Pinterest, Can You Hear Me???

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image from business2community.com

As we roll into 2015, I keep trying to think of ways to better myself, better my site, my stats, my ranks- you know, what so many bloggers are thinking about.  None of you are sleeping.  Yeah, I see those green dots next to your FaceBook profiles.  Mmmhmmm.

Social media and ranking systems and scores are constantly, constantly changing.  New things/apps/social sites to learn, more places you need to add yourself and your content, more places and things you need to “get good at”, promote your posts at, and post, post, POST on.  How is Google ranking you today?  How are they calculating that THIS month?  What the heck is going on with Alexa?  Those scores are going completely insane since September…..What’s your pagerank?  Why does that keep changing?  How do you fix it?  Who is looking at Panda?  Wait, is it Hummingbird?  Who needs my domain rank?  My bounce rate?  Yes, I can send you a screen shot of my monthly uniques- do you prefer Google Analytics or some other of the zillion metric counting sites?  Don’t worry- I am signed up with them all.

What’s your Twitter following?  Facebook?  Pinterest?  Instagram?  Google+ ?  Have you posted to and promoted the junk out of all of them today?  Are you a steady stream of social media?  You’d better be.   How are your photography skills?  Do you have tons of apps for filters for your photos, and editing skills to make them look like they belong on magazines?  Did you buy the upgraded versions of everything so it can be altered online?  (Pssst!  I totally don’t and  didn’t. You see my photos as they actually are!   I know, rebel-rebel.)

Is anyone listening?  Readers, what do you want to see?  What is PR looking for? It’s all over the place….Oh, you want my media kit?  (Crap, I need to update my media kit…)

What is your Authority????  ARG!!!!  My head hurts.

image via coyotechronicle.net

The longer we blog, the more we know- this is an all-the-time thing.  It’s not easy, nor is it fast by any means.  Any moderately successful blogger by any terms will tell you that.  Not that anyone who isn’t a blogger will believe you.  Oh, and the emails……

But hey- it’s all good.  That’s what we do.  And we love it.  (Mostly, haha.)

Good for you- you made it all the way through Part 1 of my mind dump- Huzzah!  Beware, there is a Part 2.   Disclosure- (Because we have to add those, you know.  FTC and all that. ) all opinions are my own and have been written as I thought them at that time.  They are the personal thoughts of the writer (me!) and yours may differ.  I have not been compensated for this post, am not too heavily medicated or stuff, and am not sure if this counts as a rant, since it’s not angry.  Musings of a mommy with a migraine, perhaps. I’m done disclosing now.

The thing that has me wondering is this- how do the single bloggers, those of us who write and manage our own blogs, by ourselves, or with occasional contributors or a partner, compete with the “mega blogs” which are run by one or more people, but written by a team of writers or content producers, VAs (virtual assistants) to post and promote their posts all over the place, and “tech people” who keep the sites running super smoothly?  I often feel like the coffee shop across the street from the Starbucks- it’s great to have those sites, and kudos to those who run them.  Managing them, I am sure, is a headache.  But for those of us who are just “us”- how do you show that your coffee is just as awesome as Starbucks, when you are 1 person and not 15?

Some say “content is king”, but many of us know this is not always the case.   Having many people to write posts for your site, edit them, take photos, edit them, add them to every social media site, promote them, and grow them- that’s pretty helpful.  It’s quite an advantage. It’s amazing.  My son and I made our gingerbread cookies- they don’t look like Martha Stewart stepped in, and they never will.  Heck, some of them were green!  Pinterest, will you still love me?  Not nearly as much as the lovely ones that went viral, were made by one woman in her kitchen (alone, with no “helpers”), were professionally photographed, and promoted for days on everything by several people.  That’s all good- and again, awesome, and good job!  It’s the figuring out how little old me can compete with BigBlogX that has someone who does the baking (with a culinary degree), 3 someones who do the products, someone who does the beauty tips, the impossibly lovely woman who does fashion, the vlogger, the amazing previously professional photographer who now works from home, and 5 VAs.

It’s kind of like trying to be “Supermom”- only trying to be “Superblogger”, but having to have many, many superpowers.  (I have to bake like Buddy Valastro AND be crazy thin and beautiful?  I still can’t do a smokey eye! Totally unfair, haha.)

Do I get jealous?  Of course, don’t we all from time to time.  Plus, I want the body of that fashion blogger-contributor, like right now.   That’s not the point.  I am trying to figure out a “game plan”, a way to shine- to show off my own skills and personality, a way to say “YES, I am valuable,  I did this myself, as me- and it’s doing well.  Here are my screenshots, and stats, ranks, and the Panda-Hummingbird-Toilet-Paper-Zombie  you wanted to see.  I am not BigBlogX- I’m an army of me, and I can kick butt just fine.”

BigBlogX and the armies of one both have their places- neither is better then the other, no one way works best. Multi-voiced blogs have lots of people telling you their opinions, so you hear many voices and thoughts.  Single bloggers/bloggers with occasional contributors/blogging teams let you get to know the personality of the blogger, build a sort of “friendship” with them since it is more personal.

ANYONE WHO WANTS LEAVE HATE COMMENTS, READ THIS FIRST

Then you can leave hate comments. It’s below- make sure you hit the “Post Comment” button or I won’t know how much you really despise me, my thoughts, my lack of skill and talent, my stupid face, my parenting, and especially what a moron you think I am. In case I don’t get the chance to thank you personally- Thanks, hugs and kisses!

Anyone reading this who wants to yell and say I am slamming or complaining about any sort of blogging, blogger, or etc- do not think that is so. It’s not.  It’s personal musings, and possibly caffeine cravings.  For sure lack of sleep.  Probably some other stuff.  Obviously, people love Starbucks, and for good reason.  The coffee is great, there are many options and different people to give you your mocha-choka-choco-chino.  As the single store, owner run coffee shop, I (and those like me) am pretty awesome too.  Unique, flavorful, and you know the staff- it’s like “Cheers” up in here.

So, what to do?  Not really sure.  I don’t want to be Starbucks. I like my shop.  I don’t want 15 contributors, or 10 VAs.  I just want to talk to you.  (Again, just me- everyone do what they want and read what they want and post what you want for who you want, etc.)

So I guess there really isn’t much to do.  There are some really successful bloggers who do it all and do it alone- so we all just keep on keepin’ on- and hoping that someone out there likes green gingerbread men as much as my son does.  Shut your face, Pinterest.  I’m not ever going to be as perfect as you want me to be  😛