with others, ok good luck.
Blogging is not about posting great content only, a large part of it is about how you interact with the global community and the image you present about the brand that is your blog.
~B
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