I am taking vacation tomorrow and have decided to let my blog go on vacation also. I think it would be great if my blog continued working while I was relaxing, but alas, he has not established himself as an independent entity capable of functioning without me.
What My Blog Does When I'm On Vacation
I admonish my blog to work harder, to become more like Mark Schaefer’s blog on marketing and social media. Mark took an extended vacation recently, and his blog diligently produced quality content while he was gone. Like a wind-up Tony Robbins doll, possessed of boundless energy and fueled by amazing guest posters such as public relations and marketing consultant Erica Allison, Mark Schaefer’s blog never missed a beat. When I find my blog again in a few days, he’ll probably be sleeping off a 3-day bender, in desperate need of a shave.
It’s obvious that my blog needs to put down the Playstation controller, get off the couch and get to work. Unfortunately, it does not look like that will happen in time for this break, so I am afraid my blog will have to sit silently in the corner for a few days after writing “I will produce quality content regularly” 100 times on the blackboard.
So…
If you subscribe via RSS, please know this blog has not been abandoned. We will return with a post on Wednesday, July 6. Until then, for my readers who are bloggers (especially newer bloggers without a reserve of guest posters in queue), I would love to know:
What you do with your blog when you take a vacation?
And to all of my U.S. readers, best wishes for a happy and safe Independence Day weekend!
DID YOU ENJOY THIS POST? CLICK HERE FOR REGULAR UPDATES VIA RSS!
Nothing, absolutely nothing. In fact, I don’t write this nice little post about my girl blog running off into the sunset to meet a boy blog. I don’t inform the world I’m on holiday and off somewhere, because then someone will come over and rob my girl house — you know, kinda l like Foursquare.
But, what you might want to do is repurpose old posts and queue them up for when you’re out. That’s a common practice and all you need to do is put a one liner on top and say “This post originally appeared XX; enjoy!”
Jayme, Your “girl” blog… funny!
I thought about the security aspect of going public when I saw Mark announce his vacation. I think you just have to make sure your security is locked down, but it is something to be aware of.
I like the idea of repurposing old posts. Not sure that would have worked this time, as the blog is so new. But I should have a decent store of posts by the next time. Or I can just beg you to babysit my blog like you are doing for Erica. (I’ll make sure to drop by on the 6th.)
Jayme makes a good point. Safety is an important thing to consider. I typically don’t mention when I’m away, but I’m considering it when I’m going to visit my family in the near future.
I think Mark’s approach was a good one – get guest posters to keep things moving for you. I wanted to do that, but didn’t make the ask soon enough.
Jayme’s idea of “best of” is a good one. I’m thinking of doing something where I curate a bunch of content and ask folks to share their favorite reads.
Of course, you could always do some writing in advance and schedule the posts to go out while you’re gone, but if you’re not there to respond, what’s the point?
Great question! I know a lot of folks grapple with this.
Laura, you’re so right. I thought about scheduled posts, but if you’re not there to comment, it’s really worse than not posting. I think guest posters is a great strategy. My posting schedule is twice a week (or supposed to be!), so hopefully that won’t be that hard to fill.
Loved your companion post and appreciate the shout out! Heading over to comment today.
Great post. Love the description of my blog!!
I thought about the safety issue but traded it off for sanity. The blog has become a central part of my business and reputation. Part of that is also being honest with people and telling them I’m going to take a break. Its the only way to stem the flow of relentless communication, requests for help and information. I just had to tell people that I was going to be off the grid. I noticed Jay baer did the same thing. It send a notice of “leave me alone for a few days” in a polite way. Thanks again.
Thanks Mark! My circle is pretty tight but engaged, and I didn’t want anyone to think I was ignoring them. I can imagine that someone with a SM footprint like yours could really do damage to a brand by just disappearing without some sort of explanation. I actually borrowed your “I’m not ignoring you” line for my Twitter bio.
I really appreciate you dropping by and taking the time to comment.
My blog never takes a vacation because I am the cruelest taskmaster that exists. I crack the whip and that sucker jumps, runs, twists, sings, twirls, bends and whirls. There is no crying in baseball nor blogging and dammit I like it that way.
Enjoy your vacation and have a safe holiday.
You know Jack… some on here might think you’re kidding, I know you’re not. Keep cracking that whip.
Holiday was great. I hope yours was as well.
” I am afraid my blog will have to sit silently in the corner for a few days after writing “I will produce quality content regularly” 100 times on the blackboard.”
Love it! That’s what mine does, too, Adam, when it’s so down it doesn’t even ask for guest posters. But if I actually *plan* to be out, I tend to ask someone or more than one someone to help blogsit, as Laura and Jayme mentioned.
But although we’ll miss you, we won’t make you write anything on the blackboard before you start in with the good stuff again! Enjoy.
Hey Shakirah, Yeah, looks like guest posting is the consensus solution.
I appreciate you not making my blog write on the blackboard – he’s still recovering from his time off. Thanks for stopping by!
Twitter: bdorman264
Since I only post once a wk I haven’t had to deal with it yet; but I’m ok if it needs to take a break and no I won’t have it loaded up w/ guest posts. I don’t think I even know how to get a guest post in there; sounds like work to me……….:).
Just between me and you I’m hoping there are a few people who decide to take some time off; a blog moratorium.
Have fun, we’ll be here when you get back and be safe.
Oh Bill… we do need to all go on vacation without guest posters, just to give you a commenting break. I think posting once a week does make it pretty easy on the blogging side, but there is the whole commenting/social media side as well.
Great to see you as always. Hope you had an excellent 4th!
Hi Adam,
I haven’t been on vacation from my blog yet. Although I am presently in NYC (where I’ll be for another 3-4 weeks), I’m doing some work as well as spending a little time pseudo-vacationing. Ideally, I would have had some posts in queue. Or I would have done as suggested … get some guest posters. But truth be told, I’m not ready for guests to post and the drafts I have don’t shape up to complete posts.
So, I’d probably have to do what you did … Write a cute post showcasing how my blog was languishing on the couch and taking one-too-many nips while I wasn’t looking!
I’m glad some ideas you (and I) can use have been put forth ….
Hi Vernessa,
I appreciated the ideas from the others too. I do consider responding to comments on my blog a responsibility to anyone that takes the time to leave a real comment, so I think just scheduling posts is not viable. Next time, I will try to either repurpose an old post (with no expectations of comment responses) or, better, enlist some guest posters.
I hope you are enjoying your time away! I really appreciate you stopping by.
Thank you for all of the tips. I recently started my own blog and these odd questions keep arising that I would never have associated with blogging. It’s nice to have real guidance out there. For a beginner blogger, do any of you have any major words of advice, I could use all the help I can get!
Hi Gisele,
I appreciate the kind words. I’m glad this discussion was helpful. Major words of advice… that’s pretty general, so I will just say find great bloggers and follow them, and also find some strong blogs about blogging. I would recommend three: kikolani.com, live-your-love.com, and bestbloggingtipsonline.com.
Thanks for taking the time to comment today!
Personally for me I will just have to take the time and continue updating my content. I guess I am just a workaholic but I believe sticking to your routine whenever possible is beneficial. If I absolutely cannot do it myself than I guess I would try to find guest posters which could be hard on short notice.
I was really wondering how did this work out for you in the end? It would be nice to know now that the vacation is long over and things are back to normal. Especially since I’m considering going away somewhere this winter.