Blogging

5 Ways Blogging Is Like A Toaster Oven

33 Comments

I know what you’re thinking: Mitch has gone nuts! lol Well, not quite. I’ve talked about the process of trying to come up with things to write about on one’s blog, no matter what the industry is. I hear from so many people who say they don’t know what to say, or can’t come up with something different to highlight their points, and thus they stop writing.

Farberware Special Select 4-Slice Toaster Oven with Baking Tray

I say that if you pay attention to your surroundings, or what’s going on in the news or life in general, that there’s always something to write about. Thus, as I was toasting a piece of bread in my toaster oven, it hit me that there really are 5 ways blogging and toaster ovens are related. Want to see? Here we go:

1. Each is multi-functional. Take a look at the item to the right. It toasts; it bakes; it warms things up, and it’s sizable enough where you can fit a lot of different things inside it.

Take a look at blogs. When you write, you educate, entertain or inform. You advertise yourself via an About page. You can have ads on it to help you make money. You can link it to other websites for whatever reason.

2. Each can be dangerous. One thing I’ve always worried about is getting burned on the metal thing that my toast or english muffin sits on, and it’s happened here and there. My wife worries about there being a short or it overheating because sometimes she forgets that using the oven portion, the sucker doesn’t shut itself off.

Sometimes what people write on their blog will set off the wrong person or convey the wrong message. Someone might read your post, go back to their blog and totally trash you (yeah, okay, I do that from time to time lol). You might have affiliate links on your site and have someone burn you by stealing them, changing them up, and taking your money from you.

3. Each looks nice and shiny at the beginning, but needs cleaning or changing up to stay fresh looking. If you haven’t cleaned your toaster oven in at least a year go take a look at what’s inside it. You’ll have all sorts of gunk sitting at the bottom of it, some of it a charred mess. The rack your toast and stuff sits on is probably caked with some black gunk as well. It just doesn’t look all that shiny and pretty anymore.

The same happens with some blogs. The writer stops trying as hard and the words are boring to read. The ads never change and you start to ignore what you’re seeing. The size and style of the posts never vary; there’s no variety. There’s too many spam comments and it seems like the owner just doesn’t care.

4. They’re both easy to change in some fashion. The best thing about toaster ovens is that you can put them anywhere in the kitchen; heck, you don’t even have to put them in the kitchen. I remember some folks having one of these in their college dorm room; that goes way back. Also, they come in multiple colors and styles; never boring at all.

Blogs are the same way. If you don’t like the theme, you can change it. If what you’re writing about is starting to feel like a grind, change it. If you want to write in a different style, you can. If you want to add something new, do it; no rules.

5. Both can bring great joy over and over again. Look at that toaster oven again. That bad boy can toast bread or an english muffin multiple times, multiple days, possibly over multiple years. You can always throw something in there to heat up or cook, and you’ll eat that, love that, and come back for more.

The same with blogging, whether you’re the writer or the reader. This will be my 305th post on the topic of blogging, and I hope that each post can stand on its own and not be a duplicate of another post. Yet every time I write about blogging or any of the other items I feel a great joy, like I’m eating a great piece of chocolate cake (love good chocolate cake), and when that’s done, I know that I can come back and write another one tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever. And it may not be on blogging but on something else; how wonderful is that for me, and hopefully for the readers, who know that they’re not going to get the same exact thing from me here on this blog, or see something that someone else has written elsewhere. At least I hope not; people do steal sometimes. 🙂

There; I bet you thought I couldn’t do it. Agree, disagree, mouth agape because I pulled it off? Let me know. 😉
 

33 thoughts on “5 Ways Blogging Is Like A Toaster Oven”

    1. Josh, I love some great chocolate cake, but strangely enough it’s not as easy to find these days. I must keep going to the wrong places; at least the grocery store that I share a back yard with has a great one.

  5. About your #2, about how blogs can be dangerous, I have heard about the link stealing and I’ve heard about cloaking links, but I’ve never understood how someone can steal the affiliate links. I still keep an eye on them the best I can. I also see how blogs can be dangerous (physically). Twitter, a microblog site as they call it, had thousands of people tweeting the last few days a re-tweet from Spike Lee with the address of an elderly couple in Florida which he believed was George Zimmerman’s address. He added the caveat, “You know what to do.”

    Yes indeed, blogs can be dangerous, even microblogs.

    1. You know Brian, I just pulled your comment out of the spam filter, and it figures that today’s post was a video about that Spike Lee subject; how funny! But it does prove the point, even if it’s fairly rare for the most part because most people aren’t intentionally trying to hurt others. True, it can be unintentional also, but most people will give you a pass in that case.

  6. I think comparison is quite accurate, Mitch. There are a lot of similarities. As well blog can be compared to shiny fast car or library, or anything else.

      1. I rarely compare it this way, but most of the time emphasize differences between blog, e-commerce, forum or social networks. As there is huge difference in anything, starting from development, going through marketing and finishing with reassessment. Other than that I’ve read many articles “why” somebody popular will be a good or bad blogger, but I like your article more.

      2. Thanks Carl; I appreciate that. The thing I tried to do is to show that there is always something out there that one can use to help emphasize a point they’re trying to make, even something as goofy as a toaster oven. So many folks feel like they’re stuck in a rigid mold; we can break those conventions from time to time.

  7. I would have compared blogs to many different things, but never a toaster oven. This is really a stretch of the imagination and creativity.

  8. Just came across this on Google+ and I loved the title – great imagination and comparisons! Congratulations on hitting the 300th mark.

  10. Ok, Mitch, I think you trumped some of the ultra-creative types on this one! Bravo … Nice, fun read!

    On a different note, what’s that YouTube widget over in your sidebar? Kinda neat. It caught my attention because it had my YouTube user name, which confused me for a minute. BUT, it got you a subscriber, once I figured out what was happening.

    See, toaster ovens can even get you more YouTube Subscribers!

    1. Vernessa, I learned how to do that from Adrienne Smith, who had a video on her blog on how to create one. I wish I could remember, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find it over there.

      As to the other, thanks; you know how I try to be creative from time to time. 🙂

    1. Bev, I probably need to clean my own toaster oven now that you mention it. It’s certainly been awhile, and I’m not really sure I want to know what’s down there.

  12. Yeah, I was worried about you Mitch but you definitely pulled it off. I would have never thought but leave it to you. Great job!!!

  13. I like it when bloggers do an analogy post – it shows you are really focused on what you are doing and see its essence, otherwise you wouldn’t see your job in everything else you encounter. I believe in life-long learning, because stopping at a certain point would just make us fall out of the game and get lost, especially in today’s fast-changing IT world, so I’m constantly reading marketing blogs, like yours, to learn more. I find these warnings legitimate, there really are dangers in posting articles, and there certainly is a lot riding on them. It is the primary product people subscribe to, and only after you’ve provided good content can you start pushing other products on your readers.
    Thanks for all the tips and tricks you share!
    Best regards,
    Leonard

  14. I knew you pull this off after reading the first few lines. Of course nothing compares to my favorite post about “taking care of yourself”. I am still laughing about that, but this was very clever.

  15. The good thing about your blog is that it brings some joy over and over again. My own blog isn’t like a toaster and its more specialized about 2 or 3 subjects, however I like writing about my stuff, so I never get bored. Thanks for this funny post!

    1. Glad you enjoyed it Martin. Actually, even with only 2 or 3 subjects your blog could still be like a toaster oven. For many years, when I first got one of those things, I only used it for toast or english muffins because it never occurred to me that I could use it for anything else. That “oven” part was missing until one day when I realized I could reheat pizza in it instead of putting it in the microwave; great things came from that point on. lol

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