Is ‘Blogging when you have something to say’ bad advice? Definitely.
I adore Allison Boyer – I met her in person (finally) last year at Blogworld and this is seriously a woman after my own heart. Not only is she one of the nicest (and funniest) women I’ve met, she is consistently on point with her blog posts. Her post from Monday entitled ‘Why “Blog When You Have Something to Say” is Bad Advice‘ is no different. After reading it, I spent some time thinking about my blog and what has happened with it over the last 6 months.
In the 3+ years I ran Wright Creativity as an agency, I had plenty of time to write my posts, since it really was a part of my job. I regularly had solid content, lots of ideas and plenty to talk about so blogging 4 times a week was not overly difficult. I actually had ‘content overload’ in many cases and was able to stockpile posts for those weeks that were tougher to find time to write.
But then I moved full-time with 5150. I had different priorities: their brand, building it, etc. So, I started writing less and less. Then, I was laid off. During the hunt for a new position, I was honestly a little drawn away from blogging. I wasn’t really motivated to get my blog back to full time since my focus was on finding where I wanted to be next.
Since joining MagnaFlow, my creativity is back, but I am funneling 100% of it into my ideas for this brand and how we can move everything forward. In addition, there are a lot of proprietary things we are working on, that while they would be great blog fodder, can’t be public yet! So, when I get home at night and sit down to write for this blog…my brain is always a little bit exhausted. Overall, I’ve moved my thinking from ‘write every night, no matter what’ to ‘write when I have something to say’.
Which, to Allison’s points in the post, is how the 2 really big problems arose:
- Because I am not forcing myself to keep writing 4 times a week, I am progressively getting worse and worse about making the time to write. Which leads to less content, which means less time I am thinking about my blog, which leads to even less content (nasty circle)
- I am losing my readership. With less content from me, there is less options for my readers to get connected and excited by what I share. Not everyone will like every post and having a wider variety of content to choose from helps with keeping more people intrigued.
Overall, my point (and hers) is that blogging only when you have something to say will leave you with less and less to say…until you’re not blogging at all.
What are your thoughts on how often to blog – if you blog less, do you notice it’s harder to get into and your audience is less receptive?