Who Says Blogging Is Easy?

If you think your job is hard, wait till you try theirs! (Courtesy of College Life)

One of the most misunderstood concepts in social media content generation is that it is easy.

All it takes is just a couple of minutes (or perhaps an hour or so) of your time each day, and voila! Another insightful/interesting/ingenious work of art is published or uploaded, ready to be savoured by the world.
The truth is that it is not. Not least if you want to build a following of any size – from 10 to 10,000. Not least if you want to leave a lasting digital imprint.

Developing great content of any kind requires discipline and determination. Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. To become a social media savant, you need to put in your fair share of hardwork, blood, sweat and tears. Even on days when you just don’t feel like creating something.

In his book “Outliers” (which I haven’t read but hope to do so), Malcolm Gladwell mentioned the 10,000 hour rule. The key to becoming a master in any area is to put in prodigious quantities of time and energy into that enterprise.

This same rule applies equally whether you are a maestro, a brain surgeon, a rocket scientist, or a country president. It also applies to publishers of user-generated-content on online channels like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, MySpace and others.

If you want to leave a lasting online (and offline) legacy, you need to keep at it both day and night. Gary Vaynerchuk, author of “Crush It”, has said that hard work is never not part of the formula.

Speaking from my own experience, people have often asked me how I managed to blog so regularly despite holding on to a more than full-time job. Wouldn’t I be tired and drained? Isn’t writing what I already do for the large part of my day?

What drives me is the knowledge that each time I lay a 2.0 brick, I am helping to create the future. Every post, every photo, and every video that I push out will be read, viewed, and enjoyed somewhere by somebody.

And that alone is good enough to keep me going, come hell or high water.