Most WordPress bloggers know the Community Pool, the WordPress-run blog created to give bloggers a space to share their posts with other bloggers. It served as WordPress’s own social media of sorts, and became an important forum for a lot of us.
I used to plan posts to go up on Mondays, when I would be able to promote brand new content just in time for a lot of people to see it. I would often sit in class and surreptitiously type out my comment so that it would be near the top of the list. Then, if class was boring, I would spend the rest of the period scrolling through and reading new blogs. It was a really nice Monday ritual. (Although it probably didn’t help my grades any.)
Unfortunately, WordPress staff decided to kill the Community Pool awhile ago. I don’t really know why. It’s not like no one was using it — it would have dozens of comments within seconds of going up and hundreds by the time the next one rolled around. The fact is, they killed it, and I’m both thankful I was able to utilize that space and bitter that it is now gone.
While I’m sad that Community Pool is dead, its death means I need to find new ways of promoting my blog. I blog first because I enjoy writing, but second for the community. I don’t think I’ll ever be a career blogger (and don’t think I’d want to be), but I would like to reach 1,000 followers one day. (I hit 500 awhile ago — huge thank you to everyone that has followed and read my thoughts! I’m so glad you are here.)
To that end, I have been thinking more about promoting Mission:Incomplete via social media. I work in marketing, and I just love the Internet, so I know the power that social media has. And since I follow several of my favorite bloggers on social media, I’ve gotten some great ideas on how to promote that way.
I’m hesitant, though, and here’s why. Many people who follow me on social media actually know me. Like, in the real world. I write about controversial topics fairly regularly here on the blog, but I rarely bring it up face-to-face. This is partly because controversial topics are too divisive for “normal” conversation, but also partly because I know many of my family and friends don’t agree with a lot of my views and I’m afraid I won’t be able to back myself up.
Facebook is the main culprit here. While people I know follow me on Instagram and Twitter, those people are typically people I know from college or have stayed close to in high school. A lot of them hold similar views to mine. Facebook, on the other hand, is a minefield of older family members, teachers from high school, and friends who are strongly conservative.
I have posted two controversial opinions from my blog to Facebook. The first one was this post about sexual consent that I wrote after what happened with Aziz Ansari this spring. The second was my thoughts on the NFL’s policy of players no longer being able to kneel for the national anthem.
I posted these because I think those two discussions are vitally important. I knew they would make the most impact on social media if I posted them to Facebook as well as other channels. I’ve had Facebook the longest and have the most connections there. I actually kind of hate Facebook, but won’t delete for now because many of my extended family connections are through that channel. If I really believe in something, it doesn’t make sense to hide it from my biggest social network.
I got some disagreeing comments on both of those posts. I did respond, because I don’t want to just ignore discourse, but I loathe Facebook comments. It’s so easy to fall into a dramatic, unproductive argument. And what really gets me is when I get comments from people who don’t seem to have actually clicked the link and read what I wrote here. Some of this is on me; I could do a better job summarizing my opinion and making it clearer that my full thoughts can be read if you click the link. But I know I’m going to get comments regardless, and while I know I will never agree with everyone and can still be civil and polite despite that, it still stresses me out.
However nerve-wracking social media promotion is, though, I think it is the next step for me. While I don’t want to be consumed with or controlled by social media, it’s an important piece in blogging. This blog is my passion project, and with the death of Community Pool, I need some visibility elsewhere.
The other thing is that I don’t like a lot of things that are happening in our society, and I feel stuck. I’m not sure what to do to help. I don’t want to just give lip service to the things I believe in, because words without actions mean nothing. But words do have power, and I think it’s time for me to use them more publicly. As Robin Williams said in the movie Dead Poet Society,
No matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
It’s time to start vocalizing mine.
Photo by Angello Lopez on Unsplash
NerdyWordyBirdy 
I understand your dilemma very well. I have the same one. My Facebook followers are pretty much my real friends and family – I know 90% of them in real life. I don’t know any of my Twitter followers.
I published a post on guns after the Parkland shooting and lost followers. It wasn’t even a controversial post. It just described some smart technology measures we could take NOW to make existing and new guns safer.
It really made me think twice about posting on difficult topics in the future!
By the way, I am an ENFP!
Omg opposites!
Right! It’s difficult to talk about stuff like that, esp. when it’s people you know. Even when it’s not, aside from the fact that brain chemicals don’t like it when you lose followers, you know that’s real people behind the screen and losing people sucks. It’s a true dilemma!
Thanks so much Sarah. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Hey, I kind of agree with your thoughts on various levels. The things that strikes the most to me is voicing your opinion on topics you feel strongly about. I would suggest that you do not deter by comments as such because no matter how good and clearly you summarise your thoughts it’s never gonna be enough. There will always be a section eager to jump to conclusions and share their opinions without really understanding the gravity of the matter. And that is their opinion and they are entitled to it. You should feel good that you found in yourself the courage and ability to speak about things that are likely to strike controversies and that you gave back to the society in your own little way.
I believe in voicing my opinion through my blog posts which is why I started blogging in the first place. If you can find time and are interested please have a look around my website and a few blogposts. It would be absolutely lovely to have your feedback.
https://allinorallout.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/128/
Yes, you’re right. :) Love your blog! I enjoy how personal it is. Congrats on getting married recently and thanks so much for reading and sharing your thoughts!
I’ve found that my ‘follows’ are really slow since the Community Pool has gone. I may pick up one or two a week, so I’m back to telling myself that my blog is fairly niche and may not appeal as much as a lifestyle / social commentator blog. I share regularly on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Pinterest, but depending on the subject most have little interest. My cohort of Facebook friends pay a little more attention – if it’s a family tree post it gets a fair bit more.
That makes sense. I think there is a difference between the way bloggers and non-bloggers interact with blogs, too. Seems to me that bloggers are more likely to follow you back, while those who don’t blog themselves might read/like/comment but don’t tend to follow bc they’re not necessarily into blogs. Weird and interesting behavioral things I’ve kind of noticed.
My experience with blog promotion on social media has been pretty bad. First I posted everything to facebook and twitter, and people started ignoring me on facebook (people already ignored me on twitter). So I ultimately set up a facebook page and promoted it once. Through that promotion and a year of continual posting, I’ve picked up 8 followers. One thing that’s cool though is if you set wordpress up to automatically link to your social media accounts it will count those followers as blog followers.
Oh that’s pretty neat. I didn’t know that. I get ignored on Twitter too lol, then it makes me feel lame, then I feel lame about feeling lame over a social media. 🤷🏼♀️ I guess all this is a side effect of living in the technology age.
I was wondering where it went. I suppose I’m going to have to become more creative with my self-promotion – I can’t just rely on favors from my Facebook friends and family.
Good luck with whatever you try! Feel free to share anything you find!
I always struggle with social media. I mean there’s so much out there that it would be so easy to spend your entire life posting on social media. I tried to figure out what was giving me the most traffic, and just focus on one or two. At the moment I haven’t got it completely down, but I’m hoping something might click soon!
That’s what I think I’m going to try to do as well. I’m sure it will take some trial and error.
Good luck with your efforts. 🙂
I don’t know either, why WordPress cancelled some of their features. I myself enjoyed dropping in on First Friday and meeting a few newbies. But I don’t want to be too hard on them; they have millions of blogs to monitor, SPAM & cyber crime to watch out for, new designs to work on.
One encouraging thing is to see bloggers taking the initiative and providing some of these features WordPress once did. There are half a dozen bloggers that I know of providing daily on-word writing prompts now and Swimmers (https://swimmersweek.wordpress.com/) trying to maintain the “community pool” and help new bloggers just getting set up.
You’re right! And that is one amazing thing about the WordPress community; the way we step in for each other! Thanks for stopping by and providing that link!
If anyone is interested in checking out some writing challenges, Cee Neuner maintains a fairly up-to-date list at https://ceenphotography.com/for-the-love-of-challenges/