We'll probably post lots of high-falutin' stuff like this on the Neighborlogs blog full of stats and prognostications and pontifications. But every now and then we'll get down to the grit of the matter, roll up our sleeves and talk shop about our experiences with neighborhood blogging. Given that it is now the most magical time of the year, it's a good time to discuss a problem plaguing 'hood bloggers for hundreds of years.
Can a neighborhood blogger take a vacation?
Finding time for vacation is not a problem unique to bloggers covering their neighborhood's news, of course, but it's also more difficult to write about what's going on down the street when you are far, far away from that street. Here are five strategies to consider -- I've tried each with varying levels of success. If you have anything you've tried to add, please jump in with a comment.
- Go on vacation and don't tell anybody
I tried this early on in my 'hood blogging days when capitolhillseattle.com was small and readership had just started growing. On the plus side, I was on vacation. On the negative side, I spent most of the trip trying to find wi-fi hotspots and scouring RSS feeds. My site's regular visitors saw right through it and turned away. It took a month of solid posting when I got back to get things back on track again. Suggestion: Don't do it.
- Go on vacation and tell the world (and, yeah, close down your site for a few days)
This had slightly better results for me though I hated, hated, hated leaving my site's content spinning in the wind the times I went away. If you go this route, utilize the "open thread" post concept to give your site's community something to rally around and communicate news, etc. through when you announce your planned 'outage.' Suggestion: Works for small sites and for shorter periods.
- Recruit other bloggers to fill in
This was my strategy for a two-week honeymoon and I'm happy to say it worked beyond my wildest expectations. It was helped by the fact my site had grown considerably and had a large enough audience to excite the participants and give them a fun thrill stepping behind the curtain. The content was fun and fresh. The people who stepped forward for me did a great job. Suggestion: I'd do it again if I ever needed to. Probably best for larger sites.
- Ask your community to fill in
This will be my strategy this holiday season and every time I go away now that I'm using the Neighborlogs service to run my site. Anybody can contribute posts to a Neighborlogs site. Neighborlogs also has a built-in system of permissions (you can see the roles admin below) for site contributors so I can (and do!) give site participants expanded abilities like the ability to promote great posts to the site's homepage. This is the way I run the site day to day -- and it works great for the times when I can't be online also. Suggestion: Good solution if you have a strong site community. You can do it without Neighborlogs, of course. But we'll make it a little easier :)
- Hire staff
This is the route the most serious neighborhood blogs will take. We're not just talking 'seasonal' help -- we're talking the start of bona fide local content businesses. Earlier I wrote that I've tried each of these -- it's only partly true for #5. My situation is more of a variant of the community driven site suggestion in #4 in that I share ad revenue with some of my most active site contributors. But someday, I hope to have people working with me at an even higher level. That -- I'm hoping -- will make the idea of a little holiday time all the more relaxing. Suggestion: Hope for the future!
You'll note that all of this focuses on issues like writing and running the site. There are additional considerations to make that I'll leave to you to wrestle with. For one, if you do decide to tell the world you're going away on holiday, you better do more than just recruit somebody to fill in for you on your neighborhood blog. You also might want to recruit somebody to make sure your neighborhood blog readers aren't looting all your neighborhood blog riches from your empty home. Of course, if that happens, at least you'll have something to post about when you get home. Happy holidays.
