Lately I’ve been looking at social media and strategy to help me promote my blog. Lots of sites and bloggers recommend posting daily, so I decided to follow that advice as a bit of an experiment to see what I could learn from it.
My aim was to post every day for a month to see what happens, but I’ve been posting daily for 13 days and already the pros and cons are clear. In those two weeks I learnt so much about blogging and why I don’t think posting daily works, unless you are a celebrity gossip blog! In fact, I think posting every day could be more damaging than helpful.
Here are the top seven things I learnt when I was posting every day:
- It’s exhausting trying to create and post quality content every day. Especially when you have a job, go to the gym and have a life! Posting every day was a good challenge in idea creation, writing discipline and strategy, but it actually took a lot of the fun out of blogging.
- There isn’t enough time to promote your hard work. By posting every day, the last post is replaced and after a few days you’ll reduce the amount of attention each post receives. No-one spends as much time reading older content compared to new posts. There has to be a balance, otherwise you undermine and de-value your own writing.
- Less endorsements. When blogs get follows and posts get comments and likes, it shows that other people like and endorse it. Other people’s recognition and endorsement of a blog add legitimacy to it through their approval. It shows that it is worth a read and may be of use to you. Without any endorsements obtaining followers, subscribers, likes and comments becomes much harder.
- Less interaction and engagement. If the blog post is replaced daily it doesn’t allow much time for your blog to pick up any traction and for people to engage with it. Once a blog post is replaced it effectively becomes old news before you’ve even had the chance to promote it properly.
- Subscribers stop reading. If someone’s invested in your blog and subscribed to it then they get your post directly to their inbox. If you are like me, I don’t always read all my emails right away and if I have several from one person I may only read the latest. This is the same for the blog posts that sit in your subscribers inbox. Everyone is short on time. If you are posting every day and your reader hasn’t been monitoring their emails, they could skip a few blogs and just read the latest as they now deem that the most relevant and important. You don’t want to work against yourself!
- Subscribers unsubscribe. Sending posts out too frequently can be seen as off-putting and people will unsubscribe. The harsh reality is that this is more likely for bloggers who are just starting out or who don’t have the following of someone like Zoella! She’s become a powerful influencer with people actively seeking her posts out – but even famous bloggers can hit over-kill too. People are bombarded by information from multiple sources every day already. Followers will appreciate you striking a good balance when it comes to the frequency of your posts. Space your posts out so they have impact and are valuable.
- Blog posts can lose value. I spent a lot of time making sure my posts over the two weeks where I blogged everyday were valuable and interesting. This was unbelievably time consuming and I had to put a lot of thought in to the strategy and what I was going to write about each day. It would be very easy to write posts that have little or no value as the pressure to create content every day intensifies.
By blogging every day I learnt first hand the impact of over-posting. It also gave me some insight in to what I should be doing instead…
- Have a strategy – plan your blog posts carefully.
- Add value – make your post useful and interesting. What does it offer the reader?
- Promotion – use your social media channels, tweet people who might be interested, share your blog in groups on Facebook that it could be of use to. Use your network and invest some time in to sharing your posts properly.
The experience has been really valuable, I’m going to try out some other blogging suggestions and techniques to see what works, what doesn’t and why. I hope you find these insights and tips useful and can use them to make informed decisions about your own blog.
Well said. I completely agree! I was wondering why you were firing out post after post, now it makes sense! 😉 Quality > Quantity
But your posts kept giving me that nudge to revive my blog again… 😉
Thanks Frieda! I agree it is all about quality. I’d love to read your blog – do it!
I blog every day, but only because I like it! Plus it helps if you plan out your blog posts so you can ensure a steady level of quality.
Thanks for the message – I love hearing about what works for people, getting other perspectives is very useful. Different things work for different people. That’s part of the reason I experimented, lots of people told me it’s definitely what I should be doing with my strategy. Over the two weeks I discovered some really useful insights. Adding value, creating useful blogs, and enjoying the process is what it’s all about. You’re right, blogging daily really makes you organised on the planning front.
Exactly, if it doesn’t feel right for you, then you shouldn’t do it, just because people tell you you should.
And there is school and I also send stories and poetry to fiction. What more do I have to handle? Also, I can’t cultivate new ideas everyday. Gosh! But it makes me so guilty to let it run dry for a day too many. Like right now. My latest post was something like 10 days ago.
Ah, tell me about it – trying to blog on top of a busy life is difficult…and I am not always the most organised person! Don’t let it make you feel guilty though. We are all in the same boat. It’s your blog, you are in control, it’s all about striking a balance. I find that carrying a notebook around (old school!) is helping me capture ideas when I get them so the pressure isn’t on when I sit down to write as I already have my topic. Maybe give this a go? It might help you.
Oh but, some or the other piece of fiction that I am working on is always revolving in my head…. when I look, I look for a story. Maybe I am more of a fictionista (Wink)
This was really helpful and I feel the exact same way too!
Glad it has helped. I always think it’s better to try these things out to see what the results actually are yourself!
Great post! I agree wholeheartedly! I have several people I followed that sent out posts everyday and some (poets primarily) that did several in a day. I got to where I was overwhelmed and couldn’t get to them. So,m stop and think of this. If you’re reading and commenting on several blogs, that can take several hours and when do you have time to blog your own stuff. I have 13 half started blogs in a holding pattern. The info has become obsolete on a couple of them, I know for sure. After awhile, unless a title catches my eye, I can only do a surface perusal of most and I don’t like doing that.
Thanks joliesattic! I always like to try out advice before I give it. I agree with your point too, it can be very overwhelming, especially when you are balancing blogging and reading others. Good luck with your blogging 🙂
Thanks and yourself as well.
What an interesting post, Rebecca. I’ve read both arguments for blogging every day, but you’ve hit the nail on the head (several times).
Thanks for following my blog. I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Thanks Hugh. I hope it helps with your blogging. I’m looking forward to reading your views and news!
I used to blog every day, but only because I once thought that was the only way to gain more followers. How wrong I was, though, Rebecca.
Totally agree with everything you’ve said here. Another reason not to post everyday is that you need time to respond and engage to those who are following you. Blogging daily doesn’t allow for that.
So true. Completely agree. Well said K E Garland!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t follow the advice of posting every day. While a do follow a few blogs who manage to post quality material on a daily basis, I have found those are rare. And I much prefer the blogs that post less frequently, but have obviously put some real thought and effort into their posts. As you say, we only have so much time to read other blogs, so we want it to be worth it when we do. Nice post, by the way!
Thank you so much Ann! I do agree with you, it’s very rare someone posts quality content every day. For me it’s got to add value in some way…whether that’s advice, escapism, news, inspiration or creative writing etc. In a world of citizen journalism, being relevant and adding value, not just noise or fluff, is what’s going to make your blog an interesting and popular one.
Although I have to add the following caveat. Different things work for different people, so if you’re not doing it for anyone other than yourself, as a cathartic exercise, then that’s a different story all together. In that case you could blog once a year, once a month or every day and it doesn’t matter – the goal and motivation here is very different.
Great comment Ann, as you can tell I got a bit carried away with my reply! Hope to have you back on Bright Lights Big City soon! Best wishes, Bex
It’s interesting that you joined my blog and this was the first of your blogs I came across. I’m on a little vacation from writing and I’ve done so much research on successful blogging that says we should blog daily, however, the points you made are true. I think the only daily post that seems normal to me are story tellers that just give you snippets daily…or poets. I loved writing daily for some time but I’m over it now. It also takes away from the other writing…novels and such. Thank you for the insight and fresh look.
No worries Kate, I’m glad the my experience and tips have helped. I read so much on why I should blog every day. I understand that fashion bloggers who have ‘outfits of the day’ and very popular bloggers have the demand (and recently having seen lots of poetry blogs who blog every day – again due to demand), but I still do believe that it’s the quality that counts. You can still post frequently and grow, but I do like to give readers a bit of time to take the content in and to promote posts properly. Much like everything in life, it’s all about striking a balance. Good luck with your writing Kate, I’ll look forward to reading it when you’re back from your writing vacation.