Blog humbug – 5 Reasons to Blog Through the Holidays

Blog humbug you say? Prefer to be out fighting the masses at your local mall without a parking space in sight, to be cloistered in your kitchen baking mountains of holiday cookies that will be inhaled within minutes, to spend hours visiting friends and relatives that you don’t see any other time of the year, or, better yet, drinking eggnog alone by the rays of the televised yule log? Put in that context, your blog may seem like a welcome reprieve.

Here are five reasons that will get your fingers poised to dance across your computer keyboard with holiday cheer.

1. Blogging shows that someone is home. Leave your blog postless for the holiday season or with a few sporadic entries written hastily in advance shows that you’ve gone away, at least mentally. Instead decorate your blog for the holidays like you do your home and your office. Make readers feel welcome. Give them a reason to settle in and get to know your blog during a time when work’s less stressful.
2. Blogging is a gift to your readers and other social media connections. It’s a piece of yourself that you’re sharing with readers, while you may not know them by name, they think enough of your writing to spend time reading it, sharing the information, and, if you’re lucky, entering into a conversation with you via your comment section. Remember, even those unnamed lurkers who visit your blog took the time to focus on what you’ve written. Celebrate them.
3. Blogging allows you to thank the people in your social media life for being there, listening to you, and sharing with you. While you may never have met these people in real life, they’re now a part of your daily routine and make you a richer person as a result.  Think broadly in terms of your readers, your followers, your Facebook friends, your LinkedIn connections and others. These people provide positive support and accept you into their social media family. Without venturing out into the social media ecosphere, your life would be a little less bright.
4. Blogging provides insights that can be spread along with your holiday wishes. With the end of the year, it’s a great time to reflect on what’s happened in the past year. It’s a good time to assess what we’ve learned and what’s in store for the next year. At the same time, help yourself by setting new goals for your blog, your business and yourself.
5. Blogging keeps your hands busy to prevent you from eating holiday sweets. During the year, our will power seems a lot stronger because there aren’t cookies, candies and other calorie-laden enticements everywhere we turn. While January’s primed to get us on track for diets of all sorts, why not get a head start by being too busy blogging to sneak another sweet.

Before you turn off your computer and leave your blog for the holidays, think about how you can reach out to those who you’ve friended in the social media world. At a minimum, brighten their day with your heartfelt wishes of holiday joy.

For those of you reading this post, know that I thank you from the bottom of my heart and appreciate the time you spend reading, sharing and commenting on this blog.

If you have any other holiday-related reasons to blog, please add them below in the comments section.

Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen

Photo credit:  AndrewR via Flickr