Blogging Constipation Cured!
crbrowning | Jun 17, 2009 | Comments 2
- Image by davekellam via Flickr
I confess, blogging has been an irregular activity for me. While I enjoy it, like most people, it has not been my top priority and I simply can’t produce the volume of Chris Brogan.
A few weeks back I was thinking of a way that I could commit to 2 posts a week and really stick to it. That was how I came up with the Friday Funnies. Now, every Friday -I write (or attempt to) a funny post that pokes fun of social media. It is a regular weekly theme that I feel comfortable with and that I enjoy. What really surprised me was the real power of having a regular theme like this can do for both bloggers and readers. Here is what I have seen so far:
Blogging side:
- Writers block gone: I know what I am going to write about every week. I have a week to think about every post and I am enjoying it!
- More posts: I don’t want my blog dominated by Friday Funnies so I am forced into making time for at least one additional post per week.
- Enjoying it: this is the best part - I found a theme that I really enjoy and while I have to force my family to look at it, I am having a blast!
Reader side:
- Repeatable pattern: readers know what to expect on my blog on Fridays. I have established a pattern.
- Increased readership: because I have a regular pattern traffic which was starting to slump off is now back on the climb!
- Outreach patterns: I can spread this regularly through Twitter and Facebook and have people expect to see it there as well
Summary: If you or your company have a case of blogging constipation – choose a theme that you are passionate about as your blog bran to keep your posting regular! Both you and your readers will be happy for it!
/colin
Filed Under: Social Media Tips
Great idea Colin– that’s actually how I broke my own logjam a while back– starting a “Social Media Top 5″ that was originally a snarky put-on response to some legitimate top 5/10 lists out there.
what happened then? The other lists fell away so I decided to make mine more serious (though not strictly so), saving up articles during the week and providing commentary on whatever I damn well felt like addressing.
Another thing was making habits. The weekly feature addresses deadline, but I then needed to find a time and place I could consistently devote to blogging. I started using Utterli to post short, hopefully thoughtful bits via phone. It has worked. There’s always time to blog if you want it.
It’s nice to know that I’m not alone and that there is hope.
Something I’m beginning to find useful: I read a lot of blogs and find many of them inspiring in one way or another. What I do is bookmark them and save them with the ‘blogidea’ tag on my Evernote so that I can go back to it later and write a blog post that builds upon or responds to the original posts. If there is a collection of posts about the same thing that I know I’ll want to link to in my post I’ll tag them under ‘blogidea’ and write a description with the tentative title of the post I’m preparing to write.
I’m working on my blog design and will get back to writing once I have worked out some sort of editorial calendar to stay consistent. You’ve given me hope to move onward and upward! Thank you! I look forward to read more from you now that you are back in full gear.