When I launched The Phoenix Desertsong, I encountered a whole new generation of bloggers just starting out. Many from my past were now long gone, I’m sure for quite varying reasons. But, as I was going through some old blogger interviews I did for previous websites, it became really sad for me to realize that not only were many of them no longer blogging, they’d disappeared entirely from the internet.
After finding three bloggers in a row I’d interviewed that were then nowhere to found actually left me feeling heartbroken. With each blogger I find that’s gone completely offline, the more heartbroken I felt.
Unfortunately, it’s sad but true that most bloggers, vloggers, and other content creators do eventually give up on the craft. The reasons widely vary, of course. Maybe audience growth has stalled, ad and/or affiliate revenue simply dried up, or the passion to create just wasn’t there any more. You need an immense drive to continue the absolute grind of content creation, and it’s quite easy to give into blogging burnout. That is, if your chief desire is to get interaction with your work, whether it be likes, shares, and comments, or even just a bunch of views from what I’ve come to call the “silent majority.”
Between social media management, search engine optimization, constantly responding to or soliciting interactions, and link building, running a blog gets to be quite overwhelming. That’s why I decided to start over with a fresh slate with The Phoenix Desertsong home base and take my time with it. The thing I now focus on most is simply getting content posted. Then, I worry about the SEO, link building, and promotion later as I peruse my statistics and see what is getting the most attention.
When I first started building up The Phoenix Desertsong, I wouldn’t even necessarily promote the posts right away. Sometimes, I would put a placeholder picture as the featured image, leaving finding proper photos to complement them at a later date. My need to get everything back up and organized all in one spot took priority. Once the archive started being built up, I then took to start promoting. After that, I started reaching out to build links. What I found is that if you just do a task or two a day, all of the things that bloggers stress about will take care of themselves naturally. Organic growth is the best sort because you see what people actually are looking to read. That way, as time goes on and certain posts are getting no traction at all, I can prune and weed out as necessary.
So, if you’re experiencing blogger burnout and you’re thinking of giving up on content creation, don’t give up on all of it. Instead, take a step back. Reevaluate what you want out of your blog, and prioritize the topics you care about most. If you’re extremely overwhelmed, though, it can be worth taking a break. But, it’s much harder if you stop completely. My recommendation is to cut back on your regular schedule and just focus on the biggest topic that gets you the most traffic and/or interaction.
If you’re simply burn out on writing, find just one blogging task to keep doing consistently. It may be something basic as creating Pinterest pins, participating in Facebook groups, or engage in Twitter chats. Also, you can simply keep writing and just not post it right now. Focus on the one activity that gives you the least stress, and put everything else aside until you feel ready to return to doing more things. Add blogging-related activities a little bit at a time until you’re back in a groove. Get the best at what you can with one activity and a time, and only then should you move onto the next thing you feel ready to dive into.
That’s why I just keep dropping blog posts pretty much on the daily. In September 2022, I eliminated all of my social media accounts, which were getting me less than one-half of a percent of my total views since 2021. It’s possible that if your social media isn’t getting you regular views or new followers, you may have to ditch those channels, too.
For me, ditching social media was the best thing that ever happened to my website. My whole energy is now devoted to rewriting old content and creating new posts. The beauty of the internet is that I can layer things on as I go. Try to think of your content creation as building a really super awesome cake. Yum, cake!
What is your favorite part of content creation? Is it the creation itself, the promotion, or the interactions? Let me know!
Related: Finding Time to Blog | If You Blog, Will They Come | Writers are People, Too
