With my thoughts on my own slacking for this blog and having been researching a lot of blogs lately for work, I find myself wondering when it’s time to declare a blog “dead”.  I know that I’m no Chris Brogan, delivering quality posts twice daily, but I try to check in at least once a week, even if it is just a Cribbed Content post sharing some cool stuff I read that week.

Can you officially consider a blog dead if the author hasn’t posted since last month?  Two months?  Three?

Wikipedia defines Blog as such:

A blog (a contraction of the term “Web log“) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

So here’s my theory on when a blog can be declared dead.  If it’s a personal blog, there’s more forgiveness for not posting all the time.  I’ve been blogging with friends on platforms like LiveJournal and MySpace for years now and know several people that only bother to blog when something major occurs in their life, like moving, new relationships, etc.  While I would like for some more distant friends to blog more often with how they’re doing since it’s how I keep in touch with some people, I can understand that blogging just isn’t as high priority.

But, if you’re blogging for “business purposes” – i.e. you’re purposefully attempting to generate traffic and develop a community or readership – I feel that if the author doesn’t at least pop in once a month then they’ve given up.  Blog readers who are consuming professional content are looking for GOOD content, and consistency with that content.  So if you fall off the map for more than 30 days, you can kiss some readers goodbye.  One of the key aspects of branding is to consistently remind people you exist, and if you fall off the radar your brand goes out of sight, out of mind.

Case in point – on another website that I run, I used to run the site as a static, HTML coded website.  Because of the coding issue, it was a pain to bother updating, and I didn’t push to update it as often as I should have.  Once I made the decision to move it over to a WordPress hosted blog and run it that way, I found that a lot of my former loyal visitors had written the site off as dormant, and had to work at getting them back in with more constant updates and new content, luckily not hard with the WordPress format.

So am I totally off base with this?  What system do you use when trying to clean out your RSS reader?

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Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Feeds:

• A data format for syndicating news and other content.  Subscribers to RSS feeds are notified every time content is updated on a particular site.

RSS feeds are a MUST for bloggers because it saves your readers from necessarily having to come to you all the time.  Bringing the blog to their inbox or feed reader will make it easier for them to consume your content.

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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

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In my hustle and bustle lately, I neglected to realize that I’ve been blogging “semi-pro” as I refer to it for a full year.  I went back to see some of my earlier posts from last August and was reminded of this one – Hats, Hats, Everywhere! Could it be that it was just a year ago that I was still managing PsPrint’s mailing services?  It’s also sad to say that I was “in charge of” social media marketing – a project that never took off on the company level, but I’ve obviously been running strong with it.

It feels like it’s been much longer than just a year that I’ve been at this, but I have to say that I’ve learned so much in a year that it’s incredible.  In many ways this blog as served as a gateway to that knowledge and opportunities that I’ve been given.  I’ll never be able to thank this little blog enough lol.

I wish I’d discovered Google Analytics sooner so I don’t have complete data, but thank you to the 16,000+ visitors this year that stopped by.  Thanks for spending those few minutes to check out what I’ve been spewing out there into the webverse.  I hope you’ve come by more than once.  Told your friends.  Subscribed despite my trials and tribulations in getting a freakin’ feed to work properly.  And come by despite going through three URL changes…

Stay Classy, Interwebs.

Thanks to Jim Kukral who wrote a cool birthday song for my blog!

Happy birthday to your blog.

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