2011 was an important year for this blog. A few months ago, I published my 100th post. And, each post represents an opportunity to learn, improve, and experiment.
Social Media ReInvention Blog's Most Popular 2011 Posts
1. Public Relations Strategy: Integrating Digital and Traditional Patient Advocacy Tactics
2. 5 Competitive Advantages in Studying Real-Time Marketing PR by David Meerman Scott
3. HubSpot 2011 State of Inbound Marketing: Long Live Blogs!
4. The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 6 – Disaster Recovery & Crisis Communications
5. Tom Peters' Personal Branding Lessons, Part 1: Why YOUR Blog Matters
6. 8 Takeaways from Mashable's Mondern Media Agency INFOGRAPHIC
7. 7 Reasons to Study Newsjacking by David Meerman Scott
8. LinkedIn Today Personalizes News With Your Social Graph
9. The New York Times: Self-Appointed SEO Police?
10a. LinkedIn's Maps: A Cool Way to Visualize & Understand Your Professional Network
10b. Using LinkedIn to Land on Google's Front Page
This Blog Continues Steadily Building Credibility
Inbound Links Citing Social Media ReInvention Blog. Inbound links from high Google authority sites included:
- Tom Peters Media Sightings Page (the author of In Search of Excellence)
- PR Newswire (for the post I wrote on digital PR strategy and patient advocacy)
- SEOmoz (for my post on the use of blogs in inbound marketing)
- Webbiquity B2B Marketing Blog (for my post on Wal Mart's social media mistakes)
Comments / Citations From Bloggers in the Advertising Age Power 150. These bloggers included:
- David Meerman Scott (David left several comments. Here's one from my Newsjacking book review).
- Mitch Joel (Mitch wrote a nice comment in my Six Pixels of Separation book review)
- Adam Singer (Adam left a nice comment in my post about blog commenting and online reputation)
- Adam Singer (Adam also cited some of my blog comments in his February and May posts)
- Valeria Maltoni (Valeria mentioned my name and posted my tweet in one of her posts)
Here's a screenshot from Valeria's post: You do That, Too and the tweet cited in her post:
A Life Changing Event in August 2012
And, She Weighed in at a Happy and Healthy 6 Pounds, 9 Ounces. From mid-August to early November 2012, I literally dropped out of sight from any new blog posts or social media participation (you may or may not have noticed). The birth of my daughter is the reason why. My wife and I also have another daughter who's seven (7) years old.
Our family grew. And, we are so blessed.
But, Little Blessings Can Be Mentally and Emotionally Consuming. Fatherhood with a newborn is both humbling and rewarding. You learn quickly how sleep deprivation makes it difficult to construct a coherent thought or sentence.
It took four (4) months / early November to start feeling normal, productive, and effective.
The Epiphany: Blogging Really Makes Me Happy
A Newborn Quickly Imposes Prioritization (Whether You Like It or Not). During that four-month time frame, I realized I couldn't maintain my past routines in working on this blog. And, that frustrated me a lot.
I Missed the Process. I felt something missing. And, I had to keep reminding myself this sacrifice and setback is temporary.
I missed everything about the writing and blogging process:
- doing the research
- recording ideas / thinking of an inital angle
- mapping out a post's structure on paper
- typing / revising the drafts
- learning what content readers responded to
Putting Things in Perspective. Valeria Maltoni shared Stephanie Booth's post on Google+ titled: Measuring a Blog's Success: Visitors and Comments Don't Cut It. After reading this piece, I revaluated why I invest the time and energy into this endeavor:
- It's to share something I really care about
- It's a great way to practice writing (which is important in my full-time work)
- It's introduced me to interesting, smart, like-minded people
- It's not to make money (because I make no revenue from blogging)
- It makes me happy
Yes, It Makes Me Happy. And, I hope the time you spend reading my blog makes you happy (or makes you feel like it's time well-spent). With each new post, I hope you feel the content is improving.
And, I hope you'll continue sharing the content with others. When something I write is shared on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, I'm always surprised (and humbled).
Thank You. Thank you indulging me in sharing a memorable year. Thank you for subscribing to this blog and sharing its content with your social network connections. And, thank you for sticking with me when I temporarily dropped out of sight.
Here's to a safe, healthy, and happy 2012 for all of us.