So, if you’re reading this, you’re likely a blogger. The idea of a blog probably sounded pretty good when you started – the freedom and flexibility of a low cost publishing platform, whether to promote yourself, your businesses, or maybe you’re paid to blog and promote someone else’s businesses.
But now, you need to Tweet your posts, Retweet other people‚s posts, cultivate your Facebook Fan page, add your photos on the Flickr, submit your posts to Stumbleupon and Digg, record YouTube videos, and comment on other blogs. It’s not smelling like roses anymore, is it? Well, here are a few tips and suggestions for keeping up with all this new media crap (tongue-in-cheek).
Batch Your Work. Productivity gurus have long since said that batching your work is more efficient, and it is true. I use Hootsuite to spend 15 minutes every Monday and setup interesting tweets and Facebook updates for the week. Just like you sit down to read the newspaper, I sit down and go through my RSS feeds and pull out things of interest to others. Batching doesn’t hurt anybody and in fact offers you the opportunity to send out updates at a time more convenient for readers in another time zone than you.
Get Some Focus. How many social networking platforms are you on? Stop now and take a hard look at what platforms are giving you the most value. If you’re new, experimentation is good, but once you’ve got your base readership established, it might be time to take a critical look at some social media outlets that do not appeal to your ideal readers. Strip them down. As the old saying goes, it’s better to do a few things really well than to do a bunch of things poorly.
Join an Alliance. Some social media things, like Stumbleupon and Digg, just don’t get lots of traction with only one blogger pushing his/her stuff out. The best results come from joining (or starting) a blogger alliance. This is by no means new news (Problogger suggested it last year), but so many bloggers dismiss it as too hard. Hard to find the right partners, yes, but worth doing? Absolutely.
Ask for Help. Why not ask your readers to pitch in now and then? Many readers would throw themselves in front of a bus to get the chance to write for you, with or without pay, so why not may a weekly or monthly slot open for that opportunity? Be sure to ensure your blog’s voice and editorial tone remains consistent, but there’s nothing wrong with a fresh perspective now and then. With that extra post out of the way, you can use that spare time for website tweaks or fan page updates you’ve been meaning to do.
Accept Your Limitations. You don’t become an authority blogger nor Internet famous overnight. Chris Brogan talks about his overnight success story as a reminder that the only thing that begets success is hard work. But you’re only one person, so don’t let the stress of new-media-everything overwhelm you. If you didn’t find the time to update your Fan Page last week, ok – do better this week. If you’re lagging on making YouTube videos because you’ve got client work or you were finishing up a big advertising deal, ok. Stop beating yourself up – because the only result of a stressed out blogger is poor content, which leads to more stress and unhappy readers.
As my yoga instructor says to me often during class, do what you can do and leave the rest behind. That seems like sound advice, don’t you think?
Andy Hayes is addicted to blogging. He runs two successful sites – Sharing Travel Experiences, a travel lifestyle magazine, and Travel Online Partners, a travel online marketing blog. He’s also the overzealous tweeter known as @andrewghayes.
Recent Comments