I have been blogging at my college football blog (Collegefootballtopten.com) since 2006 and I still have people linking to and finding articles I wrote in 2007 and 2008. “Early and often” is a good phrase to remember when you just start out. I think you are right Shama, you blog as often as you can to establish “flagship” content.
I am working on rounding up my “flagship” content at Collegefootballtopten.com, but I am working to build “flagship” content at toddejones.net.
Hi Shama! Rick here, the fellow who asked the question (and a fellow marketing consultant/coach). Great answer, and it is similar to what I also tell my clients. The key is to develop a strategy and goals. A “body of work” is important at first as you suggest, but then “blog when you have something to say” is a good rule of thumb.
Whatever you do, don’t abandon your blog. It’s almost like saying, “hey, we’re going out of business!”
I visited with a client prospect today who’s last blog post was in January! They immediately hung their head in shame saying, “We know, we know!”
I’ll bet they post a new entry within the next week!
Thanks,Shama. You do great work and I’m a fan here in Austin, Texas. Now I better take a dose of my own medicine and update my blog, Marketing With Moxie here: http://bit.ly/9k7N6u
Thanks, Shama, interesting tv post today! I feel like 3x a week for blogging is about right. However, I get a lot of feeds where the Power bloggers really post everyday. I know Chris Brogan, for example, just posted recently that he notices a significant downturn in traffic if he even misses 1 day. So I think if you want to keep a “top of mind” presence online, you really need to blog pretty often, and at least 3x a week, but also quality is important too. I wouldn’t start blogging everyday and producing mediocre posts just for the sake of posting. That would probably backfire and cause you to lose subscribers.
I started out two years ago trying to post 3 times a week. My second year I went to twice a week. Now I’ve reached 200 posts and as my business moves in another direction, twice a week is sometimes a challenge. As you said,it all depends on your goals for the blog. What I’ve enjoyed recently is fleshing out some of my posts for a book I’m working on. Re-purposing the content in various ways can make the time spent blogging doubly worthwhile.
I post daily on my blog. I always planned to post twice a week but could never keep it up. And I must share you this tip; Posting daily becomes easier after couple of weeks than any other schedule.
Here is a short post which I wrote to tell how you can blog daily.
Shama Kabani (formerly Shama Hyder) has been dubbed "an online marketing shaman" and "a millennial master of the universe" by Fast Company. She is the President of The Marketing Zen Group, a full service web marketing firm. When not working directly with clients, Shama travels the world speaking on social media marketing.
Have a burning question you want addressed on the show? Marketing or otherwise? Ask Shama.
Want to work with Shama and her team? Check out The Marketing Zen Group, a full service web marketing firm, run by Shama and her world class team. Looking for a speaker? Want Shama to come speak at your event? Check out Shama's speaking page.
July 15th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Thank you I found this info very valuable!
xxoo
Tina
July 15th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
I have been blogging at my college football blog (Collegefootballtopten.com) since 2006 and I still have people linking to and finding articles I wrote in 2007 and 2008. “Early and often” is a good phrase to remember when you just start out. I think you are right Shama, you blog as often as you can to establish “flagship” content.
I am working on rounding up my “flagship” content at Collegefootballtopten.com, but I am working to build “flagship” content at toddejones.net.
July 15th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Hi Shama! Rick here, the fellow who asked the question (and a fellow marketing consultant/coach). Great answer, and it is similar to what I also tell my clients. The key is to develop a strategy and goals. A “body of work” is important at first as you suggest, but then “blog when you have something to say” is a good rule of thumb.
Whatever you do, don’t abandon your blog. It’s almost like saying, “hey, we’re going out of business!”
I visited with a client prospect today who’s last blog post was in January! They immediately hung their head in shame saying, “We know, we know!”
I’ll bet they post a new entry within the next week!
Thanks,Shama. You do great work and I’m a fan here in Austin, Texas. Now I better take a dose of my own medicine and update my blog, Marketing With Moxie here: http://bit.ly/9k7N6u
Hmmm. Can you guess what my topic is?!
July 15th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Thanks, Shama, interesting tv post today! I feel like 3x a week for blogging is about right. However, I get a lot of feeds where the Power bloggers really post everyday. I know Chris Brogan, for example, just posted recently that he notices a significant downturn in traffic if he even misses 1 day. So I think if you want to keep a “top of mind” presence online, you really need to blog pretty often, and at least 3x a week, but also quality is important too. I wouldn’t start blogging everyday and producing mediocre posts just for the sake of posting. That would probably backfire and cause you to lose subscribers.
July 16th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I started out two years ago trying to post 3 times a week. My second year I went to twice a week. Now I’ve reached 200 posts and as my business moves in another direction, twice a week is sometimes a challenge. As you said,it all depends on your goals for the blog. What I’ve enjoyed recently is fleshing out some of my posts for a book I’m working on. Re-purposing the content in various ways can make the time spent blogging doubly worthwhile.
July 16th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
I post daily on my blog. I always planned to post twice a week but could never keep it up. And I must share you this tip; Posting daily becomes easier after couple of weeks than any other schedule.
Here is a short post which I wrote to tell how you can blog daily.
http://saqibawan.posterous.com/every-one-can-be-a-blogger-and-can-write-dail
Quality might go down initially but will eventually go up due to practice and you might become a super blogger.
July 19th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Frequency is important to establish your flagship content as long as the content is relevant and timely to your audience so they keep coming back.