Just Say ‘No’: 6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Have a Blog

I have taught our blogging workshops long enough to recognize a certain person. You may recognize her, too. In fact, it may be you. After one of my classes, a student who had been very quiet throughout the session came up to me. She wore a deep frown.

But then she broke into a grin.

“Thank you,” she said.

” For what?” I asked.

“For giving me permission not to blog,” she said.

And she isn’t the last one to say that to me.

Too many blogs

Every social media expert on the planet has one or two or three blogs. All our friends and colleagues are doing the blogging thing.

It’s easy to see why someone might think their business will go down the toilet without one. In our workshops, we walk people through the benefits and the commitment required to be a successful blogger.

6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Blog

1. Your customers don’t go online. This is a big one. Obvious example: Say you are a service station owner. Do your customers go online to learn about your products and services? And if they do, will their habits in buying gas change as a result of reading your posts?

2. It would take you four hours to write a post. Depending on what you charge clients for your services, the marketing benefits you get from blogging could be eaten up by spending a half a day noodling with one post.

3. You don’t have anything to say. Maybe this is true and maybe it isn’t. But related to reason #2, if you are constantly stressed out because you don’t have a topic, if you have to reach deep every time you come up with a subject, this might be too time-consuming and draining an experience for you.

4. You have something to say, but you aren’t a writer. This may be good or bad, depending on what you think “writing” looks like. But if you get tongue-tied every time you sit down to write, or you have an inner critic, say, your 5th grade teacher, who just won’t let up on you, maybe you should rethink things. (Or maybe you should hire someone to blog for you.)

5. You and your computer don’t have much together time. I hear this frequently. “I’m away from the office a lot.” Part of blogging is posting. But another key part is responding to your readers. If you don’t recognize them with a comment, they might not come back.

6. You have to be careful about what you say. Maybe you are an attorney or a psychologist. If you blog under your business identity, weigh carefully whether you risk someone construing your personal post as professional advice.