More Bloggers Need to Fail
Same difference?
I was sharing some thoughts with a few other “seasoned” bloggers this past weekend and we discussed, among other things, how we really found our place in the blogosphere and what specifically contributed to our success (besides blind luck).
We all had varying (and fun) stories but we came away with more than a few things that I think we all can be gently reminded of and one of those things was turning failure into success.
And sure, I know, no one likes to talk about “failure,” right? It’s just not that thing that you bring up in conversation:
Hey Joe, how have you failed recently? I’d love to know!
Right? But I believe it’s important, and for the sake of clarity for my readers and the community here I want to be as specific as possible – you see, there are two kinds of failure:
- Passive Failure
- Active Failure
Here’s what I mean by these two:
Passive Failure
Passive failure happens every single day in the blogging world and is the dominant modus operandi (mode of operating) among the vast majority of bloggers.
It is the fine art of doing nothing and yet expecting that things will grow. It is the fine art of whining when things don’t work and yet doing nothing to get it to work. I believe we call this “insanity,” right?
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Thank you Mr. Albert Einstein!
Ultimately it’s a lack of intentionality with your blog that’ll be the death of you! At the end of the day you simply write, hit the publish button, and then expect the world to arrive in droves.
Active Failure
Active failure doesn’t happen as often as it should but it’s essentially everything that “passive” failure is not: It’s intentional by nature and definition and has an element of risk-taking in the mix.
It’s trying new things and being able to risk the consequences of it not working out! By the way, this for me this is really the only way that I’ve been able to learn the whats, hows, and whys of blogging – failing my way into them.
The thing that gets me is that the amount of risk involved is so low! What, really, does a blogger have to lose than a few minutes (or hours) of work and perhaps a few less readers that day?
Here are a few examples of “active failure” that you can challenge yourself with:
- Trying a new WordPress Theme for your blog.
- Trying a new WordPress Plugin for your blog.
- Trying a 3rd party service that might increase readership.
- Getting rid of (a lot) of your WordPress Plugins that might be bloating your site.
- Installing something like Webmaster Tools and getting into the “code” of your WordPress Theme.
- Trying a different content type, like video posts for example.
- Trying to publish twice instead of once a week.
- Trying to publish less this week (*gasp!*).
- Trying a few of the monetization strategies that I’ve laid out.
- Trying your hand in blog advertising.
- Stepping back and building your blog strategy from scratch (see Blog Starter Kit for some ideas).
- Build a Personal Landing Page for yourself and your blog.
- Get a blogging buddy, get some help!
- And more…
The point here is to be intentional, try something new, risk a bit, and stick your neck out there a tad!
And if you find yourself “failing” more then I would argue you’re doing something right!
No blogger ever made his way to the top without seriously doing something stupid (at least once, if not multiple times). I know this from experience!
Finally, remember that Experimentation is one of the Key Ingredients to a successful blog!
Well, to be honest, I’ve been in both camps – failed passively very recently mainly because I didn’t know what I was doing. And now I’m in the active camp. I changed my design, spent time thinking about my purpose, realized I’ll never be a great blogger, but that God’s given me a unique perspective in life, one I feel like I can share. Still working on it, but your posts always come at a great time.
Thanks for all you do John.
sure thing nathan!
Great article John! I was passively failing before, not the whinning part but I wasn’t really trying. Now I’m becoming more active in the social community, on other blogs, and working hard on learning how to become a better blogger. Your blog has been helping me loads!!!
sure thing matt!
Thanks for the reminder. I’m really hoping I don’t fail this time. At least I hope that I don’t fail completely, but I’ve already had several failures to learn important life lessons from.
These are all great suggestions!
I think it would also be true to say that more *people* need to fail actively, in a lot of ways.
On that note, Happy valentines day
John,
I’ve been faced with these two kinds of failures ever since I’m started blogging in 2008. Active failure is what I strive for to see really what works but passive failure is where I have learned the most. I say this because since those mistakes bite you in the butt later and make the truth unbearable you don’t want that to happen again.
truth is tough to swallow, that’s for sure.
I love the active failure point about posting less that week. That’s a little scary. Love your points!
sure thing becky!
“… failing my way into them.” What a brave statement. Even more than courageous, it’s true. Thanks for the challenge not to show up and expect something when we’ve done nothing. Here’s to failing forward.
YES! it’s the honest truth, that’s for sure.
I love actively failing. If I was not actively failing it means that I was never doing anything worth noting.
Great post John.
I seem to have hit a place where I’m no longer passive about my blogging, but I’m also not moving forward any more either. I’ve got close to 50 subscribers, and I get about 25 hits a day otherwise, but I’m not moving much past that. So maybe at some point I can begin actively failing! LOL!
I just checked out your blog.
I would suggest engaging on twitter a little more. I looked through your twitter feed and saw no RT’s. That suggests you are using twitter more as a broadcast tool than a social tool, which doesn’t really work unless you are already uber-famous.
You should also ask questions at the end of your posts to encourage your readers to engage (and thus come back).
The site looks really good and your writing is great so stick with it, find ways to engage readers (reading and commenting on other blogs more will help, too) and have fun.
You may fail, but it won’t be forever!
great! what are your goals for the rest of the year?
Thanks for such a timely and encouraging post, John. I plan to try my first video post this week. Can’t wait!
did you do it?
Yep! It was a great learning experience!
Great suggestions. I started blogging in 2009 and lasted for almost 9 months and then stopped. I started again this last year and have learned from my mistakes.
Failure = success, if your not moving forward, your stagnant. Life is about taking risks, failing and looking at it through a different lens.
stagnant… i was thinking about today.
This is my fourth blog attempt. I am too familiar with failure. Eeek!
and how’s this one going?
Great way of putting it! I have failed many times on my blog…
and you’re the better for it!
By the way- why is it that a lot of blogs load really slowly and other load fast?
Does it have to do with the apps and stuff…this has been noticeable for any blogs using the Disqus commenting system!
The speed of loading depends partly on the server they are on but mostly on things like:
How many images are on the page
How much javascript is used
How many plugins are used
The size of plugins (commenting systems like disqus can be pretty big)
The order that items load
Themes like Standard Theme are faster because they don’t incorporate lots of needless code so there is less to physically download to open them.
you sir, are an evangelist!
Good post, John (as if that doesn’t go without saying)
I’m just starting a blog and though I wish it would just take off, I’m sure that active failure will be a big part of it. I’m using the standard theme and have learned tons of other stuff from you though, so I’m off to a good start
Thanks for your blog John.
sure thing jordan!
I read this lastnight and was intrigued! Failing seems so scary! But I understand the need to keep pushing yourself by doing one small thing or trying something new toward your goals. Thanks for the reframing of ‘failure.’
sure thing tammy!
Thank you for the encouragement. I’d add that you also have to add value to people’s lives with the content you put out. Kinda like this post
. If people aren’t reading and sharing your content, then it’s not good content. Remember, people don’t care about you. They care about themselves and their lives getting better because of the time they spent reading your blog. Put more time into good content and less into trying to get people to read it. If it’s good, it will find its way to people.
thanks!
At the risk of looking ridiculous, I am just going to ask the dumb question. What is a third party service? How do I “use” it to increase readership? (There are many other terms in this post I am unfamiliar with, but I figured I should tackle one thing at a time.)
A ‘third party’ service is a service offered by another website that can plug in or link to your site.
There are different services which can drive traffic to your site through various means.
Thanks for your help. How do you find these services?
barb,
what are you interested in doing?
I write a blog about eating issues, the lies we tell ourselves to justify eating and the truth that dispels them. I am hoping for more exposure and possibly ads for the blog.
I have been gaining followers mostly through facebook and friends. This week I am running a giveaway which has gotten me more exposure, but not exponentially.
those are great strategies to increase readership but your goal in addition to more readers is to get them to become subscribers, using something like feedburner:
http://tentblogger.com/feedburner/
I have feedburner on my blogsite already. One of the ways someone can enter the drawing is by signing up for an email subscription. I guess I didn’t realize that is a “third party service.” Thanks for taking the time to reply to me and help me out – I really appreciate it!!