Falling off the social media bandwagon

For the regular visitors to DeepDishCreative.com, you may have noticed a few gaping voids in content over the past 3 months or so. There are a few valid reasons for that, but still, no excuse really. Especially with tools like Hootsuite (Twitter dashboard) and the fact that this website is built on a WordPress platform (plant loads of posts and schedule them for release).

That said, I’ll reveal the reasons for my infrequent activity, and how I might have better handled my “social” life during that time. Its my goal to help you avoid the same sporadic activity as you become more involved with your brand online.

Life sometimes gets in the way

I had no plans to travel over the holidays, only to hunker down and read blogs, crank out some good posts, and get connected deeper with my favorite online personalities. That simple plan turned south when my mom wound up in the hospital for the last time, 2,500 miles away. Not only could I not find a seat out of Burlington, VT to Phoenix that week before Christmas, I certainly wasn’t in any shape to publish thoughtful content on my blogs. While camping out in the airport for any scrap of a flight, it occurred to me that I might be able to say goodbye to her after all…via Skype.

My brother downloaded the free web video service to his laptop and snuck it into Mom’s room in the ICU. It worked. She was out of it for the most part, thanks to morphine, but we managed to chat for a few minutes. We exchanged a lifetime of goodbyes and I love you’s. She passed away less than 24 hours later, and I was still stuck in Vermont. I landed at Sky Harbor on Christmas Eve, grateful to have had that bit of time with her, and now finally with the rest of my family. Thank you Skype.

I got an actual job

To compound that surreal week from hell, I also was due to start a new on-site freelance job. The first day on the job was the day after my mom passed. Since I couldn’t get out of town, I figured I should just busy myself with this distraction until I could fly out. Luckily there was nothing too complex to start off. I didn’t tell anyone why I had to suddenly leave town so as not to create any drama right off the bat.

This job turned into a 2-month odyssey of non-interesting work, and delivered me from my regular freelance work a good 10 hours a day. That really cut into my creativity once I was back at my home office – I just wasn’t motivated to create anything relevant to my audience, let alone start tweeting after-hours. I have new-found respect for those who work a day job and then work like mad to consistently produce brilliant content into the wee hours. It is no easy task. Since that freelance gig, I’ve been slowly but surely getting my game on again.

I went nearly flat broke

Despite the on-site gig, web maintenance, and little jobs that came my way, it was clear the recession had finally hit me. I was barely hanging on, and the regular work I’ve always counted on (some for years) seemed to dry up or vaporize all at once. It was hard to make sense of it all, but with millions of my countrymen without a prayer or a job, and yet with families and mortgages, I still consider myself somewhat unscathed. Still, landlords don’t usually barter for rent.

Staying on the wagon

The past few months seem to have flown by. I had planned to just keep on trucking on the social content highway, but as I mentioned above, sometimes a person can get broadsided by life. What could I have done to keep the content moving, even if slowed down just a tad? Simple – by staying ahead of the game. Here’s how:

1. Have a handful of posts (more than that even) saved as drafts and ready to plug into any given day where I just can’t get to penning something authentic
2. Take just a couple of minutes to RT some current juicy links in my Tweet stream. By using HootSuite, I can schedule these tweets far in advance if I know I’m not going to be on top of Twitter for some time
3. Keep within reach a list of links that are worthy of retweeting, for instance must-read blogs, social bookmarks like AllTop, Delicious, etc.
4. Give new life to a few A-list blog posts by posting a short intro paragraph about its importance to me and my community, then link to the original post

These are just a few ideas that I could think of while trying to come up with a really good excuse for why I let myself fall off the social media wagon.

What have you done to keep your social life content in your back pocket?