For “The Hipster’s Guide to Life Online” post series I’ve teamed up with folks in the social media/blog world (this time with the lovelyTracey from Sweetney who refers to this series as “The Social Media Zombie Ate My Brain: How To Wrestle Your Soul Back From The Gaping Maw Of Interweb Timesuck”) to bring you regular updates on life online and finding balance within it. In this series, we’re sharing our personal experiences, hacks and tricks in navigating in this emerging field. Tracey is in bold, Gwen’s responses are italicized.

This is the second chapter. Read the first.

Dear Gwen,

I’ve been using AwayFind to try to corral my email a bit. Funny that: I think more than AwayFind having an actual concrete impact on my behavior, its usefulness for me has been that it’s just psychologically soothing for me to know that I’ve told people to not expect me to turn emails around on the spot. The immediacy of email is such that I do think it creates a sense of urgency and expectations of rapid response that don’t really (or shouldn’t really) exist on either side of the email exchange. And it’s also been useful in that it’s discouraged people from writing me as often as before with trivial/unnecessary information, if only because they hate getting the AwayFind response emails in return. I’m not kidding about that! I’ve noticed a sharp decrease in the incoming personal email at the very least. AwayFind should create some kind of slogan related to that result. “AwayFind: Because You Don’t Really Need Friends Anyway.” “AwayFind: Less Friends, Fewer Hassles.”

I think they need to use the latter as a tag line, so yes, it sounds like it has really worked for you. Awesome. I tried it for two weeks but found that the people who email me on a very regular (more than three times/daily) basis got annoyed with it. So I turned it off. The people at AwayFind are super supportive and may be able to help you use it even more effectively if you ask them.

I’ll be using it for times that my email traffic is so high that I can’t reply to people within 24-hours. I think it’s an excellent tool for that. If they add functionality to allow you to white-list (that is, not send an “I’m away from my computer” message to) certain people, I’d consider having it on full-time.

I’ve been using your idea of Blog Stubs, and I have to say that this is probably the suggestion I’ve been able to apply most successfully. It was something of an A-HA! moment for me when I grasped what a complete and total moron I’d been in not writing down ideas for blog posts when they happen, capturing those often fleeting inspirations. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had some inspired thought about something I should write, only to lose it because I convinced myself I’d remember it later, when the situation was more convenient for me to record it. I’m an idiot. Anyway, great idea, and one I’ve really been able to incorporate into my work life and make a part of how I do things writing-wise.

This is great to hear. Having multiple places to capture ideas (in all your bags, in your car, around the house, at work) as they occur can’t be understated. I recently got an iPhone and started brain dumping there, too.

Here’s the catch. You really do have to clear it out frequently. Some ways to clear it out:

Weekly Review
Blog Meetups - get together with other local bloggers trying to pound through a few posts at a time, review one another’s work and bounce ideas around
Tweet it out - if you have a stub that needs fleshing out, ask your Twitter friends for advice. I’ve found folks to be incredibly friendly and wanting to help.

Beyond that, meh. I still have a hard time responding to comments. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that so few comments actually require a response unless there’s a direct question involved or something.

When traffic gets so high that you can’t possibly comment on everything, I’d recommend doing the best you can to answer pressing questions and hand off the rest to your staff writers.

Writing an FAQ might help, too. Send people to an FAQ page with commonly asked questions answered (create a blog stub called “FAQ” and just dump questions there, whether you answer them in the comment section or not, repeating on a separate page is ok). This will save you time from answering the same questions repeatedly. Get Satisfaction helps companies with this, too. I’d consider setting up an account to field complaints, which are inevitable in any business.

I do read all the comments on all my posts on all my sites (and almost all the comments on everyone else’s posts on all my sites, for that matter), but pressuring myself about communicating with everyone all the time seems like just setting myself up for disaster and failure.

I’d say remember to be forgiving of yourself first. You are raising a child, juggling household responsibilities, running three blogs, a Twitter account and being an editor. People get that. Your readers know your story and I would say that when you become overwhelmed it’s okay to say just that: Thank you for your comment. I’m currently processing a large volume of comments/email/tweets (which I’m happy about!) and will respond to you in the order in which your comment/email/tweet was received.

I’ve heard of people declaring “email/RSS reader bankruptcy.” I suppose you could declare comment bankruptcy, too, but that seems like a negative way to view it. As you get more readers, more comments will come in. This is a double-edged sword, which is the pain you’re experiencing right now.

There are blogging luminaries that seem to have 12 arms and 10 eyeballs…they are everywhere at once. Many of these bloggers are doing this full-time and are driven to make a profit off it.

My question for you for this week is: Why blog? What are your motivations?

When folks tell me (usually excitedly) they “want to start a blog” I ask them why. This is not because I think they’ll make a terrible blogger. Nor is it that I’m jaded (in any way) about blogging. It takes self-control both to know when to spend the day blogging/commenting and when to walk away. It’s a job and knowing our motivations for doing it will help us when we get b(l)ogged down.

Here are some common motivations. Discover yours and then ask yourself, honestly, what best practices you need to incorporate to keep it fun. This shouldn’t be a grind, nor should there be any guilt feelings (ie I should be blogging right now!!) associated with it. Discover your motivations to keep the passion alive. Hmm, maybe I should be a sex therapist instead of a social media consultant….

Some people blog:

to make money
to become famous
to grow an audience
to drive traffic (usually to make money off a book or some other product)
to tell a story
to reach a goal (often, to lose weight or join others going through a similar experience)
to archive your life

What’s your motivation? Where can you cut the fat? Streamlining practices will ease the growing pains as your brand and blogs take off. You’re doing great.

–
About Gwen + Tracey

If you have a question for the Hipster’s Guide (on Gwen Bell) shoot me an email - gwendolynbell at gmail. You can also find me over on Kirtsy and Twitter.

You can find Tracey on Sweetney, MamaPop and WeCovet. Check her blogs out or find her on Twitter!