Jesse Medina

If there’s a single truth about building a blog audience in today’s digital world it’s that you had better get your tweet on and plug your posts.  Truly, I’ve found some great stuff through Facebook and Twitter and even spent a good amount of time plugging my own material in the past.

But I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with doing so.

In won’t pretend like it’s not an ongoing struggle, though.  In fact, most days I spend at least a little bit of time reconsidering.  Maybe I should tweet about this blog post.  Some say if you have a message worth writing about, you have a message worth marketing.  Geez.  Even writing those words make me reconsider it.

And maybe I’ll change my mind.  But for the time being, I just cant.  Here’s why:

1. I’m afraid of what I’ll do to my soul in the process.

Like many others, I’m sure, I struggle with the tension of wanting a large audience and also being afraid of what that might do to my ego.  Do I hope that I wouldn’t allow an audience to affect me?  Of course!  But it happens to so many others.  I would be a fool to think I’m exempt from that.  So, right now, not plugging myself all over Twitter and Facebook is my way of protecting myself.

And this doesn’t have to do with how big my audience is.  Size actually doesn’t matter.  It’s about my finding a particular amount of fulfillment in what others say about me and essentially fishing for that feedback by saying, “Hey, I just wrote a blog post you should probably read…and comment on…and share with others.”

I’m not saying that’s what everyone does when they update social media with their blog posts.  I’m saying that’s a very real and seductive temptation for me.

So, I planned on having more reasons when I started this post, but I really don’t have more.  It all boils down to that one point.

Do you ever struggle with this?  How do you handle it?

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