Another trouble I have with blogging is that most of them just aren’t very interesting.
In one of my previous “trouble with blogging” postings, I referred to the dilemma I have about what sort of confidential information I should share because that would be directly proportional to the “interest” factor. It all seems like much ado about nothing. While publicly I say that blogging and “tweeting” is the next best thing to sliced bread, for the everyday Joe I’m just not so sure anyone cares. I would think that most people are too busy writing their own blogs to read anyone else’s. But then, ironically, when I’m reading some of the blogs out there and seeing the number of comments some of them generate, I’m proving myself wrong in multiple ways simultaneously, and that’s always good for the ol’ ego.
By the way, that same belief I have that “no one has time to care” extends to twitter, Facebook, myspace, and linked-in, too, all of which I publicly recommend and almost none of which I personally have time for. Since “New Year’s Resolutions” are a big marketing push in my industry, I should touch upon one of my resolutions before January ends, and that is this: Making more time for the social media sites that I recommend. Time to practice what I preach, so to speak.
That reminds me: one of the reviews I received on Amazon for my book Sell Your Book on Amazon mentioned that very aspect — that I didn’t appear to do many of the very Amazon tactics I was recommending. That reviewer was right; a lot of the marketing tactics I suggest in my book are time-consuming, and I didn’t — or don’t — have time to do a lot of them. So my only response to that is, don’t let my personal short-comings prevent YOU from being successful. Or, as a parent might say to a child, “Do what I say, not what I do.” But, ultimately, every leader — and every parent for that matter — knows that you should lead by example.
And I’ve discovered that just because I don’t have time for that stuff doesn’t mean nobody does. In fact, internet stats seem to indicate quite the opposite. Most people seem to have nothing but time for social networking sites, so as an author, entrepreneur, etc, etc, you owe it to yourself to be out there on all those platforms in as consistent and professional a manner as you can muster. And… in spite of all my troubles with blogging, here I am.
President of Outskirts Press 