Welcome to another edition of
Live & Learn Thursday!
Join the party... follow your hosts and link up your post!
A couple weeks ago Amanda wrote about the reasons why she will "break up" with a blog. I found that I had quite a bit to say on the subject when I commented on her post, so I thought I would share my opinions with you here as well. Without further ado, here are a few things I've learned about blogging in the past eight or so years I've been doing it...
BLOGGING DON'TS
...in the world according to Sarah...
Although everyone treats it differently, I take blogging pretty seriously, and I put a lot of time and effort into it. I don't feel it's too much to ask that some of that energy be reciprocated. Therefore...
I will probably stop following your blog if you:
Ignore me.
Every single time I receive a comment on one of my posts, I take the time to thoughtfully reply to that comment via email, and then also visit the commenter's blog (if they have one) and leave a comment for them as well. Because that's just good karma. But if I continually comment on your blog and receive radio silence in return, I'm going to quit visiting. It's a two-way street, yo!
Do eleventy billion sponsored posts.
I get that we all want to grow our blogs and readerships or whatever, I do. But I started following your blog because I'm interested in YOU. When I visit your blog and am continually greeted by the faces and stories of strangers, or products, items and services that I don't care about, it's extremely distracting and annoying. Once in a while is fine, but too many equals sayonara, baby.
Become a link up whore.
I love link ups. In fact, I host this one every Thursday and usually participate in at least one more each week. But when you do a different link up every single day, in an obvious desperate attempt to splash your name all over the blogosphere, I'm not a fan. Especially when your link up posts consist of short answers to boring questions that we've all heard before. Get creative with your posts! Tell me who you really are, in your own words!
Are a whiner.
Seriously, if I wanted to listen to a bunch of whining, I'd lurk Facebook all day. Or hang out in the 49ers locker room. I love it when you share your innermost thoughts on your blog, including your disappointments and failures, but if that's ALL you ever post about, your blog is not going to be someplace I continue to frequent. Sorry dude, but I can't take all that negative energy.
Aren't real.
I know, I know, this is kind of hypocritical. But in the same vein, if I want to bask in all the fabulousness that is your life, I'll go to Instagram to see all the most beautiful and perfect moments you've had in the past week and felt the need to show the world. But when I visit your blog, I want to see the real you. We don't always wear makeup and have our hair blown out perfectly... our dogs die, we get fired, we break our legs, and people break our hearts. Tell me about your real life, not just your life the way you hope it appears. Everybody poops.
Have comment verification turned on.
Now I'm getting really nit-picky, but I'm just sayin'... I know this is snarky, but I am incredibly busy and I don't have time to type in those freaking illegible letters and numbers multiple times before getting it right every time I want to leave a comment on your blog! It makes me leave with a bad taste in my mouth, and I probably won't return...
Are a no-reply blogger.
Please don't make me search all over the freaking internet for your email address. I beg you, PLEASE add your email address to your Blogger profile! If you've never received an email in reply to a comment you've left on another blogger's blog, its' probably because you don't have your email address associated with your profile. I think it's very important to acknowledge every comment I receive, but I should not have to spend 10 minutes trying to locate your contact information! Jenni has a great little tutorial on how to quickly fix this problem.
And those, my friends, are the things I've learned that annoy me the most about the blog world. Some of them enough to cause a full-blown blogger breakup.
How about you?
I hope we never have a full blown blogger breakup ;)
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely LOVE this. You are spot on!! :) I try to show the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly... it's life, why not?! I can't relate to people that put up the image of perfection day after day... because I know it isn't real! Also agree on sponsorship stuff. So many good blogs end up ONLY posting promos/sponsor highlights and then there's really no reason to visit anymore!
ReplyDeleteI love all these things.. I have noticed I have been doing a LOT of link ups, and need to scale back a little bit. I agree with the no comments back. I take time out of my day to write on your wall you can do the same back.
ReplyDeleteAMEN gf!!!!! I despise when people don't interact...if you don't want to interact make it private!!! A lot of giveaways where you have to follow 30 people just annoys me too, I don't want to follow a bunch of people to just win a $25 gc
ReplyDeleteoh the perfect life blogger!!!!!!! dont you just love how their house is ALWAYS in pristine shape and they only buy designer things gah....no thanks!
so true! Although, I'm guilty of some of these...! I just turned off my comment verification - before I was getting tons of SPAM but I'll try it again. XOXO
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout-out, love! :D
ReplyDelete"Everybody poops." FOR THE WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did you know that Wordpress users are always no-reply? I guess there's no way to fix it!!!! I scoured the internet not too long ago because someone asked me... I guess it has something to do with the platform they use. It sux!
The 49ers locker room. Ha. I feel ya girl ;)
ReplyDeleteI LOVED this post! I couldn't agree more, especially about the comment verification (I just want to be like knock it off!)
ReplyDeleteI sometimes have trouble commenting on Blogger blogs since I'm on Wordpress but I hear ya, especially on the comment verification thing. My pet peeve isn't really specific to blogs but more so writing in general: inappropriate use of apostrophe (as in using them on plural words when there isn't any sort of possession involved). Drives. me. in. sane. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of these. I hate word verification!!! Sometimes I feel like I take part in a lot of link ups, but I do try to scale a back a bit and only write about things I would write about anyway, if that makes sense!
ReplyDeleteHeck yes to each and every one of these!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Sarah! I don't care for the constant link ups, especially when the topics or questions aren't that interesting. Another peeve of mine are blogs that are complicated to navigate. I just want to read a previous post, why is this so hard?!
ReplyDeleteI think all of these are great! I couldn't agree more. Also, I totally laughed out loud when I read the 49ers comment.
ReplyDeleteThis is great!! I hate when I don't get responses to my replies! I stopped following some "big" bloggers because of it. And sorry, I've been whining! Once I start my new job hopefully that stops! Lol!!
ReplyDeleteI told Jamie I was going to link up tonight when I got home from work. Wrong. I host a link up tomorrow, so tried to log on to do my post, and "Hostica" (my host) got hacked and locked everyone out. Jason is locked out of all,his client sites too. Yikes! So, no post for me today and possibly no post tomorrow if it's not fixed before I ned to leave for work! Hopefully. Ext week I can remember to join you guys! I have a few things I've learned! Lol! And it's such a fun link up to read!!
yes to all of these, esp the ignoring one. for real, if i comment on a blog multiple times and i get nothing back? BYYYEEEE! that obviously means that person doesn't care so neither will i.
ReplyDeletealso: drama bitches. who needs that.
kathy
Vodka and Soda
I agree with every single one of these! so, so true...
ReplyDeleteFunny story: So my husband's family are all in Washington state and are all Seahawks fans. Except for my husband and his stepdad - they're Niners fans. His stepdad is from SFran and I guess my husband just needed to be the rebel? He still cheers for the Hawks but it's his #1 player is Joe Montana so yeah. Anyways... his nephew call the niners the Forty-whiners. I just thought of this story because of your mention if the niners under whiners. Also, this same nephew is a little rebel and cheers for the Broncos so imagine if, the Super Bowl is between the broncos and the seahawks. my family is fun haha
I have to agree with all of this! I have stopped following blogs before because I seriously felt like almost every post was a sponsor post. When you have sponsors on your blog, it's important to showcase them in some way, but it needs to be spread out! And be clever with the title. Give the post a regular title. If you tell me it's a guest post, I probably won't read it....unless it's a guest post by a blogger I already follow.
ReplyDelete