Hi, my name is Heather. And, I have a confession.
I’ve been a bad blogger. Like, a tragically bad, absentee blogger.
If I’m being really, really honest, I fell out of love with blogging.
When I first started blogging, it was fun. I wrote about whatever I wanted and didn’t really care if it tied back to my business. I was just exploring the medium. That quickly changed: In the early years of my company, I was tracing 75% of all of my business back to relationships that began online — and much of that was directly or indirectly tied to this blog. So, then I felt compelled to write posts that would attract eyeballs … generate new client leads … land me speaking gigs.
But, as my company has grown, my role and my interests have shifted.
Of course, I’m still focused the convergence of technology, social media and PR. But, I hate feeling so pigeon-holed to a topic. For example, I’m also interested in entrepreneurship and the role of women building businesses. I’m interested in meditation’s role in the creative process. I miss being able to share personal stories and anecdotes that may only tangentially tie back to something related to social media. Even silly things annoy me, such as the requirement to have a photo with every blog post. I know it’s better for traffic, and makes front page of prTini.com look prettier, but sometimes I just want to write!
I’m also self-aware enough to understand that I put a lot of this so-called pressure on myself. I appreciate that people interested in PR and social media wanted to read my blog and I didn’t want to annoy them with “off topic” posts. So, I ignored the things I really wanted to write about and focused on what I should write about. But, by ignoring my own changing interests and stifling my creativity, I ended up in the black hole of blogging – half-heartedly writing content that I didn’t love. And, shame on me for hitting publish. I should — and d0 — know better.
But, all that ends today. This is my blog after all. So, I’m going back to writing about whatever I want. I run a growing PR agency, so of course a lot of the posts will still generally revolve around that space. But, I’m not going to obsess over content calendars, bounce rates, and “results.” (Actually, I totally believe that if I get back to my kind of blogging, the results will be there.)
So, two things for you: 1) I sincerely apologize that it took me this long to come to the “why” behind my recent disinterest in blogging; and 2) I truly am reenergized about writing. As you start to see some new posts, feel free to share your comments and feedback. Of course, I want to know what you think, but I’m promising myself that I won’t be so obsessed with other people’s opinions that I get off course again.
So, welcome to the prTini.com reboot.
Photo credit: Leonardo Dasilva