This is not an April Fool’s Joke. I am actually posting something today. Let’s first talk about why I haven’t been posting lately on my site. There are several reasons, so here we go.
Facebook Attention Spans
Facebook (as well as Snapchat and Instagram) has created digital attention spans that last for about 8-30 seconds. After that, it’s just scroll on to the next thing. And in most cases, the 8-30 seconds is being very generous. It’s more like 2-3 seconds.
Because of this, I started to feel like people just weren’t reading blog posts like they once were. People were more interested in video, especially native Facebook video. So, I decided that I was going to do more video. Well, I’ve made a few, but nowhere near the amount that I planned on. That’s changing this month to as I am participating in a Vlog Every Day in April challenge #SSSVEDA
You can check those out at my Chris Stocker You Tube Channel
Politics, Politics, Politics
I am not one to typically let political talk affect me. In fact, it barely does. But these past couple of months have been draining. It’s not so much the stuff happening in DC (which a lot of irritates me), it’s just been the massive amount of content created around it. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, because we have to use our platforms to speak our voice. It’s just that, it’s all I was consuming. Every day it seemed to just be the same stuff, different angle. Which in the times we are living in now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
However, I am a firm believer that I am the one who is in charge of creating the life I want. This is why I don’t spend too much time on political issues or talking about them. I will if it’s something that I am extremely passionate about, like Pre-Existing Condition coverage. I am a proud supporter of DPAC and everything that they are doing and I will continue to promote and share their content until the cows come home. But, I don’t write about those issues because I can only write what I know about and what is top of mind for myself. Like I said, I will promote it though.
Because of all of this, I stopped writing. I felt like maybe this is all people want to read about now. They just want to find out about the next march or protest or other way to contact their local reps.
If so, then I don’t feel like I would have enough to contribute.
Business Development
As you may now, being the CEO of a CSI Marketing Solutions, a boutique digital marketing agency, is what I do for a living. This takes up majority of time. More than my wife would like for sure. This blog is more of a “side hustle” thing. Over the past few months, my business has been growing. Adding a few assistants, some larger clients, additional services and it has required more of my attention to be hands on during this process.
We all have 24 hours in a day. So the 1-2 hours that I had once put towards this blog during the day was now being used elsewhere. Which meant that this blog was put to the side.
But then over the past couple of weeks I’ve received an insanely high amount of emails coming from the site.
“Where have you been?”
“Is everything ok?”
“My son is in college and I always share your articles with him.”
And many more of the same type of emails.
And then I thought to myself. A long time ago, you set out to do this and you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into. But then you started to hear from people how a post changed their life or mentality or living with diabetes and you just knew you had to keep going to help inspire people. And you let them down.
I don’t mind failing. I do it all the time. But one thing I don’t like to do, is let people down. Especially people who rely on me.
So that’s why, starting today, I am back. I have audited my day and my time and I’m back. And I’m putting this out on the internet to hold myself accountable. I will be here 7 days a week. If I’m not, call me out.
Every day missed is a missed opportunity to inspire or help someone living with diabetes.