Everyone’s cutting back, so why not me?
I received this absolutely wonderful suggestion from the ChurchCrunch Get Satisfaction page the other day:
Too many posts. Wow. What an interesting problem to have, right?
But I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and this particular commenter was dead-on in terms of where I was heading already, and Chris Brogan‘s piece about Excecutive Blog Editing just spurs me forward even more:
For someone to run a blog project like this, they have to develop a simple set of filters.
- Does this move my business goal forward?
- What’s working? What’s not?
- Can I isolate things that aren’t working and replace them with new experiments?
- What purpose is the content serving?
- How do I measure that success?
I have to be, as Chris says, merciless with content. I think I’m going to take it even one step further here and revisit my filtering system.
Thanks so much to the community that’s driving this forward. You guys are the best.
What steps are you taking to make sure your blogging maintains the Grade-A Level that you know you can achieve?
Daniel_Berman says
I am nowhere near having two many posts yet, but I can say I had a guest post that ran to 4000 odd words. Need to implement a policy to limit that to 1000-1500 from here on out….
Graham Brenna says
I, like Daniel, don't have a plethora of posts/day yet. I try to dispense nuggets of wisdom whenever I can but it takes some real inspiration to get me passionate about a topic enough to make it worth reading. I'm discovering that blogging is helping me to develop my critical thinking skills and is also helping me grow in my writing ability. It's all good!
Chris Brogan... says
Just a point: though that sentiment is true for some, I actually found my blog audience and community grew the MORE I posted. If I wrote 5 a day, I'd add another thousand regular subscribers. Not sure WHY, because that's counter-intuitive, but that's the case.
The advice about being merciless, however, is just a quality perspective. : )
human3rror says
Chris,
Thanks for your support and your generous thoughts! I'm just trying to find the right balance, as they say… I don't want to “drown” my readers… What do you think it's different per industry and audience?
Adam_S says
I say write as much as you want and people will read (some will read less if you write more, some will read more.)
Bill Bolte says
Wow, wish I had a "too many posts per day" problem. I'm kind of like the others, write as much as you want.
Jim says
"What does your heart tell you?"
EpicFaith says
I think that if quality goes up the readership will go up. Quality may or may not mean quantity.
human3rror says
good point.
Graham Brenna says
hmm… clearly we get more "hits" the more we post. Because if one post's title doesn't interest one person it might interest another. I don't read every single post on here… but I do skim all the titles and most of the first few lines or so. I suppose there's something to be said for a catchy title?
human3rror says
yes, definitely…!
rhettsmith says
John, I love it that Chris Brogan is commenting and giving good feedback on your site. I read almost every post, but some days I'm not online as much and don't get back to them…but I don't see that as a problem. Meaning, there isn't too many posts, rather I just have to determine that there are some I will miss, but that's a good problem to have……If people are new to this area (tech, social media) I can see why it might even be more overwhelming, deciphering what to read….anways…later.
rhett
human3rror says
word. how you doing?
Daniel_Berman says
I think if anything, it comes back to identifying as much as possible about your audience. Then provide them with as many tools to identify what they will like to read and what they won't. This allows for the possibility of a consistent stream of posts, and gives people the opportunity to only read what they want.
dewde says
This issue of "too many posts" is totally contextual to the purpose of each individual blog. For a blog like this I say let users decide how many is too much. If you go crazy with posts I just drop my gooreader to List view, scan the titles, read what I want and ignore the rest.
Conversely, I do the opposite with my blog. I go 2 or 3 weeks without posting sometimes, and I'm fine with that. Because that is on mission. My blog is a creative writing outlet aimed at a target audience (my young children) who won't read my blog for another 10 – 14 years easy. At least I hope not anyway, considering all the adult language and content.
peace|dewde
human3rror says
word up. i agree.
did u get my question about that one comment?