You’re ready. You’ve finally decided to do it. You’re scared and excited at the same time. You’ve left the blinking line behind.
Congratulations – you have a blog post to share on Facebook!
So you share it. You think it is the perfect (well, maybe not perfect, but pretty darn close to acceptable for reading) post. It indicates to your friends in a nonchalant kind of way, “Oh yeah, by the way, I’ve been blogging.” You’ve taken time to write out of love and passion, or maybe it was frustration and fear (that’s this post silly) and your curious if anyone else might like to read your masterpieces?
You’re ready to tell them you are a blog writer (more than joyful Christmas bells are ringing in your head)!
Whatever it took you to get to this point, you were ready to share it on Facebook. With your friends (even if you don’t have many ‘cuz you’re not exactly the Facebook queen!). You’re almost positive, at least one of them will read it.
20 hours later (yeah…curiosity got the best of me, I was watching – but Facebook did the counting for me) where you sit again in awe. Awe isn’t exactly the feeling. Nope. It’s like staring at the blinking line all over. Nothing, nada, zilch – a pitiful response.
Your post sits there – idle, with no one noticing (20 hours is a really long time for goodness sake).
Damn…you didn’t think it was a meager attempt at writing something interesting? You spent hours crafting. You loved it and were brave enough to share it.
Sigh. Huff. Hit refresh.
You check again. Nope…still no one noticed.
Your freaking out session begins.
Stop right there!
You need to tell yourself to take a deep breath and say fuhgeddaboutit! (I’m reading Stephen King’s, On Writing – he likes to use that word. And I was dying to find an opportunity to use it. So I took it – sue me, at least I’m trying to expand my vocabulary!)
5 lessons to be learned about a meager response to your blog post.
Lesson 1: Blogging is tough, even for the tough-skinned type of bloggers. You must not let lack of first-time readers on Facebook get to you.
Lesson 2: Think about yourself and how you review Facebook. Do you click on every link your friends share? Do you spend a lot of time there just waiting for someone to post something more for you to read? If your friends are like you and you don’t, why would you think they would? After all, they are YOUR friends, we kind of hang out with like-minded sorts! Don’t let your blogging optimism fade!
Lesson 3: Check out Facebook stats (not your own blog stats) – there’s a LOT of data to see on Facebook. There is a minuscule chance your post shared at the exact time that someone might have noticed and wanted to click to read.
Really, it is pretty darn negligible! Look at what Dan Noyes had to say – these two points are proof!
Lesson 4: You’ve grown. You’ve officially gotten over the fear of sharing! You did it. You lived to tell about it. You learned valuable lessons about your own personal ability to persevere. The first time is the hardest. Now you are free to share again. Plus a dose of humility is appropriate.
If you’re brave (or stubborn like me) shake off the doubts and try a different technique to see what happens (must not let a ‘no’ response get me down!) It can become a discovery mission. Everyone likes to solve a mystery right?
Lesson 5: As you venture out into different areas of the blogging world it is like letting your hair go naturally gray. Wait, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, just hear me out. If you’re trying to impress someone else by what you’re doing, you’ll be a slave to what you think they think. Don’t do that! It’s not worth it, you’ll only be frustrated and you might just quit. That would be the wrong thing to do.
You need to do it for what matters to you. If you write from your heart, you will be just fine! Really, you will!
If you love to write on your blog – then do it, share it, be free to be yourself. Period.
End of story – I gotta run, and write another post so I can check my stats 😉
HI Shelley. I loved this and can so relate. It took me months before any of my friends and family were told. I know of gracefully stepped in to the social media realm. This was a great post.
Thank you, Donna! I appreciate hearing I’m not alone! Glad your stepping into the social media realm has gone well, I’ll continue to like your posts when I see them!
Great Post! Thanks for sharing.
When I first started blogging, I had a Facebook account (I no longer do). And so when I shared my posts there I got a lot more feedback (not necessarily on my blog, but mostly via FB comments). In August of 2012, I decided to leave FB and I lost a lot of blog readers. I can’t tell you how many people told me they missed reading my blog since I had left FB! I tried to explain to them I still had a blog and they could read it without me being on FB, but I didn’t seem to get through to them. It was frustrating. I struggle a lot with trying to make the decision of going back to FB to see if I can get some of those readers back.
Thank you, Gail! I think Facebook is one of those love/hate kinds of things isn’t it? Sorry to hear you lost readers, I hope they find their way back and you share a blog post on how it all worked out!
Been at blogging for almost 3 years now and it’s a great outlet for me. Your audience will grow both here and in FB. Honest! As for me, I let my natural gray come in this year and I LOVE it! Big time and money saver and I think it looks great, as does yours. I love the way your photo goes back and forth!
Thank you, Tina! I love hearing about others who LOVE their gray too! I agree with you on how it saves time and money. Thanks for the photo compliment – my daughter did that for me. Thanks too for the tips on growing audience. Stop by again soon – I know I’ll be checking your blog posts out again!