All stages of blogging must lead to Nirvana!

Given my brief spell of not having posted anything this past week; it’s but appropriate that I pick up and add to a meme that was circulating recently in the blogosphere, which appropriately enough talks about the motivation behind blogging; I’m sure you’ve stumbled upon it.

Here’s the genesis; followed by three points of view and my take:

Genesis: Kent Newsome started off a very insightful post on the 5 stages of blogging, where he outlines the different stages of blogging from creation to abandonment. Here’s an outline:

Stage 1: Excitement
This is the early stage of a blog, during which a platform is selected and a template evolves, widgets and other ancillary content are added, and the initial blog posts are written.
Step 2: Expectation
After the blog is launched and the blogger has learned his way around the blogosphere, it’s time to start building traffic and readers. There are three related ways to measure this growth: blog visitors, subscriber numbers and links. During this stage, a little traffic goes a long way.
Stage 3: Frustration
Once the honeymoon is over, the blogging work that seemed so new and interesting at first starts to feel hard and frustrating. And very, very inefficient.
Stage 4 Alienation
After the blogger’s capacity for frustration is exceeded, he does an about face and, instead of seeking inclusion in the conversations, he rejects the entire process completely.
Stage 5: Abandonment
Next comes the unsatisfying end game for the discouraged blogger. His once cherished blog is either cast into the abyss via the delete button or, more often, left to lie silent by the side of the road like a burned out jalopy. A testament to the inefficiency of the process.

This post generated quite a bit of blogosphere buzz and got a flurry of responses, because like all good posts, it contained an element of truth in it. Blogging is hard work and I admire my friends and fellow bloggers who put in hours of time developing and (more importantly) maintaining a well read blog.

POINTS OF VIEW:

Jeremiah: Offers an excellent 2nd option, by diverging from Stage 3 onwards -

Stage 3: Focus
This means finding your area of expertise that you’re going to write about. What are you an expert at? Focus in on that like a tight laser.
Stage 4: Passion
Passion can take place in a number of ways, from frequency of posting, to adding media, to writing with authority.
Stage 5: Achievement
When your passion starts to bleed out of your blog, you’ll start to write and come up with solutions or ideas that no one else has.

Jeremy Toeman: Yet again, diverges from stage 3

3. Ennui – at this point the blogger is neither focused nor disappointed, they are, in a word, bored. Maybe they have some traffic, maybe they don’t, but they find it more challenging to create content on a recurring basis. Writing becomes irregular, infrequent, and spans numerous topics. From Ennui, the blogger will either move on to 4a:Revival or 4b:Malaise.
4a. Revival – something sparks life back into the blogger, either another blog post, a personal or life-changing event, or some huge piece of industry-specific news. The blog regains its pulse and attention, and the blogger’s back on top of his/her game.

My take:

The fact is all three of the above paths seem just about right (depending on the circumstance and the goals of a blogger) and possible in their own way.

I’ve always thanked my good friend, Jeremiah, for guiding me into the blogosphere and the marketing community (Mack Collier and other marketing bloggers) for embracing this blog. Without these two groups, my blog would have never survived a year. However, all bloggers have to ask themselves why they blog? Is it for career, for friends, for family, or just unrestrained passion about a topic that you can’t stop raving about?

I’m sure all bloggers have gone through varying levels of frustration — imagine the crazy hours we spend blogging; it’s 2:30 in the morning and here I’m blogging! On the flipside, here’s what blogging has helped me with:

(1) identify my passion within marketing, (2) find my dream job, (3) respect from peers whom I admire and (4) a vision of advancement in my career but most importantly (5) I believe, blogging is about a desire to share with our social or professional network (depending on what kind of a blog it is) the lessons we learn in our career or in our life.

Let’s not forget that diaries/journals/weblogs are considered by many as a way

to an inner exploration of the human psyche, a place to express one’s deepest self, or record one’s thoughts and ideas. Some people describe feeling driven to keep a diary, often as a way to put their existence into perspective (Source: Wikipedia)

And, that’s exactly how I feel about this blog – a way to put my career into perspective and one that has shown me the way. Let’s call stage 6 – Nirvana and you definitely need to be driven to get to that stage. Are you on the path?

What are your experiences blogging? Which stage of the bloggers path are you on?

Filed under: Miscellaneous , productivity