This post is about my decision to stop blogging… every day. (Not completely. Got ya!)
On March 8, I attended a fantastic seminar at The Enterprise Center at Salem State University called “How To Build A Better Blog”. The presenter was Jennifer Powell from The Excellent Writers Group.
During the two hours session, I took copious notes. Powell discussed how to develop a complete strategy for your blog, how to create goals and objectives, how to identify your target audience, how to create a blog calendar and how to prevent bloggers block.
I realized during this seminar that I don’t have a lack of blog ideas. I certainly don’t have bloggers block. I’ve even blogged about blogging – how to start one and how to promote it.
What I do lack is a strategy. I lack any kind of plan. I don’t know who I’m writing for and I don’t know when or why I’m writing, other than I always thought it was the thing to do (and something that I always tell my clients to do).
I also lack time (don’t we all). Quality time to write daily, valuable, helpful blog posts that people will bookmark, share and come back to read more.
I needed a new perspective on blogging, and I got it. (Thanks Jennifer!)
My entire philosophy around marketing and social media is that “less is always more”. I drill this mantra into my clients. I emphasize this point in all my speaking engagements.
- “Don’t post because you feel you have to – post when you have something to say!”
- “Post when you have time to really organize your thoughts and your points!”
- “Less is more – people are constantly inundated with information, so really make your message stand out!”
Neil Patel, an incredibly successful blogger, wrote that while he knows that in the short term blogging daily increases traffic to a website, it’s the long, thoughtful, detailed posts that end up getting him more email subscribers and more shares.
So posting daily may be good for traffic, but the posts that last and get shared the most are the ones that take time to write, are long and detailed and very well-written.
On the other hand, I don’t want to “use quality as an excuse to be lazy” (taking a quote from Stanford Smith at Pushing Social): “If you want to complete with the big boys then you must craft a strategy that out publishes them with the very best you have to offer. “
So what’s a blogger to do?
My new blog resolutions for this year:
1) Adhere to a strategy. Taking my own advice (something I am terrible at), I will create a simple strategy for my blog. What are my goals? Who am I trying to reach? What do I want my readers to do? Who is my ideal reader and how can I help them? What is the point of all of this?
2) Make and stick to a calendar. I need to fill out a blog calendar with topics and dates to help prevent redundancy and organize my posts in a thoughtful way. Optimally I will post at least 2 or 3 times a week. There is a great Blog Post Planner and Calendar up at Productive Flourishing.
3) Find a way to have a constant flow of fresh ideas. This is probably where I have the least amount of problems, but how do I tie all of my ideas together? How do I edit myself? How do I find out what is interesting to others, not just to me?
4) Comment and interact more on other blogs. I tend to operate in my own little silo, writing my posts, working for my clients. I need to tend my own garden and increase my blogging “karma” – very important to create community, generate new ideas and get support when needed.
5) Be flexible and tie more posts to current events. While I will try to stick to my Blog Planner and Calendar, I realize that the news cycle cannot be scheduled – if there are relevant current events I will take advantage of them and create posts around them. I will publish those posts in a timely fashion (nothing worse than a post about a stale topic).
6) Work more on my headlines. I knew this before, but I needed a kick in the pants, once again from Pushing Social. Stanford says to spend 80% of your time working on an “eyeball-snatching” title that doesn’t give away too much of the post but intrigues people and draws them in.
7) Dedicate more quality time to writing. I find that I usually try to fit blog writing in at the end of the day when I’m tired and burned out. Then me no write good.
Keep tuning in to see if I adhere to my resolutions! I’ll certainly be blogging about the journey. Thanks for reading!
What blog resolutions have you made? Do you think that posting daily is best? Please share your thoughts in the Comments section or email julia@jcsocialmarketing.com