I have decided that even though there’s two weeks to go in the year that this will be the final post of 2015 for I’m just sharing. I’m doing that for a couple of reasons that I’m going to get into.
 |
Before I get too deep into it, I want to admit that this is the kind of post that most bloggers shouldn’t write, or at least write that often. That’s because this is not going to be an evergreen article. There are some things that I will say that might be considered as evergreen, but it’s dated because I’m basically titling it has the last post for 2015. So two years from now it would look really stupid for me to be sharing this post again. However, I figure I pretty much have two weeks to promote this post and that’s about the best I can do with it. By the way, for those who don’t know what evergreen post means, that’s a post where you write about something and years later it’s still valid.
Why is this the last post of 2015?
First, I have to admit to being a little brain tired. It actually doesn’t have anything to do with this blog in particular, but all of the other writing, and research, and reading, and marketing that I’ve been trying to do.
What have I done this year? I finished writing my 2nd book on leadership, Leadership Is/Isn’t Easy, where I had to rewrite a lot of the content and released at the end of May. Including this post I’ve written 93 articles here (which included my 1,600th post) and 345 articles across the board, including a couple that went into regular magazines, some on other blogs and one national health care newsletter. I created 70 videos, although not all of them made it onto my YouTube pages. How many of you matched that kind of input this year? That’s only the beginning of my being tired!
For instance, on my business blog, which is called Mitch’s Blog, I have a blog post a day appearing for the month of December. That’s 31 posts, and I wrote all of them before December began. I actually wrote all of those within the space of 10 days, while still having to write other articles.
Frankly, I think that was a pretty good achievement, something I hadn’t done in a really long time, since the early days of this blog where I was writing more than 300 articles a year, and I hadn’t realized how tired it would make me to do that, even though I enjoyed a part of it. All of that without getting paid… man, that’s a lot of work. lol However, it’s also part of an experiment that I will be able to talk about later on.
 |
Second, to be truthfully honest this was not a very good year for me. Financially, I have had to live off of my reserve, which is money that I, as an independent consultant, put away to help me pay my bills during the period of time when I’m trying to get my next big contract. I didn’t get one this year, so I had to survive on both my reserve and smaller projects that I was able to get.
Trust me, marketing and networking takes a lot more work and effort than having a long term contract like the one I had in Memphis for 18 months. It also puts a major strain on the brain, because it feels like your marketing efforts are taking you nowhere, it can be depressing, and it feels like a 24/7 proposition; no wonder I sleep bad.
Third, I actually still have to write for some of my other blogs as well as a couple of blogs for others. I have basically let those go, except for my business blog, but luckily I have some ideas for all of them that I want to be able to concentrate on next week before I leave town to go to Mom’s for the Christmas holiday. Luckily, those blogs don’t need as much attention as this one and my business blog, although one of them probably should get a lot more attention because I have made more money off that website than all the other ones combined over 10 years; now that saying something! 🙂
Fourth, I stepped up my marketing, branding and publicity efforts this year on social media and a little bit more locally, though not close to enough here. I really pushed hard on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook this year with mixed results. I’ll talk more about that later on in this post. Suffice it to say that, in terms of betting it was a “push” year, but Twitter put me over the top… barely.
Let’s take a break and highlight some of my favorite posts of the year, my top commenters of the year, and the best performing articles of the year for this blog. I could probably do that later in the month and turn it into another post, but since I’m going to promote this post a lot over the next couple of weeks it gives me a chance to get more people to read some of those earlier posts from the year that didn’t get enough attention, or maybe did get a lot of attention and I just want more; we always want more.
With that said, let’s get some things out of the way. First, my 5 best performing articles of the year:
10 Blogging Lessons From 10 Years Of Blogging On A Different Blog – 469
3 Blogging Concepts That Do Work, No Matter What Anyone Says – 393
10 More Business Social Media Tips In 2 Minutes – 321
5 Reasons Why Commenting Only On Blogs In Your Niche Might Not Work – 229
5 Ways To Be Better On Social Media – 212
Next, my 5 favorite articles of the year (other than those above):
Protecting Your Social Media Presence By Not Being Stupid
9 Relationships Between Blogging And Social Media
6 Answers To Questions From New Bloggers
9 Reasons You Need To Keep On Writing
Next, my top commenters of the year, which means 10 comments or more (in no particular order):
Peter; Holly Jahangiri; Troy Swezey; Mitchell Allen; Adrienne Smith; Rummuser; Lisa Sicard; Steve Borek; Brenda Lee Pace; Rasheed Hooda; Thyrone Charles; Purushottam Thakur
And now, a quick commercial and push about Fitbit and walking; check it out and you’ll see what I mean, as it’s something else I did this year… that I just remembered. 😉 While I’m at it, did y’all remember to get mobile friendly this year?
 |
Finally, let’s talk about some lessons I learned this year as it pertains to both blogging and social media.
The first thing I learned is just how important it is to promote your own content… a lot! I have always said that the best way to drive people to your blog is by commenting on other blogs. Whereas that’s still true, this year I found out that I could get a lot of attention by promoting previous blog posts and new blog posts way more often than just once. Adding hashtags was a major thing also. I can’t believe how many lists I have been added to in 2015 on Twitter; it’s just been amazing.
The second thing I learned is that if you don’t own it you can’t control it, and what you think is happening might not necessarily be true. I started off the year publishing articles on LinkedIn that were getting thousands of views. I thought this was going to be the holy grail for me. Instead, I’m ending the year where my articles sometimes don’t get 20 views, and I’m probably not going to be submitting any more articles after I reach 101. I picked that number because I’m curious to see if LinkedIn gives you any respect after you have at least 100 articles on their site, though I’m skeptical about that.
The same kind of thing happened on Google+. When the year began there was still something called Google authorship. Once they took that away suddenly putting something on Google Plus, whether it was on your page or in your community, meant absolutely nothing. So, I may be reducing the time I spend over there as well, which isn’t saying much because I don’t spend a lot of time there anyway.
Third, I learned that if you’re doing videos, you’re never going to know when you do a video that suddenly takes off and why it takes off. I did a video at the end of April that was a review between Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS that has over 8,000 views, which is stunning because is a long video. As late as Tuesday I’m still getting new comments on that video.
The thing is, I’ve been doing videos for 5 years, getting no traction whatsoever and that one took off. It almost makes me think I should just do videos fussing about stuff, but I don’t want to fall into the trap of trying to talk myself into doing things that aren’t necessarily part of my personality. Still, I had some fun doing my videos, even if I didn’t get to do as many interviews as I had hoped for this year.
Here are my 5 favorite videos of the year, and I’m only sharing the links rather than embedding them:
Have Faith And Courage In Your Process
3 Blogging Abilities You Need To Master
Can’t Handle Social Media? Get Off!
 |
Fourth, I participated in my first blogging carnival this year, along with Troy. To say it was less than successful would be putting it mildly. What we both learned is that there are a lot of bloggers who have no idea what commenting on other blogs actually means. We also learned that there are some tough blogs to comment on because they either have little content, aren’t written well, or talk about topics that… well… I’ll just say that Troy & I were the only 2 guys who participated and let you gauge the rest. lol
I left all the bad comments on that post, which was the one above about the 10 blogging lessons, in case you want to check it out and learn what NOT to do when commenting on other blogs. I also encourage anyone who decides to try to be in one of these things that you write a post that’s GLOBAL, highlights the best of you, that everyone could possibly find something to comment on. If you’re not going to share your best… stay home!
Fifth, even though I already knew this, I came to the realization that a post I wrote in 2013 is more true than I ever imagined, that being that we all know and don’t know anything about blogging. This year I came out against experts who said that we needed to be writing posts between 3,000 and 8,000 words, and we were both right. I came out against people who are using too much automation to help promote themselves, and it turns out we’re both right.
In essence, the issue is that I still meet a lot of people who are afraid to write their opinion about something or to even share their knowledge with others as it pertains to blogging and social media because they’re worried that someone will disagree with them or not like it. We shouldn’t care what others think about our writing or content unless we’re being hateful towards somebody because, as I said in this piece about haters, even famous people who have had great success have people who hate them (heck, I hate some of them lol). Becoming successful means you have to deal with hateful or jealous people, or those who just aren’t feeling you; that’s just the way it is. So, we’re all right and wrong at the same time.
This is becoming pretty long, so I think I’ll end it here. I thank everyone who participated on this blog in 2015; y’all all rock! I hope everybody has a wonderful holiday season, and I expect that I’ll have one of those post at the beginning of 2016 talking about my goals for the year. Hopefully I’ll figure out how I hope to achieve them over the next couple of weeks. For now, it’s both rest and research time. Y’all take care. 😉
Mitch,
Your posts are always so inspirational and funny for me to read. I know I don’t always comment, but I try! 😉 You have touched on some very important topics over the past year and I can’t wait to see what you bring to the table in 2016.
Wishing you and yours Happy Holidays!
Brenda
Thanks Brenda. I try to be entertaining while getting my points across, and of course instructional when needed. I wish you the best in 2016 and thank you for participating on my blog this year.
Mitch, I’ll say this (again!) – dang, you’re prolific.
You deserve the break and all the best in 2016!
Happy Holidays,
Mitch
p.s. thanks for the shout-out!
Thanks Mitch, and I’m glad that you participated so much this year. 🙂
While I read all your posts, I comment on only those where I can participate intelligently. Just commenting with statements like “Great Post” is not my style and so although I have featured on your list of top commentators, I reached there by commenting less than most people!
This post however deserves a “Great Post” comment!
LOL! Thanks Rummuser. I do the same on your blog; I read most of them but don’t always comment unless I think I have something to add that’s more than a couple of words. I thank you for being an important member of my community this year.
How did I get ahead of Ramana on the comments?
You may want to swizzle some of this up into an evergreen post. The “turns out we were both right” is a helpful thing to remember for anyone struggling with the inner critic or a case of imposter syndrome.
First, as I said, it wasn’t number related. I grabbed a pad and went through the entire year in order of who commented and when. You were actually my #2 commenter for the year… ahead of Rummuser… so there! 😛
As for the evergreen part… something I’ve been thinking about it is going back through some of my older posts on topics where I mentioned something that’s still valid and putting together a new post based on those and then linking back to them. Course, that covers a lot of years and would take some time… but I’ll do that for my audience! 🙂
Ha Ha. Thanks for you posts Mitch. You really deserve a break after all that hard work you’ve done this year. Happy Holidays.. 🙂
Thank you; I hope you have a nice holiday season as well.
Hey Mitch,
Well I don’t blame you, sounds like you just need a little R&R although I know your brain never rests.
I’m sorry that this year wasn’t as good with your consulting business but we all hit those weeks, months and years ourselves. We always hope not to but it happens. I’m sure 2016 will be a much better year for you though, I can feel it.
Thank you for sharing these lessons with us and I think they are important. They might be some people six months from now still need to learn so this post will probably still have some lessons people can learn.
I wrote this kind of post myself as you know so it is what it is.
Thanks for the mention and let’s see how much I can comment next year. Happy Holidays and be safe going to Mom’s. Enjoy my friend and talk to you next year.
~Adrienne
Thanks Adrienne. I saw your post, but can’t remember if I commented on it or not so I’ll need to go back. That’s how my mind breaks down sometimes. lol
Yeah, the lessons… In a way, I could have done without 4 of those, and yet I think they’ll help me progress in some way down the line. If they help anyone else learn a thing or two then I’m glad to have included them. Now if I can only get more people to check their commenting system to make sure people are getting responses to them… which, unfortunately, happens way more often than I ever expected.
Have a great holiday!
Mitch. I don’t blame you for being tired. Whenever I read the list of all you do, I wonder how you do it all. This is only a comment to let you know that for all of your work on this blog, you are appreciated. In spite of being a blogger, I don’t read others religiously…just a few of my favorites. You are one. I have learned things from you about etiquette, about process, about what-to-do and what-not-to-do in a continuing education package that may not have made me a better blogger (my bad) but at least has made me more aware. Just your comments on comments are enough…
I also value that as much as we all have in common, you are so different from me. You are a city guy, educated to all things blogosphere, dedicated to making a living from your education and craft, and still helpful to the rest of us who are just doodle-y-doing along writing whatever occurs to us on any given day…valuable or not.
I like that you care about great issues and are not afraid to show your vulnerability and to define the areas in which you are not willing to be vulnerable to your huge following. And I like that you have such a different perspective than I do. It’s instructive to me and widens my world.
We live in hugely different worlds and have different experiences, and yet what you say resonates with me. (For one example, I loved your last post on 9/11.)
This is just a love letter to let you know that who you are and how you move through the cyberworld is appreciated by someone who has no aspiration nor any of the abilities that would carry me to your great heights of success as a blogger.
Sinceerely, Your Admirer, the dilettante blogger.
Thanks so much for this comment; it touched me in a major way and there’s no way I can tell you how much I appreciated it. You’re right, we do write our blogs differently, but I always see yours as if you’re writing letters to your family members… and you have a lot of them! 🙂 And the article you have on your blog about suicide… well, that’s something I don’t think I’d have ever thought of, let alone ever done; great stuff!
I’m glad I’m able to provide something that you can find value from. If nothing else I try to be honest and hopefully entertaining here and there, and if there’s some education built into it then it’s all good. I always hope to spark conversation; seems this year end post might be the one for that. I wish you a wonderful holiday season and if there are any leftover cookies, you know where I am. 😀
Hey Mitch, you know that I no longer comment as much as I used to but I always take the time to comment on a lot of your posts. That’s not just because I consider you a friend but because you always have something interesting to say.
We’ve both tried for many years to crack marketing code over the years without the success we’d hoped for. Still, we’re too stubborn to give up and I know that with our persistent effort we’re going to get it right sometime soon.
Man, with all the work you do you deserve a break mate. You have a great Christmas break with the family and here’s hoping we have a fantastic 2016!
I always appreciate that you stop by here to still comment after all these years (I think you & Rummuser have been around the longest). I also know you don’t comment as much as back in the day when I’d show up at a blog and you’d already been there before me. lol
We’re going to get this marketing thing down one of these days, then everyone will talk about us, steal from us, and give us something real to complain about. Until then, we do what we do. Have fun & enjoy your holiday; as for that 111°… yeow!
Mitch, I feel your pain (tiredness)….Wow you wrote a lot this year too. I liked how you shared your results especially with LinkedIn articles, I had been wondering about that and had not tried to do a post there yet. Great to hear about videos and Twitter.
Thanks Lisa; it was a productive year, if not a fully profitable one. 🙂 Of course I always share stuff; it’s my life! I wish you the best for the rest of this year & 2016 also.
Yeah, I was everywhere wasn’t I? 😀
I have to admit that while it did bring a lot of traffic it was’t the type of traffic that converted into dollars. That’s when I decided my time was better served elsewhere.
And is it? lol
Hi Mitch Sir,
I know how you are tired, how you are busy with your business and blogs. I really appreciate your work and believe, you will surely come with another weight article.
Thanks for the mention you made with a linkback to my blog but I think a little change needs to be made that is the link from my name to a dead URL. I had changed the url of my blog 2 months back so that was the thing.
If you can do that than please change it with my new one or just remove the hyperlink from my name. That’s not matter than you mentioned my name on your blog.
I hope and fully believe you will get most out of next year. Just throw out this bloody year as it is not good one for you. So prepare you plans and make an aim and than do the goal in 2016.
And yes thanks for giving those more learnable articles, about which I think have not read many of them. Good Luck for you holidays.
It’s been corrected Uttam; see, you should have started that way. lol Thanks for being a bit time contributor this year; it’s always appreciated. I hope you have a great rest of this year and a great 2016.
Ya, you did it, many thanks for that. I know I have not contributed much on your blog because Sep.2015. was the time I started contributing on your blog, maybe that was the month I found your blog. By the way lets see my next year’s performance, I believe.
Hi again mitch sir, This is oftopic what I am going to show you. I read one of your post from 2009 that was on an Indian song. Remember? Comments are closed there. So this is why I am here. I found a translation of it with video on youtube. As I am Indian, I belief this is 99% accurate but 1% goes to a mistake, that is ‘du du du du du’ da da da da da’. I think this line should be replaced with tunuk dunuk dhun, tunuk dunuk dhun, ta na na. I hope you like, btw.. This is one of my favorite song from panjabi singers. Below is the link you can check..
youtu[.]be/-AxPzC99wKA
Thanks Uttam, although I have to say that the lyrics still don’t make any sense… other than soda filled with tar… which, making sense, is scary lol
Yes, I know, but every persons have different style to say anything. That make sence for an Indian.
Hi Mitch,
Hope you will have a better year ahead with many new long term contracts till than enjoy these last weeks on 2015. See you soon next year.
Thanks Avinash; always reaching for stars! 🙂
Hello Mitch, I loved this post! I think when the end of the year comes around we all feel the need to take us a little break HUH?
Sorry your year was not as good as your hoped, but good thing you had some reserves put away to get you through it. HUH?
Wishing you and yours a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year..
Chery :))
Thanks Chery! I’m looking forward to both the rest and 2016! I should have taken a break last year but since I haven’t taken a good one in 15 years I’m thinking I’m due. Have a great 2016! 🙂
Hi Mitch,
Boy, I sure relate to this article.
I think I’ll do one more post for the year, but I’m taking this week off for the holidays, then I’ll post one the last week of December.
I got tired, too.
Not just with business, but all the family things you have to keep up with this time of year. It’s just a bit much… and never enough 🙂
I know how depleting consulting is. I do all my consulting from home via phone, Skype and email. So I can’t complain. But I’ve been doing it for years, and I have a lot of regular clients, so that’s kind of nice. I’ve actually been holding back from taking on too many new clients because, really, like I always say on my sales pages (and it’s true): “there’s only one of me, and many of you.”
So a good break is in order for you and for me, my friend. Time to reflect a bit, re-energize, do some planning for 2016 and then start making it happen again, after New Years.
Happy Holidays & Happy New Year, Mitch
-Donna
Thanks Donna, and thanks for sharing as well. I’d thought about having one more post for the year but, strangely enough, my stress level felt like it was going up just thinking about writing one more at the time. As it turned out, I’d have had the time to do it after all, but I didn’t know it when I was first planning stuff. I think that proved to me that I needed a rest. 🙂
I think if I’d hit more of my 2015 goals that I might not have felt so stressed. That’s why I need to rest, then research and plan for 2016; bigger and better is coming! 🙂
Thanks for this article buit in the Seo and digital marketing niche do you have any idea what kind of post can be still popular after 2 years time?
Yes. If I write a post today about WordPress 4.4 it’s good for now. Two years later when they’re up to WordPress 7.9, it’s not going to have any popularity.
Hi Mitch,
You definitely do not look tired in your photos. I can see that you have managed to brand yourself in 2015. Hopefully, 2016 will be even more awesome for you.
Happy holiday and merry Christmas in advance.
Thanks Dev; I’m shooting for awesome in 2016, as I hope everyone else is. 🙂
Hello Mitch, I loved your post alot!
Sorry your year was not as good as your hoped, but good thing you had some reserves put away to get you through it.?
Wishing you and yours a Very Happy New Year..
Thanks Pritam. Luckily, I’ve been doing this for a long time so I know how to survive for at least a little while. I wish you the best 2016 possible!
When writing a blog there are some times when you start thinking: “Is this worth it?”. For me, answers are different every time I ask.
Keep up the good job
Thank you. You’re right, that’s always an intriguing question, and each person has their own answer for it.
Hi Mitch, I am firm believer that to have a healthy happy productive life you need to balance out three things.
– Your Mind
– Your Body
– Your Spirit
9 times out of 10 its a persons health that sets the pace for everything else in their life. I love your writing style and though I hardly if ever comment on this blog I have read your blog post for years.
My suggestion is spend 90% of your time on rehabilitating your health and watch the chain reaction in other areas of your life..
God bless and wishing you much success in 2016!
Thanks for your comment Larry, and welcome! Health turns out to be kind of a tricky thing as we get older, so I can only try to do the best I can and hope for the best. Luckily I’m better than I was 2 years ago, but I still have a long way to go. Part of that is averaging 20K steps a day… I’m just about there. Now I have to balance out my meals a bit better so I’ll stop the crashes… those are never fun… and then I’ll be humming.
Hello Sir, This is Purushottam Thakur, one of your readers from 2015. Yes, I still read your blogs but sometimes because of my heavy schedule. And I like your informative contents. Thanks for sharing your blessings.
Coming to the point: I had a blog back in the days but due to my schedule I was not able to maintain that blog, so I had to shut it down. What I request you is to clean your blog with all dead links including mine. So that you can get better rankings.
I found that the links attached with my name within comments and this specific post is still linked to my dead blog. And I think these urls may affect your ranking. Sorry for that.
If you say; I can find dead links for you using online tools available.
Thanks for supporting us with your researchs. I hope the same support with future blog (my permanent blog if I plant again}. And I am sure I am gonna make a success in this journey because the change in my profession and maybe I have learnt lots of secrets about blogging. Lol…
Stay safe and blessed.
Thanks again
Greetings Purushottam; welcome back. As for your former blog, if it’s tied in with comments one of my plugins will find it eventually and remove it. However, even with those links being there, they’re probably on older content like this article so it won’t hurt me all that much, if at all. I wish you well in your new profession; good luck!