Somewhere along the way my so-called not full time job as chief executive of a small local non-profit agency has morphed into a full time job. One that I love but while it consumes all my time, still only pays half time pay, no complaints though; hell I prepare the budget so I know what’s possible and what’s not. Yet that lack of full time pay is one of the reasons that I started hustling harder in the other areas of writing life, but frankly blogging for cash unless you have the time or drive is a bummer. I know…I have said this before.
The reason I am saying it again is that this week in social media land, I have noticed others casually commenting on how the money piece is just mucking up the water. It’s no secret that I spend quite a bit of time on twitter; I love that I can pop in and out throughout my day when I need some contact with humans. Yet companies more and more ask social media experts and bloggers to host twitter parties and frankly, it sucks. To be honest unless said person has a passion for whatever it is they are hawking, reading these tweets are like having to deal with commercials…I hate commercials.
This morning I came across this blog post and it made me stop and think. Today’s bloggers often feel they have to do X, Y, and Z and my question is why? Sure pretty photos and short posts are considered cool, but if that’s not what you want to do, why are you doing it? Bloggers originally set the trends and we caught the eyes of the business folks and PR folks, businesses realized there was something about this blogging stuff, especially genres like the so-called Mom blogs. Yet now it seems we are letting the PR and business folks drive us, I say it’s time to take it back. The truth is I don’t really work with brands, I have two advertisers, one a locally woman owned business and the other a company whose products I dig. Clearly this space is not where I earn my bread and butter but it’s where I share and say what feels right to me. It’s my fun space, hell it’s my space period.
This a post with no point other than to say, money is great, hell it makes the world go around but when we focus only on the money, we all lose. As a self-admitted non-creative type blogging has allowed me to play with words and my written voice and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Finding your voice and feeling comfortable sharing it is far more powerful than a temporary paycheck.
Just my Friday two cents on this blogging life…
I just wrote a 1400+ word post today for Friday Reads. The best thing about blogging you have the freedom to write what you like, whether a paragraph or a full post. Yesterday’s post was actually why I love conversations and hate networking. http://ed2dq.com/2012/04/26/the-perils-of-networking-and-joys-of-conversation/
I think everyone has to find what makes the most sense to them and stick with that. And realize that we all blog for different reasons.
A lot of the people who shared their opinions today don’t actually do any work with PR companies- their pressure was coming from feeling like they had to keep up with other blogs, just to be considered a “good blogger.”