The Streak is Dead Already

I'm no good at this. I used to be good at this stuff, but I've lost my touch. This is because I kept the streak alive for two days. Two. Whole. Days, and already it's dead. The daily word quota is dead too, as I only wrote 1,667 (qualified) words for one of the two days. It's all dead and I need to start all over again. What happened to me?

I've Done This Before

The breaking of the blogging streak? Yeah, I've done that before with the blogging case study and with the coffee blog and with numerous other ventures. We don't need to detail how I've lost interest in things, or ran out of money to do things, or had something happened that broke the flow of the streak.

By doing this before, I meant that I've previously started streaks that I've kept alive. One of them is Amnesty International. I've been with Amnesty International for almost 10 years now, starting with my freshman year in college (which was way back in 2006) and finishing with the present day. We have a meeting this coming Wednesday, and I will attend. In this time span, I've only missed a handful of meetings because I was sick or I had work to do. When I miss because I had work to do, I always felt like I made a bad decision and that I really didn't have anything better to do than to go to Amnesty. So, unless I'm sick, I go to Amnesty. I don't regret it, even if I have plenty of other work to do. The point is that Amnesty International is a streak that's still alive. It's something that I've started and kept doing. I didn't lose interest, or forget, or run out of time, or have other things get in the way.

Another example is Forward Saint Louis, which is an aggregator of left-of-center news & analysis. It started as a website and is now just a Facebook page. The site was started when the Tea Party was at its peak, and was started as a way to channel the voices, news, and opinions that ran counter to the Tea Party. Although, Forward STL wasn't intended to be a Coffee Party or anything like that.

Anyway, I came on in the summer or fall of 2012 to help aggregate news for them. By then, Forward STL has switched to the Facebook page. There was a group of us aggregating news, and by around September 2013, I was the only one still maintaining my weekly commitment to aggregate news. Everyone else had lost interest, or forgot, or ran out of time, or had other things get in the way. It's been about 18 months since I started, and I'm the only one still going. I can tell because all the posts from the past several months, with exception of one or two, are mine. I'm currently wondering if there's a way to turn Forward STL into something bigger or something more, especially since I'm the last one left. Aggregating news on a Facebook page is great, but it doesn't seem that awesome when that's all the brand does.

So, I CAN Keep Streak Alive

It's taken a while for me, but I don't think the problem is discipline. I've been very disciplined in other pursuits. Besides the two activism, political ventures I mentioned, I did a very good job with my business blog when that was still going. Over the course of 18 months (is that my streak average), I wrote over 200 blog posts about business blogging, content marketing, social media marketing, inbound marketing, and other similar topics. Those posts were excellent at bringing in traffic to the website, although I had a tough time converting that traffic into leads.

Many of my clients have been long-term clients, meaning they've been with me for years. The average for them is two years, and for most of them I did blogging work. Granted, I get paid to do the work for them, which adds incentive to get the work done. But, it also means that I was doing a good enough job to keep going. If they didn't like my work, then they would have gotten rid of me a long time ago. The fact that I stayed for so long isn't just a testament to me sticking with something. It's also a testament of my talents as a writer.

I Am a Great Writer!

I am awesome! Perhaps I can start again?

The Rules and Goals of the One Year Blogging Case Study

As promised, I am going to outline the parameters of this one year blogging case study. It's not much of a case study if it doesn't have any rules or goals, as without those this is just blogging for fun. Although, I do hope this case study is going to be fun. This is so I can hold myself accountable this year, and others can do the same in case I miss something. These rules and goals also give us something to measure, so we know whether or not this thing is successful, and successful in the right ways.

Rules

• One blog post per day, every day. No more than one per day.
• Blog topics, although not dictated in any way, must be suitable for all audiences
• At no point during the year can someone else write a post
• At no point during the year can I copy and paste a press release or another piece of content that has previously been published online (essentially, all content must be original content)
• At least once a quarter, time must be spent to evaluate the progress of the case study i.e. write a post about the data gathered up to that point
• Amplification (emailing posts, sharing them on social media etc.) of the blog isn't required, but highly recommended
• Each post needs to follow current blogging best practices (which shall be outlined in tomorrow's post, but some of which can already be guessed by the form and tone of this post and yesterday's post)

Goals

• To demonstrate what can be accomplished with one full year of quality, consistent blogging
• To illustrate that best practices are a big part of blogging achievement
• To show that a blog can be started from scratch and turned into something great
• To disprove the notions that blogging is a waste of time, that blogs are oversaturated in anyway, and that blogs have oversaturated the Internet
• To set a standard of what good blogging means, from both a personal and a professional perspective
• To save the world (or make progress toward that achievement)

Can This Case Study be Accomplished?

I think it's doable. It's certainly not going to be easy, as at the very least I have to come with at least one thing per day to write about, without devolving into opinion or nonsense or other babble that no one cares about. This case study can be accomplished, and it must, or else it sets the example that blogging consistently for one year is impossible. Even if the results after one full year were dismal, it still must be done. However, if the results were dismal, then I might have to revise my business strategy and the content marketing strategies my business offers.

What Will It Take to Do This?

A lot of things, because the obvious dedication, willpower, belief, and creativity needed to produce any other great blog. Although those qualities are necessary, they are not enough. Here's a list of what else is needed to see this blogging case study to the end:

• An Editorial Calendar - This is so blog post ideas can be planned out ahead of time. It lessens the strain of having to write something everyday.
• Google Analytics - We have this installed so that we can track those things mentioned yesterday. The Wordpress numbers only track so much, and the reporting isn't nearly as robust.
• My Action Planner - This is necessary so that I don't forget to write my blog post for the day. I use the planner to add the posts to my task list as well to schedule it for each day.