About a month or two after I started blogging I received the best blogging advice I’ve ever received. This was during a time when I was consuming blogging advice the same way I consume Wheat Thins: rapidly and without constraint. I pinned every pin that had anything to do with increasing traffic or followers or making money. I was joining all sorts of Facebook blogging groups and copying and pasting the advice they’d give into an email chain to myself. I was watching YouTube videos about blogging while I did the dishes.
It was exhausting.
Then one day amidst this rapid-fire consumption, I happened upon the best blogging advice I’ve ever heard. It didn’t have anything to do with SEO or rich pins or what size your blog photos should be. It was simply this:
Talk to your followers. Love your followers and be content with your followers.The advice giver likened blogging to a big conference. Every blogger had his or her own room where his or her own followers were seated listening to them. In this conference, it can be very tempting to look past all the nice people in your room and instead shout incessantly to all those people passing by in the hall, “HEY! HEY!! COME HERE! LOOK IN MY ROOM! LOOK! I’VE GOT STUFF TO GIVE YOU!! COME INNN!!!!!”
It can be easy to look at those nice people in your room and think, “Hmph. What a pitiful bunch. I was hoping for more. That person down the hall, they’ve got SO many more! And they started after me! How did they get all those people? WHY IS NO ONE COMING IN MY ROOM?!”
Don’t do this.
Realize, all those nice people in your room are there to hear YOU. They’re there because they like you. They like what you have to say. Talk to them instead of talking to all the people in the hall. And if there are only three people in your room? TALK to those three people. Engage with them. Love them.
You’ll be far more content and your followers will love you all the more. Which will have the added benefit of, yes, growing your blog. But, doing it in an organic way and bringing in far more loyal followers than those who came one time to get something for free.
When I received this advice, it was like a tangible weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I thought, “Oh good, you mean I don’t HAVE to do all this extra stuff just to get more people in my room???” I had never heard that advice before, in all my days of blog advice acquisition, the tips always told me to want more, more, MORE. More re-tweets, more page views, more comments, more sponsors. Never be content. While these tips can actually be very helpful and necessary to grow your blog, it can be really easy to inherit a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality in the blogosphere if we don’t keep it in check.
For me, the advice to just talk with my people means blogging at the pace I want to blog at and letting go of all those little things that I don’t enjoy doing but do anyway because I think everyone else is (link parties, I’m looking at you).
So don’t worry what other bloggers may think of you because you’re not on self-hosted wordpress or you don’t have many twitter followers or you only make pennies on AdSense or whatever blog insecurities you have, just talk to your people. (Also other people care far less about these details than we do).
A little example: I’m a member of a group in my town called Interfaithful Moms. Its a fantastic group- we meet together twice a month, have speakers from all different religions who speak on all different topics. Our leader, we’ll call her Jen, works very hard to find all these speakers, type out discussion questions for us each week, find child care for the meetings, bring refreshments, etc. We’re so very grateful for her.
And she wishes more people would come into this particular “room.”
Last month one of our meetings fell on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Jen decided to make this meeting really special. She found a speaker from Israel who had family members die in the Holocaust. She put together a song presentation, a prayer ceremony, and a candle lighting where we each read names of some of those who died. She bought dozens of white roses and attached a printed prayer on each one. She posted fliers for the meeting all over town.
And on the day of the meeting?? It was only the usual women from our group that came. No new members. I’m not certain, but I think this saddened Jen a little- all those fliers, all those left over roses. But did we, the people in the room care about the size of the audience?? No way! It was an AMAZING presentation she had put together! Tears were shed. It was powerful and we were so grateful.
I really hope that instead of looking at the door longing for more people to walk through that Jen was able to look around the room that day and think, “Wow, I did this. Look at these people who came. They are really getting something out of this meeting. That feels great!”
So, whether you have three people or 300,000, talk to your people.
Love your people.
Pamela says
I loved this post! I have recently made a personal goal to be more consistent in my interactions with blog followers. I actually really love interacting with people but sometimes feel overwhelmed with wanting to comment back in a “perfect” and personal way so I’ll just avoid it all together (dumb right?) Lately I have been trying to respond with even a quick something to show my appreciation and that I care! Not totally on top of it yet but I am trying! 🙂 Thank you for the encouragement!
Crystal {Penny Love Projects} says
I love this blogging advice! Best blogging advice you’ll ever receive! It’s so easy to compare ourselves and overlook what blessings we’ve received. This is true in blogging, but is also such great advice for life, business, family, health & the list goes on. Be thankful for your blessings & do good with what you have. Thank you for sharing!!
Susie @ The Chelsea Project Blog says
My dear, Celeste…….you are wise beyond your years and write with the flare of John Grisham. I am so glad that I stopped the crazy train long enough to read ….and thoroughly enjoy …..this post. I’m personally touched in ways that you may never know. Let’s just say….there’s a few rooms that will just get their doors closed for now……there’s no need to worry….or fret. Thanks, Celeste, for these sweet words.
Katy {ashadeofteal} says
Love this, such great advice! I only recently started paying attention to my numbers and I’m definitely feeling burnt out some days. This puts me back to thinking how I use to; and numbers really don’t matter!
Ashley says
Thank you. Truly and honestly, thank you. I am new to this blogging world and some days the community is just so beautiful. And other days I am so demoralized, and I forget why I’m doing this. I’ve only been at it 3.5 months, but I have found that when I remember, when I stayed focused on why not who, I “succeed,” perhaps not the way someone else is succeeding, but the way success is looking for me. And that is enough. Because that is beautiful grace. Thank you.
Meghan @ The Twin Cedars says
Very powerful. This is just what I needed right now. I’m new to the blogging world and so very thankful for the support from blogger Facebook groups, but it can be incredibly overwhelming. Thank you for this post – I’ll take it to heart.
Brittany Bergman says
I love your heart, Celeste. I found myself nodding my and silently saying “amen” at every sentence. It’s so easy to get caught up in numbers, but I don’t think any of us started blogging for the numbers. We did it to encourage people and share creativity. I’ve recently had to scale back on link parties and FB groups because 1) I don’t like them (unless there are Bees involved!) and 2) they’re such a time suck. I’d much rather be writing! Thanks for the sweet reminder.
Brooke says
Celeste, this is such great advice for blogging, but also for LIFE! I feel like these are wise words for so much of life. The wishing for more, or different or better does none of us an good, and yet we do it. My husband has reminded me of the reasons I started blogging any time I start to go down the numbers road (it’s a dark, seedy part of “town”) and this post is a powerful reminder of what/who matters. So insightful. Thank you, Celeste.
Carol Cook says
Sage advice.
In the past 12 months, I became extremely ill with anemia and followed it up with carpal tunnel surgery. Both kept me from blogging much and then I began creating decor for my son’s upcoming wedding – next weekend. I found myself posting less, reading less of my favorite blogs and I stopped linking up to parties because I didn’t have time to visit other links in the parties.
What happened?
1. The views on my blog remained about the same – I have my audience and I continue to gather a few new people here and there.
2. People who had never commented wished me well and I realized that there are a lot more people who read my blog than I ever realized.
3. All stress was gone – I post when I have something to say…share…show and if I don’t, I no longer worry.
4. My favorite bloggers understand my crazy life right now and are not hurt that I am not visiting as much right now.
felicia | Dish by Dish says
Jill, I want to say thank you so much for this post – I feel just like you felt – like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Chasing numbers is really tiring, especially because we never seem satisfied with the numbers we currently have and keep asking for more.
But I love what you said – connect with your people and the satisfaction will be wonderful.
Thanks so much!
p.s. you have a new fan from Buenos Aires!