Hello again friends, and I thank you for your patience as I took a much needed California vacation and attended my graduate school graduation from the Missouri School of Journalism. And, after all my hard work, especially the past couple of months, I had a moment where it all was captured in tears of joy….as I walked across the stage. Yes, I was that girl. haha
In the past week and a half I learned some things about blogging…while actually not blogging. For better and for worse, they are:
- The Big Duh. If you are not daily checking in on the blogosphere and your online community, your growth and readership will be stunted. (duh right?) =) But, I realized this would happen, and am completely content with it, as I know I fully plan to continue blogging and developing this further in the future. But for the time being, I just needed a break.
- Connect. Connecting with those you care about in real life, is just as important, and more important (sorry friends) than connecting with those online. While in Cali, I remembered more of the joys of living away from a computer, a phone, email, etc…and made a mental note to keep my online social life in check. On the other side, I thought of many a time to Twitter, especially for site/restaurant recommendations!
- Don’t be bashful. Tell your family and friends about your blog…they too are interested. And this alone can spark and spread word of mouth, and provide instant feedback.
- You will miss it and feel out of the loop when you return. Beth Dunn discusses this feeling in-depth when she took a hiatus from blogging for the first time in 5 years this past March.
- Your body can only take so much. After going off of maybe 4-5 hours of sleep a night the past five months, conducting research, writing a thesis, traveling on vacation, moving to Washington D.C., commuting up to 3 hours a day, doing event marketing off-site for our MS Quest non-profit and other freelance work…I woke up the day after graduation with a sore throat, no voice, and $15 worth of cough drops and cold medicine. Love your readers, but remember to love yourself too. 😉
Look forward to continuing the social marketing and social media conversation…as I’m back!
You all know what I have been up to lately…feel free to fill me in on what you’ve been up to in the comments or through email at socialbutterfly4change@gmail.com.
Photo Credit: bettisue (Flickr)