Blogging & Social Media

I Suck At Personal Blogging

by MomGrind

woman laptop A friend recently commented that my writing on this blog seems “detached.” That I don’t really share myself and my life here but choose “safe” and write about general topics, news, etc.

Two years ago, when I just started blogging, I would have taken it as an insult, as a way of saying I’m not a good blogger (whatever that is). But my priorities have shifted over the last year, and whereas I used to proudly call myself a “mommyblogger,” I now (as many of you know) call myself a “blogger for hire.”

Blogging for my clients is easy. I get to do what I love (write) and what I know and excel at (SEO). I am never expected to share my own life, although I am expected to be personal and have a strong voice – even companies don’t want “dry.” I bring my clients results in the form of better search engine rankings and more qualified leads, and I get paid for my efforts. I love every minute of it.

Personal blogging is hard.

I still maintain this blog because I love it. After all these months, I still cherish the ability to sit down and write about whatever I want to and have it published, and – if properly optimized and linked to – viewed by hundreds, and sometimes thousands of people. I love blogging, breathe blogging, and believe it is here to stay.

What I let go of is the notion that I could write about my own life in a way that would make people want to read about it. Few people have that ability. Most of us lead fairly boring lives, and writing about our boring lives is, well, boring. Reading about it is even more boring.

But it’s not just that. It’s also that despite having a blog, which is obviously a very public forum, I’m a very private person. There are things going on in my life, I am going through life stages and making some important decisions and none of it is unique of course, it’s the stuff we all go through, but when I find myself wondering if I should write about it here, my overwhelming reaction is “No way! This stuff is private!” I guess I just don’t have it in me – the ability to do this deep personal sharing that people expect when they read a personal blog.

Of course, there’s also the issue of SEO. I love SEO and enjoy the challenge of optimizing a blog post and getting it to rank well in search engines. Naturally, posts such as “Watching My Children” or “I Suck at Personal Blogging” are harder to optimize (in fact, I don’t optimize them at all) than posts such as “Worst Christmas Gifts.” So when writing a deeply personal post, a big part of the fun and satisfaction that I get from blogging is just not there.

So I share thoughts and observations, and it’s all done in a tone that’s a little detached and maybe a little dry, and I’m losing some readers who loved reading more personal stuff in the past, when I still forced myself to share, and I’m gaining other readers who like the thoughts and observations and the general tone of this blog, and probably a few who are curious about my writing career and want to follow it, and the thing is, it doesn’t really matter, because I have no choice.

A Winter Poem and a Rant on SEO

by MomGrind

Snowy forest

This morning I read one of my favorite winter poems, “Snow Toward Evening” by Melville Cane. The poem does not mention the word “snow” or “snowing” even once (except for its title) and so would likely not work very well in terms of SEO.

But oh, how very lovely this poem is.

Suddenly the sky turned gray.
The day,
Which had been bitter and chill,
Grew soft and still.
Quietly
From some invisible blossoming tree
Millions of petals cool and white
Drifted and blew,
Lifted and flew,
Fell with the falling light.

SEO is important. It helps people and businesses get found online and build an online reputation. It’s what I do for a living these days, and I’m generally very proud of being able to seamlessly work keywords into my texts.

But sometimes I grieve the loss of freedom, the hindered creativity, the inevitable constraints that writing for the Web places on my work.

Today is one of those days when I resent SEO, and what better way to celebrate my dark mood than to write a completely non-optimized blog post.

Except that, if you look closely, it’s not completely unoptimized.

Apparently, I’m addicted to search engine optimization.

Photo by Paulo Brandao

Bloggers to be Fined for Not Disclosing Payments

by MomGrind

FTCThe FTC has updated its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising for the first time since 1980. One of the changes: a requirement that “bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.”

“Certainly, it seems like this is an update that’s time has come. While most well-run social media programs already include appropriate disclosure, there’s still no shortage of unscrupulous marketers using deceptive practices to sell products” says Mashable today.

But this applies to all bloggers, including anyone who might make an innocent mistake and post a sponsored review without disclosing that they were compensated. I can think of countless “small” bloggers who are not versed in social media and do not follow this type of news, who might publish a sponsored review without realizing that they should disclose anything.

Which is why I have mixed feelings about this new rule. On the one hand, it is indeed long overdue and there’s absolutely no reason why bloggers should not be required to disclose relationships with sponsors just as traditional media is required to.

On the other hand, unlike traditional media, blogging is accessible to anyone – but the rules of blogging are not necessarily found by brand new bloggers who could make honest, costly mistakes. Will the FTC go after a small blogger who published a soap review and received a $10-worth box of soaps in return? The new guidelines do say that “The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement,” so I’m guessing the soap review will not be fined $11,000.

Barbara Swafford recently said that bloggers can be seen as experts and thus have a responsibility to their readers to disclose the fact that they are not necessarily experts. I generally agree, but I do have to wonder if bloggers are not receiving a whole lot of responsibilities with very little training, and for most – with very little reward.

Update: in an extremely funny post, Robert Cringely of InfoWorld makes fun of the hopelessly unenforceable new rules, pointing out that “According to IDG News, the FTC says the guidelines are mainly targeting advertisers; bloggers themselves are unlikely to get fined, unless they continue to post bogus paid reviews after the FTC has scolded them for it.”

Just in case, he then proceeds to list all the free items he has received throughout his career, including the 1,237 boiled shrimp (with 157 ounces of cocktail sauce) he has consumed at various press functions, adding “I would gladly give them all back if I could.”

Cringely predicts that “In six months the Net will melt down after being overwhelmed by the volume of disclosures that are required.” Having just added disclosure paragraphs to my various social media accounts, I tend to agree.

The Value of Social Networking

by MomGrind

The value of social networking has nothing to do with how many “friends,” “fans” or “followers” you have. If I see one more Tweet about “how I got 3000 new followers overnight,” I am going to scream. Who cares about these followers? Why should you care about them, when they obviously don’t care about you?

Sometimes, a client asks me, “how many Twitter followers can you get us?” This question immediately raises a red flag. A very big one. How MANY did you ask? Who cares how many? Instead of getting sucked into this foolish numbers game, why don’t you ask me, WHO are the followers you are going after, how are you going to get them to follow back, and how are they going to be useful to our business? Now THAT’S a question I am happy to answer. Or at least try to answer.

Seth Godin recently said, “Networking is always important when it’s real, and it’s always a useless distraction when it’s fake. What the Internet has allowed is an enormous amount of fake networking to take place, and it’s so easy to be seduced by it… and it’s nonsense.”

Mr. Godin is correct, of course (he always is, isn’t he?) The value of social networking, especially for businesses, is in the opportunity to form real, genuine relationships with people and organizations who are relevant to your business, and who may be far less approachable in real life than they are on the Web.

The next time you fret about being “unpopular,” or about having less followers than others you see around you, stop and think for a moment: if you have formed real connections with a handful of people through social networking, you are using this tool correctly. But if you have thousands of followers, who are at best a collection of meaningless faces and broken sentences, and often place an overwhelming demand on your time, you are simply allowing fake networking to seduce you. There’s absolutely no value in that, business or personal.

Read more on the business value of social networking here: Social Network Types, Motivations, and the Future.

Bloggers Who Quit

by MomGrind

woman-with-laptop1

This post has been sitting around in a very raw draft form for a long time now. Every now and then I would come across yet another blogger announcing a blogging hiatus, and I would add them to the draft.

Going back and forth on how exactly to turn this list of goodbyes and explanations into a meaningful blog post, I decided I don’t necessarily have to.

I am going to allow this fascinating list of bloggers who stopped blogging, and their reasons for doing so, speak for itself. Let it be a reminder to everyone – readers and bloggers alike – that blogging, even blogging as a hobby and definitely blogging professionally, is insanely demanding. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because blogging is a very public platform that involves a lot of interaction with other people. Or maybe it’s the 24/7 Internet culture that demands a constant stream of articles, comments, and social media participation.

Whatever the reason, blogging involves a lot of work, and for many bloggers, especially those who write a personal blog, the moment comes when they realize they’re investing a lot but getting very little in return.

It’s also important to realize that quitting blogging, for most bloggers, isn’t such as earth-shattering decision. While the ones left behind are shocked, surprised and at times dismayed, I’m pretty sure most bloggers who quit actually feel great, simply because they have so much more time to devote to other pursuits.

Me? I love blogging. And after several months of struggle, I’m grateful to have finally found a happy medium. In recent months, I have become very focused on advancing my career as a blogger for hire. I love MomGrind and plan to keep blogging here for the long term, but I scaled back quite a bit by posting less, closing comments to some of the posts (which prompted many angry emails, because how DARE I not allow people to speak on MY blog), and commenting less on other blogs.

While this has slowed down traffic around here, I didn’t really have much choice. Slowing down and re prioritizing is one of the best things I have ever done career-wise, second only to my decision to quit working as an attorney and start blogging in the first place, a decision which opened up an amazing new world full of endless possibilities.

The List: Bloggers Who Quit And Their Reasons

Shut Up Sit Down
The writer explains that feminist blogging has been taking an emotional toll on her. “My real life, my mental health and my family have to come first. My partner said to me this evening “If it’s affecting you this badly, why are you doing it?” – and that kind of flicked a switch in my head. I used to do this because it was stimulating, it was thought-provoking, it was enjoyable and it felt like the right thing to be doing. These days it is none of these things, and I have to admit to myself that it is no longer good for me, and to stop doing it.”

Slacker Moms R Us
The short message on the home page says, “Good bye internets. It’s been fun. You can find me at slackermommy of 4 at gmail dot com.”

Space Age Sage
Lori gives several explanations. One of them: “Posting to SpaceAgeSage has not improved my writing. I’ve enjoyed writing more for self expression rather than for the art of writing. It’s time for me to delve more into the artistry of words.” But it looks like Lori is going to return to blogging soon, as she explains in a recent comment on this blog.

Nutrition Fitness Life
The author simply says, “I feel my blog has run its course. (That was difficult to type!) I’ve been feeling this way for the past couple of weeks now and have given serious thought to my next step. I think it’s time for me to hang up my blogging hat.”

Jason Calacanis
“I’m looking for something more acoustic, something more authentic and something more private. Blogging is simply too big, too impersonal, and lacks the intimacy that drew me to it. The “a-list” pressure, the TechMeme leaderboard debates, and constant accusations of link-baiting are now too much of a distraction… the blogosphere is so charged, so polarized, and so filled with haters that it’s simply not worth it. I’d rather watch from the sidelines and be involved in a smaller, more personal, conversation.”

Memarie Lane
The author simply states that “I gave it another shot, but this blog is just not working for me anymore.”

Psych Mamma
“Blogging leads to time taken away from where my priorities are: PsychDaddy and a cute little toddler who just wants me to play with her all the time.” She adds, “Time spent blogging is also time that I feel I should be spending working on something that will earn money” and “I’d love to have more time to work out, to work on my photography skills, to scrapbook, to journal, to read, to cook.”

Going Bananas
“I can’t keep up anymore! With frequent posting on this blog, that is. I have so many ideas and so much inspiration for posts, that for awhile there I just wanted to get them all out asap. The problem is, my life sneaked up and totally got in the way of blogging! My husband, my children, my friends, my house, my little quirky fitness habits, my gardening dream, my urgent need to be outside as much as possible, my piano gigs, my dogs, my LAUNDRY…can you believe the nerve of my life to intrude on my blogging like that!”

Although this was not a formal goodbye post, she stopped blogging shortly after posting it.

Success Soul
Shilpan Patel burst into the self-improvement blogging scene with a great writing style, plenty of ambition and several posts that landed digg’s front page. However, he soon realized he can’t monetize this blogging success and decided to go back to focusing on his business and on his family. The blog is now gone.

Pretty Little Girls
The author, a survivor of an eating disorder, started a blog about women, body image and the media in early 2008. I loved her blog, but one day she simply disappeared. The standard WordPress.com notice on the homepage says, “The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available” and encourages the reader to “create your own free blog.”

Rockstar Mommy
Her home page explained for a while, “A once light-hearted hobby has turned into a chore that sucks up every last ounce of my free (and sometimes not-so-free) time, leaving my family competing with the internet for my attention and me not living REAL life and all the things I’ve always said I wanted to do with it. Some people are able to find the real life/internet balance. I’ve tried many times and have failed each and every one of them. My family is waiting for me and I’m not going to waste away our lives on this machine anymore.” The blog is now gone.

Bloggers Who Took A Short Break Or Slowed Down

SHE-POWER
Kelly, who writes about life and personal development, decided to slow down her posting schedule, explaining that she enjoyed simply being present. “Finally, I lay down on my bed and decided that for one day all I wanted to do was stay still with my life. Not write. Not blog. Not read self-help books. Not analyze. Not give myself pep talks… A week later I couldn’t believe how much better I felt. Content. At peace in my home. Sitting still with my life and liking what I saw.”

Noble Savage
The writer took a short blogging break, explaining “But you know what, Internet? As much as I love you, I love me and my family more. When you suck my energy, attention and time towards you, I (and they) lose. When I spend two hours every day just reading blogs, another hour a day blogging, and the equivalent of another couple hours browsing forums and news sites, it’s no wonder that things sit undone in my life — books unread on the shelves, the house in a thin layer of filth, my hobbies untouched, friends unvisited, exercise abandoned and, worst of all, my children and marriage unappreciated.”

Shades Of Crimson
Life coach Davina says, “After almost nine months of blogging pregnancy, hormone changes, late nights and early mornings, growing pains and stretch marks, I’m about to give birth. To what? To my senses. For me personally, I’ve allowed blogging to take over my life.”

Clark Kent’s Lunchbox
“I determined that my writing efforts needed a bit more focus while other areas, such as, say, daily blog postings and betting on dog races, would have to take a lower priority. Don’t get me wrong, I love this community and meeting great new people. However, there are just so many things you can do in a day, and aside from family, writing for publication has to come first.”

How Did I Get Here?
“I lost my inspiration to write. I wasn’t enthusiastic about penning much of anything, my mind’s eye was focused on the trials of daily life and focused on the mundane but important tasks that get us all through – pay bills, shop for groceries, plan for the next few months, check in with loved ones. I didn’t want to post just for the sake of it… I promised myself when I started writing on a regular basis that I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t enjoying it. Like I’ve said before, life’s too short to do anything that you don’t enjoy.”

Final Thoughts On Why Bloggers Quit

A Daring Adventure
Life coach Tim Brownson says, in a comment he left on Sean Platt’s Fatherhood blog, “The irony is, although it’s never been easier to set up a blog, offer great content and get readers to a site, it’s never been harder to make money by doing so. The blogging scene is so fragmented and there are so many calls for peoples attention. Lots set off thinking they can be the next Problogger or Zen Habits and 99.999% don’t make it.”

Valerie Morrison
Valerie didn’t quit. She is blogging regularly. But a few months ago she asked the question that many of us have asked ourselves many times: “Regarding your blog, do you have a gauge for calling it quits? Will you not be motivated or excited about blogging? Maybe there’s nothing left for you to blog about or you’re not getting the response you hoped. Maybe someone has trashed your efforts and you wake up one morning and wonder: Why am I doing this again?”

Blogging Without A Blog
Barbara, who blogs about blogging, believes it’s important to say a proper goodbye if and when you decide to quit blogging. I agree.

Exit78
Mike looks at the comment section of an old post from 2007 and finds out that around 50% of the original commenters have stopped blogging.

Green And Clean Mom
The author is urging mommy bloggers not to quit. She says, “Moms need to have a voice. We need each other. [Mommy blogs] inspire me and make me a better mom and person. They also are creating change, making a difference and advocating and this is POWERFUL. Moms, don’t quit, please. If you do one post a week and it is too much do one every two weeks. Find your groove and what will work for you but find that groove, take a break and figure out a new direction for your blog. If you’ve spent time creating a blog it is valuable online property. Would you leave an acre of land in the middle of development?”

Surrender, Dorothy
The writer has been blogging since 2004. She says, “Blogging gets me writing every day, and some days it’s good and some days it’s bad, but at least I’m writing at least five days a week these past four years, and it’s the first time in this writer’s life I’ve had the discipline to do that.” She adds, “The blog is the only part of my life that is all mine, and I can’t imagine giving it up for that reason. I don’t criticize Rockstar Mommy or any of the others for closing up shop, but I don’t understand. Perhaps they have other outlets. Perhaps they don’t itch to write… I’m thankful for the blog because it keeps me writing, and I know I’d have to keep doing it even if nobody dropped by ever. ”

Thomas Baekdal
The writer explains that blogs die because they are ineffective in a blog form and other platforms support their content better. For example, “Personal diaries have moved on to Facebook, which is a much better platform for sharing what your life is about.”

Photo credit: chaparral

How To Deal With Online Copyright Infringement

by MomGrind

no-thieves-small I recently had to deal with online copyright infringement, when one of my articles was scraped by a loser who posted it on his site without asking for permission or giving me credit.

I don’t like the word “scraper.” These people are criminals. Thieves. But I’ll use the term “scraper” anyway since it has somehow become the acceptable term for idiots who can’t create their own content on the web, so they steal it off other people’s sites, publish it as their own and even promote it in social media, hoping to get page views and ad revenue.

The main problem: search engines can index the scraper’s content before ours, and sometimes even punish our sites – not the scrapers’ – for duplicate content. This can result in the copy having a higher PageRank, and more page views, than the original.

Dealing with scrapers isn’t simple. The scraper who stole my content is from Serbia, according to his Stumbleupon profile. Physically tracking him down and serving him with court papers would be insanely costly and would not make sense at all.

There are, however, several things you can do if someone steals your content on the web. This depends, of course, on how much time you’re willing to spend. I spent about two hours tracking down this guy and doing whatever I could to make sure he does not profit from stealing my article. It was worth it to me because it felt good, but it may not be worth it to you.

This is how I dealt with this online copyright infringement:

1. I found out he stole my article because the article contained an internal link to my own site. The backlink I received from his spam site alerted me to the fact that he stole my article. This means that including internal links to your site in your posts is a good way to at least get backlinks from these spammers (at least you gain something from their crime), although some of them do remove links.

Another way to get backlinks from spammers and protect your PageRank is to install the WordPress plugin RSS Footer. This plugin automates the process of adding a link in your RSS feed that points to the original post. This should help make sure the original always has the higher PageRank.

2. I went to his site and posted a comment informing him that he is a thief, that he should take the article down promptly and that I’m a lawyer and will not rest until I make his life miserable. Needless to say, my comment went into moderation and was promptly deleted – but I knew he read it. I didn’t expect him to take the article down, but it was worth a try.

3. I noticed he had social media buttons on the article and made it my mission to make sure he does not get social media traffic from MY article. I went to all the social media sites, contacted the people who submitted the article and voted for it, explained what happened and asked them to retract their vote. They did. I also voted the article down and wrote comments to explain what happened. This killed his social media efforts.

Through one of the stumblers who initially voted for him, I found out who he was, thumbed his Stumbleupon account down and filed a complaint against him with Stumbleupon.

4. I Reported him to Google using Google’s Report A Spam Result page. If the website you’re dealing with has Adsense, and most of them do, you should also report them to Adsense by clicking on the “Ads By Google” link on the ads.

5. I reported him to Amazon Associates. I noticed he had Amazon Affiliate Ads on the page, so I emailed them a complaint. They sent me a generic email saying they don’t allow sites who breach copyright law to use their program (duh). I thought it would end with that, but the next day I was pleasantly surprised to receive another email from them, saying they checked his website, but the stolen article had already been taken off the site (indeed it was… details below). The communication with Amazon Affiliates was encouraging, because they took my complaint seriously and actually bothered to visit his site and send me a personal response.

6. Following advice I found on the internet, I tried to find out who the site’s host is and report the site to them, but both tools I used – whoishostingthis.com and who-hosts.com – couldn’t find the host.
*Update: I received an email from Richard Kershaw of whoishostingthis.com, explaining that “We quite often find that scrapers use shady hosts (eg, in rural China), with a view to hiding their location. In light of your feedback, I’ll review the text on our tool so that it explains this sort of thing much better. At the moment, when we can’t ID a host it doesn’t explain the likely reasons etc.”

As I was going through this flurry of activity, trying to make the thief’s life as miserable as possible, the stolen article was still up. But the next morning, when I checked it, this is what I saw:

“Not Found, Error 404.”

Victory!

I really wanted the scraper’s site to get banned by Adsense and by Google. I don’t know if this is going to happen, but even if it doesn’t, at least I won my own little battle against this loser.

Have you ever had to deal with online copyright infringement?

—
Comment of the day: “File a DMCA notification with the ISP to get the page taken down. Getting upset about it is a waste of psychic energy. Most spambloggers do it as a business, have many blogs, and really don’t care that you think they’re scum.” Mark from CalorieLab.

Image credit: squacco

Are Books ‘Better’ Than Blogs?

by MomGrind

woman-reading.JPG
Photo credit: shaycam

I haven’t read a single book since I started blogging nine months ago.

It’s not that I stopped reading. I read more now than I ever have before. But I do all my reading online. Instead of reading books, I read blogs.

People used to worry that the internet would be the end of reading and writing. It wasn’t. We are surrounded by more text than ever before, and since the internet enables people to publish their own material, it is also a great equalizer that enables us to discover writers that we would not have heard of otherwise.

So I’m still an avid reader, right? Perhaps. But some say that “reading” only refers to printed books. That blogs and eBooks are less valuable than printed books. I recently heard an interesting distinction between reading blogs and reading books: online, you SURF. Or maybe SCAN. You don’t READ.

In addition, the very fact that blogs and eBooks are self-published and don’t go through an editorial selection process means that many of them are indeed of a lower quality than printed material. This article is an excellent example: it’s an assortment of ideas – interesting ideas perhaps, but no doubt the writing here is “writing for the web.” Quick, shallow, grammatically challenged and not very polished.

Avital of Creativity Prompt tagged me, ages ago, for a book meme. One of the meme’s questions: has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life? My answer: yes, of course. There were several, but most notably, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment made me realize, during a time of great emotional turmoil as a teenager, how fragile and precious and absolutely wonderful life is:

“Where was it that I read about a man condemned to death saying or thinking, an hour before his death, that if he had to live somewhere high up on a cliffside, on a ledge so narrow that there was room only for his two feet – and with the abyss, the ocean, eternal darkness, eternal solitude, eternal strom all around him – and had to stay like that, on a square foot of space, an entire lifetime, a thousand years, an eternity – it would be better to live so than to die right now! Only to live, to live, to live!”

Can a blog change my life the way a book has? Clay Collins of Finance Your Freedom thinks it can’t. He said a few months ago in a tweet that I marked and saved as one of my favorites: “Several books have changed my life. Forever. A blog’s never had the same impact.”

Over to you now.

Do you read books? Do you think blogs and ebooks are inferior to printed books? Has a book ever changed YOUR life?

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