When Blog Expansions Backfire: The Risks to Know

There is a time on our blog where we have to start plan­ning for the future. Do you always want your blog to be “just a blog?” Sooner or later, I think that to increase the pop­u­lar­ity of your blog and bring more vis­i­tors to it, you need to add some addi­tional things to your blog to make it a website.

When you think about it, there are many risks involved in any deci­sion make you on your blog. But when the time comes to adding onto your blog, or expand­ing it — you have a lot more risk intro­duced to yourself.

This is part 2 of the 3 part series “When Blog Expan­sions Back­fire on you.” To get your­self intro­duced with this series, why not read the first part? When Blog Expan­sion Back­fires: The Why.

This post, and the last post are both a pre­emp­tive to the final post in the series with solu­tions to a failed blog expan­sion. Every­thing here will mostly be reflect­ing on com­mon thoughts on the before & after period of a new launch on your blog.

In part one, I briefly touched up on the risks you should know when you want to build onto and add to your blog. There are just so many fac­tors to keep in mind to suc­cess­fully build up your blog with expan­sions. I decided to split this post up into two parts; the pre-launch and the after launch.

The Pre-Launch

Pre-launch of some­thing new is such a great period! Every­thing is wrap­ping up and you are finally ready to launch your new expan­sion. But just because you put a lot of work into your new addi­tion to your blog doesn’t mean every­thing will go over well.

There is a lot to think about in the pre-launch period. These risks of fail­ing with this new expan­sion should always be run­ning through your head, but I think that the final days/hours of your release is when those neg­a­tive thoughts come into focus more.

Last Minute Realizations

These are the things that always get me, the last few hours of the pre-launch period where things start becom­ing real with you and you start com­ing up with all of these bad sce­nar­ios in your head. The ones that get me the most when I am about to launch some­thing off (even a new blog post) are:

• Idea isn’t as great as you thought

Every time I come up with a new idea for my blog, I think it’s genius! A lot of peo­ple do, and when it’s almost done, the self-sabotaging begins and the idea doesn’t seem so bril­liant anymore!

• Woops! Some­thing is messed up!

When you’re not care­ful or cau­tious, things are bound to slip past you. When­ever that one minor slip up is found, we’re more likely to freak out about it than we would have a few days ago when every­thing was being tested.

• How can I man­age this and a blog?

If you add an expan­sion such as a forum, another blog, or even a link direc­tory, you have to ask your­self how you can pos­si­bly man­age a blog and built another com­mu­nity! What­ever the expan­sion you add to your blog is, it will undoubt­edly require a lot more time and effort to man­age on top of your blog.

But no mat­ter what it is…

No mat­ter what you think, I still say you should launch what­ever it is you planned to launch! Blog­ging is all about exper­i­men­ta­tion, some things work and oth­ers don’t. You will never find out what does and doesn’t work by not try­ing new things, so con­tinue onwards with expand­ing your blog and for­get all of the bad things that can hap­pen and focus on what good will come out of it.

After the Launch

This is the period, the after launch period, where I feel the most stress is built up. Every­thing we thought about in the pre-launch period is being put to the test, and it’s just so nerve wrack­ing to think about any­thing bad that will happen!

There are more real­iza­tions you have to face, and even some of the things that you thought about in pre-launch may even come true. Not every­thing is going to be per­fect of course, but there are some things you should worry about regard­less of how much time you put into your new expansion.

• Where is this going next?

You should fig­ure out some plans for the future and where you think this new fea­tured you have added to your blog will go. Fig­ure out pro­mo­tion strate­gies, where new fea­tures can be released, and of course if your new addi­tion to your blog will even be there in a month or two.

• It doesn’t go as you thought it would

Don’t lie to your­self, have you ever done or added some­thing to your blog that you released with high expec­ta­tions, but didn’t live up to them? Most likely it has hap­pened with an arti­cle you wrote. It’s quite dis­cour­ag­ing when some­thing doesn’t go your way and may even make you won­der if it’s worth try­ing it again.

• Does the com­mu­nity want it?

Every­thing you do on your blog is really for your read­ers whether you think about it or not. If you add some­thing to your com­mu­nity you don’t think your com­mu­nity needs, was it worth the trou­ble? This kind of brings me to the next point,

Get­ting the Absolute Worst Response Ever

What do you con­sider a fail­ure? If one day you decided to add a forum to your blog, what kind of response would you con­sider to be the worst?

A lot of peo­ple say they hate to get neg­a­tive responses. That’s com­mon right? We want peo­ple to love what we do. But per­son­ally, I believe that the absolutely worst response to any­thing you do on your blog is not hav­ing a response at all!

Thing about it, your com­mu­nity likes the new thing you have added to your blog, so they may tell their friends about it. If they hate it, they will prob­a­bly tell their friends how much they hate what you have done. Both of these are forms of pub­lic­ity, and any pub­lic­ity is GOOD publicity.

But what about not get­ting any response at all? That just hurts, and that leaves a per­ma­nent scar in you some­where so you never for­get about this.

Stay tuned for Part 3, the con­clu­sion of this series. That post will be full of great tips and infor­ma­tion to kick start your “failed” blog expan­sion. Expect it later on this week!

Image found from A Syn

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