As writers, we get excited about getting a new idea out there on our blogs. I know I do!

After I’ve spent an hour or two laboring lovingly over a new article, then editing it about 30 times to make it as readable as possible, then finding and adding the perfect photos and illustrations, and finally adding tags and categories (which, to me, is the most boring part of writing a blog post), I get a huge rush when I finally get to hit “Publish” and see my hard work in its final form, the way the world will see it.

I take pride in my posts (well, most of them), especially when they seem to get popular. A few have. It’s fun getting comments, lots of likes, and watching your stats go up. It’s cool as hell to see how many countries my lowly little blog post has touched.

But blogging has its dull side too, the side that seems more like work than play. If, like me, you have decided you want your blog to grow and get lots more views, and be replicated and reposted many times on other social media for maximum exposure, then that requires linking every post you want to be seen to various social media.

I don’t really like social media, even though I have accounts on Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook, and now LinkedIn. But like it or not, it’s necessary to use it if you want your blog to be seen.

I refuse to post anything to Facebook (except for my silliest fluff posts) because my FOO and other people from my past I prefer to avoid have all found me there–and I do NOT want them to read my blog. I should probably just delete that account and start another one under a fake name, but I don’t like Facebook anyway because it’s become like fucking Big Brother so I probably won’t bother doing that.

Instead, I rely on you guys to share my posts (if you want to) using the Facebook button that’s under each post. That makes things easy for me! The buttons are there for you to use!

All my blog posts are automatically linked on Twitter, which doesn’t scare me like Facebook does because the only relative I know of who posts there is my son and I can trust him with my life. He never reads my blog anyway, but a friend of his does.

StumbleUpon is something I stumbled upon while here at WordPress, and it’s a cool way to share posts and it does seem to bring me more viewers. I don’t use that service for anything but sharing my posts. When I look at my stats, SU has brought me more viewers so I have no complaints.

I just joined LinkedIn today and spent the last two hours sharing every blog post I’ve written (with the exception of a few that I don’t think were that good or were just announcements or something) on that site. That’s the part of blogging that’s drudgery. I would much rather be writing a new post than sitting here pressing buttons for two hours, but that’s part of what it takes to get visibility.

I hate it when I see my stats going down. Today they weren’t very good at all, and I thought to myself I should be doing this when my stats are up and write a new post right now with a super-grabby title to get everyone’s attention.

There was one advantage to this boring task: I got to see old articles that I’d forgotten I’d written. I’m up to well over 200 blog posts now so it’s impossible to remember all of them. I think my writing has improved since the beginning.

It’s not like I had any great blog ideas tonight anyway.