socPub in the Slow Lane

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socPub in the Slow Lane

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We're going to be taking a little bit of a break from providing daily updates as socPub. Readers and contributing articles can still expect new articles to get posted, but don't be surprised if you have to wait a few days before you see them published and on the front page.

I'm a one-person show when it comes to managing, editing, and maintaining the content found at socPub. A year and a half a ago, there was a lot of unknowns when I rebranded CMS Report into socPub. Today, I'm happy to report that the number of readers that visit the site daily have stabilized. When we receive a unique and exceptional article, almost immediately the published article becomes popular and attracts a number of new visitors to the site.

My only complaint about socPub.com is that we haven't really brought a broader range of topics and diverse contributing authors to the site than I had originally envisioned. Overall, the site is stuck in this rut of sticking to topics related to content management and software development from our CMS Report days. And while I've been doing a decent job as editor for the site, I've done a lot less writing than I had hoped I would be doing.

Earlier this year, I started a new blog in hopes of me getting back to dedicating more time for my writing. The goal was to write one article a week as I had finally broken free of my burnout from blogging. In the first few months of the blog, I wrote about half a dozen posts but by Spring new articles were no longer being published at Fifty-Two Posts a Year. I once again found the demands of work, family, outdoor hobbies, and managing my other websites were of higher importance. So, time marched on and I now find myself with one more website that started with good intentions but now resembles a ghost town with too few visitors and too little new content.

Given that I no longer accept advertisement at socPub (formerly CMS Report), it's been a strange year for me to acknowledge that I spend so much of my "free time" managing and maintaining a website that gives back so little in return. The time I spend working on socPub comes at a cost to the other projects I've wanted to start or complete. You see, I have a problem. I'm a hoarder of websites and social media accounts and like any hoarder of things...there is too much of a mess in my house to see any value in any of what I already possess. It's time to clean house and I'm going to do so by focusing my cleaning on one room (one website) at a time.

Instead of putting my attention everywhere, I've decided that I'm instead going to focus on one website or one social media account at a given period of time. As an example, if this is Fifty-Two Posts' month then I'm going to be spending a lot less time on socPub. At another date, if I decide I want to get my LinkedIn account in good working order...then that means I'll be spending less time at both socPub and Fifty-Two Posts. Get the idea? My long-term goal is to find out which digital projects are of value to me and my readers and which are not. 

So for the next several months, this is what my Editorial (Project) Calendar will be looking like:

When I'm focused on one project, I won't be completely abandoning the other projects. However, I will most definitely be spending minimal time to maintain and respond to those trying to reach me here at socPub. In a year's time, I plan to rid of what I find is of no value to me and spend the rest of my time focused on improving and maintaining what remains. My vision is that socPub will become the central hub for republishing content found on my other websites. Whether that vision comes reality will depend on how successful or unsuccessful my other endeavors become.