Balancing Blogging with Life

I have been blogging in some shape or form for the better part of four years. During that time I have read a LOT about what it takes to have a "successful blog" and through experience I have seen what happens to bloggers when "life" gets in the way of their online endeavors. 

As a side note, I put successful blog in quotes because everyone's definition of success is different. What an individual's goals are with their blog or business can vary greatly from one person to another. For the purposes of this post we will assume that most bloggers are striving for loyal, engaged followers and that defines success for them. 

There are a few main recommendations for creating a blog that encourages repeat visitors, shares and engagement: high quality, useful content, consistency and relevant content to the targeted audience. 

Consistency is the thing that usually gets tangled up with life. I have seen plenty of bloggers lose all sense of consistency with their blogs when a big life event happens. I've experienced it personally. When we moved to Ridgecrest and everything about my day to day life changed drastically my blog posting dwindled. When I lost my sweet pup, Chloe girl to a tragic accident, blogging was the last thing on my mind. Life happens. 

Depending on your blogging strategy and the purposes behind your blog it may not be a big deal to take some time off from your blog altogether or change your posting schedule if some sort of life event happens that distracts you from your normal schedule.

However, if you are attempting to build an audience, and gain loyal followers, consistency is absolutely key to that objective.

You may not have the luxury to take a lot of time off of your blog without drastic changes occurring with your followers. 

Personal example:  I used to follow a lifestyle blogger that provided lots of great recipes and decorating tips but her posts became very sporadic after being consistent for a good while. It got to the point where she would randomly post every other week without any sort of obvious posting consistency. It may seem fickle but eventually I just unsubscribed from her posts because I essentially "never knew what I was going to get" and the benefit of having her email in my inbox diminished greatly. 

I would say there are very few successful bloggers out there who remain successful randomly talking about themselves and the wide variety of things they find interesting about life. Blog readers are busy, and there is a LOT of competition out there for good quality content that will leave a blog reader with helpful information that they didn't have prior to reading. Blog readers are selfish (as they should be) and providing consistent and quality information is what keeps readers loyal. 

Many small businesses trying to utilize their blog as a way to build an audience and gain followers in order to grow their business may be a one or two person show. In the instance that "life" occurs there may not be anyone else to take the reins and keep posts going during distracting times. Here are four strategies that can help small business owners maintain their blogging strategy despite times when priorities lie elsewhere. 

Create a strategy

Having a blogging strategy is essential for small business owners to prioritize blogging as a means to growth. You absolutely must identify your target audience. You are not blogging trying to appeal to everyone, you are not blogging only for your family and friends. Identification of your target client goes hand in hand with you are trying to engage in your blog. Identify the purpose behind your blog, what your goals are, how you plan to achieve those goals etc...Having an identified strategy ahead of time can help solidify actions to take in the event that something in your personal life interferes. 

Plan ahead

Sometimes you are aware of major life events before they happen. A wedding or a move or a new baby are some good examples. Planning ahead is crucial when you have prior knowledge of something occurring in your life that you know will interfere with your blogging schedule. 

Personal example: I have known about our move for a few months now and have been planning a strategy for posts during that time. I have prewritten a few series posts and plan to reduce my posting schedule from 4 days per week to two or three during the time when we are driving and living in temporary housing in New Jersey. Also, since it will likely be a little bit before I start taking clients again I need to have lots of ideas to fill the blog since I won't be sharing client sessions for a while. I feel so much more confident going into the next month of crazy knowing that I already have a plan in place and won't have to stress on the fly!

quality over quantity

My friend Lauren just wrote a great post about some surprising statistics she experienced after altering her posting due to some life events that occurred. She had been posting 5 days a week regularly for over a year and was shocked to find out that taking a break for a few days didn't undo all of the hard work she had previously put in. She discovered that once you have built up that audience of loyal followers it is easier to scale back and really focus on quality over quantity. I highly suggest reading her posts to see her conclusions.  

give yourself a break 

This is one of those things that we either tend to not allow ourselves or we allow it too much. If you have a clear purpose and strategy in mind, its very easy to fall into the trap that you have to do everything perfectly to achieve those goals. Not allowing yourself a break here and there to regroup and recharge can be detrimental to the content and purpose behind your posts. On the flip side, it's often easy to think, "its just a blog, it's not the end of the world if I stop posting for a week or more" and give yourself too much leeway. Swinging too much on the other side of the pendulum can also be detrimental to your end goals. Keep your strategy in mind and stay focused on what you are trying to accomplish and allow yourself to live life in between! 

I hope you have found these strategies helpful and that they can come in handy in the event that "life" happens while you are attempting to gain success as a blogger. 

I would love to hear from you! What struggles have you seen or experienced when it comes to trying to build a following with your blog? 

How to create a blog calendar with Trello

I was recently introduced to Trello by Katelyn James who apparently was introduced to it by Zach Gray. Some heavy hitters were using this app and singing its praises so I thought it was worth checking out. 

I was instantly impressed with power of this organizational...app? system? website? I'm not exactly sure what to call it, except life changing. Yes, I will go there. It is on its way to making it to the list of top tools for new photographers. Heck top list of useful things for ANYONE, not just photographers!

I've used some other online "to do list" and notebook type systems before but none of them really worked intuitively, nor did they seem to have the ability to really do what I needed them to do. I wanted to make to do lists that were customizeable, moveable, flexible and functional. Something I could use on my computer and my phone that was easy to understand and update. So far, Trello wins in all of the above! 

Since the system is so powerful, I'm still getting a handle on using it for various personal and business tasks. One thing I have however figured out is an amazing system for scheduling my blog posts! This has been something I have struggled with for YEARS and I am ridiculously excited to finally have found something that just works. And its EASY! And VISUAL! I could go on and on, but instead how about if I just show you instead? 

The Trello organizational system is broken down into Boards, Lists, and cards. You can create multiple BOARDS and then on each BOARD you can create LISTS that apply to that board. On each LIST you can add CARDS to further delineate. On each CARD you can add multiple things like due dates, labels and checklists. All of these things are easily movable between each other and you can even add multiple USERS to share things back and forth!

Here is what my current BOARDS look like: 

LISTS are listed by column and then you can add cards to each list

When you add a CARD you can customize many things. You can add a description, you can add in a checklist, you can label the card and also add a due date or comments to the card. You can also upload photos to a card or add documents or links to cards as well. 

I will likely do a few posts in the future with more suggestions on setting up boards, lists and cards but for now I want to show you my system for using Trello to schedule my blog posts. Its worth using just for this feature alone, I promise!

On my Blogging BOARD I have multiple LISTS. One list is to keep track of ideas. One list is for posts I have decided to write and have put on the calendar (need to write), the next list is for posts I have written and scheduled in Squarespace and then my final list is for posts that have posted (kind of like a complete or done list.) 

The beauty of this system is that once you write a CARD, that card is easily moved in between lists. You can either right click on it and move it to another list (even on another board) or you can just drag and drop the card from list to list. So I have an idea for a post and make a CARD under my ideas LIST. Then when I am ready to move it to the calendar, I simply drag and drop it over to the On Calendar list and then update the card with a red label (to write) and assign a date to the card (the date in which the post will go live.) 

Ok so here is the REALLY fun part. You can enable the calendar feature on your board menu which will pop up this icon in the top right hand corner. 

When you click on the calendar link, it takes you to the visual calendar so you can see all the posts in calendar format. WAIT WHUUUT!!! Yes!! How awesome is that?

And what could be better than this? Well, you can actually update the calendar FROM the calendar! Yes, you can click on a date and add a card right there! You just click on the date and it will pull up an option to add a card and will let you choose which list to add it to and in which position on the list. 

Ok so I seriously hope I blew your mind with this because when I figured out exactly how this worked I think I might have just sat and stared at my computer smiling for a full 5 minutes. I have been searching long and hard for a system that will do exactly this and I am so glad that Trello crossed my path! 

Have you had trouble finding a blogging scheduling solution in the past? What do you think? Will this work for you? 

As always, leave any comments or questions below and I am happy to answer!