What is a power blogger anyway? We can call “them” professional bloggers, A-listers, or just darn simply popular. I’m not a power blogger, but being the competitive spirit that I am, I’ve often wondered how I could get on that Ad Age Power 150 list –yikes; it’s a lofty goal.
For sure these peeps who are powerful bloggers in my circle devote skads of time to their blog; kinda like one person I know who admitted spending 40 hours a week on hers. They have an IT team standing in the wings to re-design this and tweak that. They have a team of writers helping on an off day when the main squeeze is traveling, and the researchers are combing industry rags for all the breaking news so they can make hay about it before anyone else.
I’m a power walker; does that count? Heh, not really, but it serves as a great analogy. My speed is quicker than most; I have an end goal, usually to move the heart rate up and the time down. I am (trying) to keep a consistent schedule (shall we say daily for all intents and purposes), and I’m competing with (myself) to do it better earn something (loss of calories, great legs, a break from Twitter?).
Alas, power blogging has its pitfalls which makes these blog owners just like we stragglers, followers, newbies, and awe-inspired wow-ers:
- Mark Schaefer who writes Ad Age Power blog 48 has invited a cadre of guest posters to author articles while he holidays in Eastern Europe for two weeks. In doing so, he lamented his failure to manage social media and blogging while aiming for a desperate unplug from it all.
- Gini Dietrich, who writes the Ad Age Power Blog 39 called Spin Sucks (and coming soon, the perfected Spin Sucks Pro) admitted her lack of inspiration coming up with ideas to write a blog post and wrote a blog post about nothing. (And, damned if I just went to get the link to that and there’s 251 comments — ABOUT NOTHING!)
- Marcus Sheridan who owns The Sales Lion blog recently had one of the most civil, contentious, well–commented blog posts I’ve ever had the privilege of being part of (with perhaps 368 comments as of today), and he had to manage each and every one of those all alone.
- Heck, Jayme Soulati (that’s me if you forgot) even wrote a blog post This is a No Mojo Blog. (Oh, yeah, am not a power blogger.)
I leave you to ponder the treasure or empty bucket of power blogging with these final thoughts I’m seeing from just about everyone who’s been alongside me in the last several years:
1. We’re humans who require sleep, a beverage, hugs from our children, and an unplug during holiday.
2. We have real jobs that pay the bills, unless your real job is as a professional blogger and thus you should not be reading this, so skitter away, mein Freund.
3. Passion and inspiration are fleeting when we’re tuckered. Understand that shift, and your readers will be ever more thankful.
4. No one is telling you to post every day; see bullet three.
5. Numbers are metrics, but remember, the quality of comments mean more than the number of tweets from the blog (in fact, I get more RTs on Twitter for posts than I do from the tweet button app or Share This).
What might you offer about power blogging? Is that your goal, or are you standing in the wings watching and whispering, “thank goodness that’s not me.” ? (P.S. I’m trying to heed my own counsel; it’s tough!)
(image: indexofwallpapers.com)
