How To Fast Track ‘Blogger Burnout’!
I am sure if you have been blogging for any amount of time then you would have noticed the high turnover of bloggers. With ‘blogger burnout’ becoming more and more popular, here are 3 things that are regularly promoted as ‘good things’ that could possibly make you more prone to this growing epidemic!
If you haven’t already had the symptoms of it yourself, chances are you most likely will. ‘Blogger Burnout’ is not something that you should think will never happen to you, because in the 3 years I have been blogging I have been amazing by not only the amount of blogs that just drop off the planet – but also the quality of bloggers that disappear.
It saddens me when I find a fantastic new blogger who has a bucket load of potential – only to see that he has left his blog to become cobweb-filled and rat-ridden.
Today I wanted to take a look at a couple of the causes of ‘blogger burnout’ in part-time bloggers, because it is the exact things that a lot of the ‘probloggers’ are promoting as things that will ‘make you famous‘.
How To Fast Track Blogger Burnout!
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Post Every Single Day
This might be ok for full-time bloggers, but trying to write 5-7 blog posts each week, while working a full-time job is a sure fire way kick start the ‘blogger burnout’!
Your article quality will decrease as you try to force out content. Why not focus on creating a couple of quality articles and give them a chance to be seen, instead of pushing them quickly into your archives with so many new articles?
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Become A Commenting Junkie
One of the most written about traffic generating strategies for bloggers is commenting. Everyone is trying to tell you that you need to comment everywhere, often and first – but this can be extremely tiring!
I used to be subscribed to over 300 blogs and would comment on almost every new posts that came up in my feed, but I started to get the early symptoms of ‘blogger burnout’ so I cut right back on the blogs I subscribed too and now rarely comment on blogs. Don’t get me wrong, I still read a lot of blog posts – I now only comment when I have something important to add.
Have you noticed how all the biggest bloggers rarely comment? Yet they don’t seem to struggle with generating traffic. Personally, since dropping my frantic commenting and focusing on my content – my traffic has doubled!
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Get Addicted To Social Media
This one is tough, because social media is a fantastic tool that can really get your content in front of a lot of eyeballs – but a lot of people let social media become an addiction (wasting A LOT of time).
The one way that I have found to steer clearing of checking a million different social profiles is to limit my activity to just a couple of networks. I have Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon – because they are the ones that I have got to work to me. The problem I see with trying to build a tonne of social media profiles is that you spread yourself thin – why not focus building real relationships in just a few networks instead of spamming a heap of social media networks with your links?
But back to the addiction, social media can quickly become a time drain if you don’t set some boundaries. If you let social media get the best of you then the one thing that you think will shoot your blog into the spotlight – will eventually be the death of your blog.
Can You Start To See The Signs…?
What do you think? Maybe I am wrong and you can keep up a full-time job while posting every day, commenting everywhere and still have time to feed your social media addiction – or maybe you can’t!
What do you think are some of the causes of ‘blogger burnout’? And have you experienced it yourself? Let me know what you are thinking by leaving a comment below (or maybe you are ready to put some of this into action – and are ready to drop commenting unless you have something important to say).
25 Responses
8.18.2010
Ha, was just thinking about writing a post about this, though a different take on it.
Its a marathon not a race huh :-)
Thomas Sinfield Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Love to hear your take on the topic, but your right – it’s those who stick it out that see the results!
8.19.2010
Dead on.
Post every single day – I did this on a blog I recently sold. 2-3 hours per day. Not only was it tedious, after 3 years I found I was beginning to be repetitive. One tip is to write in advance. I would often find myself with a few spare hours to write. When I did, I would get ahead. I was often writing one to two weeks in advance. That really helps and allows to skip writing for a few days…as long as you get caught back up again later.
Commenting – Really really important for new bloggers, not important at all for established blogs. Commenting and responding to comments helps you build readers and traffic. Established blogs have both already.
Social Media – I’m still not convinced it’s a big benefit beyond social proof (i.e. “I have 5000 twitter follows”) This looks impressive, but frankly I’ve not seen a great deal of traffic from social media other than stumble upon and those folks aren’t sticky at all.
I think you can do these things, you just have to really manage your time well. I think it also depends on what you have going on outside of your full-time job and how demanding your full time job is. The real question is: Is it necessary? The answer is no…all of these things help, but I think you can be very successful without doing all of this every single day.
Thomas Sinfield Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Thanks for the great reply Larry! On the social media point, I think there are big benefits – IF you focus on build relationships and not just link spamming.
And you are right, it does depend on how demanding your job is, but when I quit my job I don’t want to be blogging 8 hours a day :P
8.19.2010
Blogging burnout is real. The reality is doing all those things is fine if and when you are doing them effectively and then getting off the computer.
The problem is too often we take our time doing all of those things and then suddenly feel like its taking up too much time.
Thomas Sinfield Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
You have hit the nail on the head Seth! The thing is that people spend a lot of time ‘wasting time’ and looking busy. If they just got the job done and moved on to the next task they would be much more effective.
8.19.2010
Blogging burnout is real dilemma of the time. As per my knowledge, it happens because in the beginning bloggers seem quite passionate about writing, they keep on giving good content one after another post. Ideas are pouring from brain but gradually the things get off, they start taking blogging as a good source of money making only. No doubt, money makes things look good, but monetizing process let the things off of mind. Passion turns into business and when it does not work, mostly quit.
Stay passionate about work and mark your presence on social media, bookmarking and commenting. It really works.
Thomas Sinfield Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
That’s great Cathy! It should always come right back to passion. I am a massive believer in that.
cathy @ Dubai Mortgages Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Thomas, I think you are also quite passionate about blogging. Am i right? What are the things that you love to blog about?
8.19.2010
Really great post Tom,
Exactly! You are absolutely right!
Many people keep on overworking themselves wtihout thinking fo the repercussions and this is the true cause of the bloggers burnout.
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
Thomas Sinfield Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Yea, and most of the time they get burnt out acting busy instead of being productive! thanks for the comment Onibalusi!
8.20.2010
Couldn’t agree more, blogger burnout is definitely something I want to avoid.
PS: Let’s get cracking on the Skype group :)
8.20.2010
Glad that you raised the point that commenting too frequently can also contribute to blogger burnout. I believe most of us who write blogs are not aware of this. Thanks
8.20.2010
I noticed that your website took a sudden improvement in alexa ranking. Can you share what actually you are doin to do publicity of your blog. I mean what you are doin to improve your blog’s ranking. If you will post article like this then it would be helpful for bloggers like us. Coz no one post article like this…..
Please share your knowledge
8.21.2010
When I first started blogging I posted every day but my content was not good for the most part. I really didn’t focus on a niche at the time and knew nothing about this whole blogging thing.
I started posting on Mon, Wed, and Fri. So far so good and I took a short break from blogging a while back there but over all I have continued to post what I believe are quality articles and so far people like them.
I would still consider myself in early stages and am always learning what I can to help others achieve their goals and improve things on my end as well.
Take care.
8.21.2010
One of the cool features of WordPress is the ability to scheduled posts. I always keep a few in resevre so that I can take a break from writing, but my site stays fresh.
8.21.2010
Tom,
I really can relate to this. The burn out is so easy to fall into. I have a full time job, and trying to post daily was quite a challenge – especially as my day job is so completely different to what I enjoy writing about.
I’ve read plenty of blogs – but now I will scan through a few directories and choose titles which stand out to me. Admitedly, there are a few blogs I frequent from memory.
I think I’ve been fortunate that as a newbie I saw my own impending burnout – I’d experienced it before in life. Right now I’m going back to the drawing board, and really planning hard what I want to do. At least with that framework in place I have some contingency to combat burn out in future.
8.21.2010
Awesome Post Thomas!
I was just thinking about the ROI and where you draw the line. As you said, you need these methods to start with, but at what point is it acceptable to stop. I still comment (obviously) but like you said, I tend to only want to comment if I can genuinely add something. I still try to RT just to let them know I was there, if it was a good post of course.
I keep missing you on skype too LOL!
Chat with you further then my stand out blogger friend :)
8.23.2010
That’s funny. I was doing all 3 of the above for many months, but I did not burn out. I knew about the pitfalls ahead of time though unlike some others I have noticed disappear.
8.31.2010
I know a lot of the people who started blogging seriously around the turn of the year are seriously considering there next steps. Very timely post and to be included in my weekly ‘Wednesday Wisdom’.
Thanks Thomas.
9.7.2010
I have been blogging for about 5 years now and I’ve run through all those symtoms. You definitely need to write about something you enjoy and do it by pleasure.
9.22.2010
I’m addicted to Twitter and I find it adds to my burn out. I just wrote a post on this very subject. I have linked to you in my post.
9.22.2010
I think a lot of bloggers create new posts every day because somewhere along the line they read that this is exactly what you are supposed to do. I have yet to see someone who can grind out very good content on a daily basis though. In most cases, the quality does suffer.
You will get more traffic by blogging every day, but as you have stated, it is far ore likely to cause burnout. In my opinion you are far better off focusing on quality over quantity.