Top 3 lessons from a semester of blogging

Did you know that the most read blog posts are often “Top 5″ or “Top 10″ (or Top 3, or Top 27…) lists? And that starting your posts with a question is useful device for engaging your readers? (See what I did there?)

No? Nor did I when, on that fateful day 13 weeks ago, I started this blog as a semester-long assignment for my fancy social media class.

But now here we are at the end of semester and my knowledge of blogging is unrivaled (or at least it is within my two-person household). I know what to do (try to be helpful, reply to comments, include photos, make text scannable, etc…) and what not to do (blog when angry, steal other people’s ideas, over-think), how WordPress works and who’s worth reading.

And I also know some more important (and surprising) things that I don’t think I’d have fully understood if I hadn’t tried out blogging for myself. Here are just a few of them:

1. Blogging isn’t easy — actually, maybe this one’s not surprising at all. Even though millions of people do it every day, writing something you’re willing to put on the web forever, under your name, for any future employer to find, is tough — it takes a lot of time, and a lot of mental energy. Particularly when you’re trying to incorporate all “103 tips for better blogging”  you read that week. While also trying to write something original. And helpful. And interesting. So don’t believe the ‘blogging is easy, anyone can do it’ hype of far too many social media ‘gurus.’ Technically blogging is easy, but realistically, it’s hard to do well (as this very much imperfect blog demonstrates).
2. Blogging takes serious time — like I said, it takes a surprising amount of time to write 500 words that you’re willing to put out in public (or that’s certainly what I found). And that doesn’t even include the time it takes to read other people’s blogs, find inspiration, find pictures to include, reply (intelligently) to people’s comments, comment (intelligently) on other people’s blogs, and everything else that goes along with managing and building a blog of your own. If you don’t have at least half a day a week to dedicate to blogging (and probably more), I’d think twice about starting one, if I were you.
3. Despite all of that, blogging can be fun — this was easily my biggest surprise. As someone who doesn’t particularly like writing (future employers, please ignore that last comment) I thought I’d hate blogging. And there were plenty of weeks when I did. But there were also times when I genuinely enjoyed it. Those times tended to be when I didn’t over-think what I was writing about, or when I wrote about things I thought were entertaining or interesting, proving that it’s true that writing about something you’re enthusiastic about is the key to better (and less stressful) writing (although I also discovered that’s easier said than done).

So that’s it. Some of the challenges and surprises from my first foray into the world of blogging. And now the question is: Will I continue, now that class is nearly over and this blog is no longer a requirement?

Good question, that. I’m certainly going to try to. I guess you’ll just have to watch this space to find out for sure…

Class is over... (Image: ne* via FLickr)