How To Handle Blogging Mistakes

Everybody makes mistakes. Some mistakes are small and negligible. Others are huge and can be devastating for your business (see BP). Bloggers make mistakes all the time. Having typos in headlines, getting stories completely wrong, or forgetting to name sources just happen Perfection is a fool’s gold. Not only it’s almost impossible to achieve, it can take away from your business too. Not everyone handles mistakes the same way. Some go crazy and start making drastic changes. Others apologize and beg for forgiveness. Smart bloggers understand the inevitability and focus more on learning from their mistakes to make sure they don’t happen again.

If you have never made a mistake as a blogger, then more power to you. But most bloggers have and will during their careers. Sometimes, you can get away with your mistakes. Some other times, your readers will call you on it. While not all mistakes are equal in magnitude, the last thing you want to do is dwell on your mistakes. Every misstep can be a learning lesson. If you don’t make mistakes, you are not going to learn much anyway.

Here are a few smart ways to handle blogging mistakes:

• How it happened: understanding how you committed your mistake can help you avoid it in the future. You certainly do not want to make a habit of making big mistakes on a consistent basis. Going through this process will help you figure out the next step too.
• Why it keeps happening: sometimes you end up making a mistake over and over again. Assuming that you are going to get it right after a while is not the smartest way to go. Those of you who have a large team may want to look at your team and find out where things broke down. Solo bloggers need to take a look at their processes and find out why they have continued to do things the wrong way.
• Respond to comments: there are many bloggers that do not dare to answer to criticism they receive on their blogs. Maybe they don’t want to be rude or they have no way to defend their actions. If you do not answer the questions that people are asking, it will reflect poorly on your blog and your brand. Taking responsibility for your mistake should not be that hard as long as you take actions to prevent it from happening again.
• Don’t get defensive: whatever you do, do not get defensive. Don’t you just hate bloggers who think the world revolves around them; those who never take responsibility for their mistakes and ban those who criticize them. Being defensive only makes things worse. Beside, if you have made the mistake, it does not do you any good to pretend you were not at fault.
• Run your business: mistakes happen. If BP can continue to operate after committing the biggest mistake one company can ever make, you can too, no matter how big your mistake. Your mistake may be large enough to cripple your blog. Then you’ll have to deal with the consequences. Stopping everything and dwelling on the past is not going to solve anything. Even if your mistake is fatal for your blog, you’ll always have other chances to get it right. It’s not the end of the world.

I am not suggesting that you should just accept your errors and move on. You look at them, learn from them, try to rectify them, and then you move on. Just don’t quit on your business while doing so.