Blog > Filling the Well
Blogs are a wonderful tool for disseminating, discussing and promoting your ideas. I advocate them to anyone who wants to promote their business, services or ideas as it has low barriers to entry and offers a simple stage on which to publish your knowledge. It has one fatal flaw though. You have to post. In order for blogging to be successful it takes commitment. You need to post often enough to keep your audience engaged.
My business partner Jay has been rather successful at posting frequently and has reminded those of us at Radiant Core who post less often that we're batting below .500 and the world is missing out on all our fantastic ideas. Unfortunately, creative writing doesn't come easy to all of us and the urge to write strikes us even less. But when the creative juices start flowing it's a good time to turn on the hose and fill up the well.
Make sure you keep a running list of ideas handy. If you don't have a Blackberry or other such device for taking down notes may I suggest a compact form of note taking, the Hipster PDA popularized by Merlin Mann of 43 Folders. When a idea strikes you that you're passionate about and would share with the world or even share with a few people, write it down with a small summary to blog about when you have time.
Now, just having an idea doesn't make the post write itself. I have lots of ideas but usually by the time I get home I have little energy to write. When the mood does strike you though, head for the list and start in on the topics that interest you. Keep writing for as long as you have the motivation to do so and perhaps a little more. Sometimes the act of writing is enough to make you want to write more.
But don't post them. At least not all of them at once. Save your blog posts unless they're time sensitive to publish over a period of time. Depending on the frequency of your literary motivation you may have enough to post once a week or a few times a week but try to space them out so you can have a predictable posting frequency. I find that the bloggers I read most often are those that can be relied upon to post at least once a week. Those that post daily I keep in higher viewing rotation. I have no scientific data to back me up on this but a flurry of blog posts followed by weeks of silence isn't going to help in increasing readership.
Regular trips back to the well will help to keep your audience thirsting for more.
My business partner Jay has been rather successful at posting frequently and has reminded those of us at Radiant Core who post less often that we're batting below .500 and the world is missing out on all our fantastic ideas. Unfortunately, creative writing doesn't come easy to all of us and the urge to write strikes us even less. But when the creative juices start flowing it's a good time to turn on the hose and fill up the well.
Make sure you keep a running list of ideas handy. If you don't have a Blackberry or other such device for taking down notes may I suggest a compact form of note taking, the Hipster PDA popularized by Merlin Mann of 43 Folders. When a idea strikes you that you're passionate about and would share with the world or even share with a few people, write it down with a small summary to blog about when you have time.
Now, just having an idea doesn't make the post write itself. I have lots of ideas but usually by the time I get home I have little energy to write. When the mood does strike you though, head for the list and start in on the topics that interest you. Keep writing for as long as you have the motivation to do so and perhaps a little more. Sometimes the act of writing is enough to make you want to write more.
But don't post them. At least not all of them at once. Save your blog posts unless they're time sensitive to publish over a period of time. Depending on the frequency of your literary motivation you may have enough to post once a week or a few times a week but try to space them out so you can have a predictable posting frequency. I find that the bloggers I read most often are those that can be relied upon to post at least once a week. Those that post daily I keep in higher viewing rotation. I have no scientific data to back me up on this but a flurry of blog posts followed by weeks of silence isn't going to help in increasing readership.
Regular trips back to the well will help to keep your audience thirsting for more.
Posted by Michael Glenn on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 10:15 PM in Marketing, Taking Care of Business with tags blogging • Permalink • 0 comments
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