by Javier D
It's addicting, isn't it?People visiting your blog, reading your entries, leaving you comments on how they enjoyed your latest post; it's like your wildest writing fantasy has come true. Some of these comments can literally make your head spin. They inspire you and motivate you to come out with another killer post.
Sometimes they pump you up so bad that you're choking full of ideas and you feel like you're going to burst if you don't put them all down in writing. So you're doing just that-- writing at a feverish pitch, enjoying this burst of manic creativity, posting as if blogging is going out of style that even your readers have a hard time catching up with you. A word to the wise however, you may want to leave something in the tank. Blogging at breakneck speed is not only dangerous to your neck but may prove to be counter-productive in the long run. Heck, even the energizer bunny runs out of juice sooner or later and will have to recharge his battery. Where will you be when your well of inspiration dries up and all you can think of is a blank screen?
The name of the blogging game is longevity. This is not a get rich quick scheme. True, credibility and readership may be established overnight with one or two brilliant posts but these can also be eroded just as fast when the quality of your content fails to live up to the standards of those initial entries. This is apparent when you observe the practices of the hotshots in the blogging world. What they offer is consistent, quality content. Consistency is not limited to the high quality of their blog entries. It also refers to the regularity with which these bloggers publish their entries.
You do not see any boom-bust cycles in their posting habits; where there are days when their blogs are just bursting at the seams with entries and days when their blogs are as empty as the refrigerator of a guy with the munchies. Consistent, evenly dispersed, quality content. This is what keeps them on top of the game, this is what keeps their readers glued to their blogs and coming back for more.
Lessons From The Corporate World
In some industries, the IT industry specifically, there are companies who are proponents of a manufacturing philosophy called planned obsolescence. These companies introduce products that are designed to be obsolete in a given period of time. We may not know it, but some of the products that they put out there already have a version 2 even before hitting the market. It doesn't mean that these are incomplete products-- they are. At the time when these products were introduced, these were even considered to be the at the cutting edge.
After a few months the same company would then release a better version of the product, this one possessing a new feature that makes it more appealing and more efficient than the first. People who bought their first product and liked it line up to get the newest model. Are you still wondering why the iPod was first released with only so much storage capacity?
In relation to blogging, sure you cannot come up with an entry that self-destructs after a few weeks or months or one that is erased from the reader's memory after a given time, that is just absurd. But this manufacturing philosophy gives bloggers an insight on phased product introduction.
A blogger's product is his article, his blog entries. When you have some really good articles in your possession, you do not post them all in one go. To maximize the exposure of your blog, you post these articles one at a time. Get people excited with one post, then you hit them again with another, then another with each posting inter spaced at well thought out intervals. This way, a whole series of posts become effective link baits to ensure that you get readers hooked and coming back for more. A few bloggers are on to this model. This is why we see posts pertaining to a single subject being broken down into parts. Instead of one single all-encompassing entry, we see a series of posts related to each other and culminating in one climactic conclusion.
Indeed, why come up with a single entry when you can make four out of the same topic. The important thing to note however is that when you come up with your entry in four parts, make sure that these parts can stand on their own, that while they refer to a central theme, they are engaging reads in their own right.
Pace Yourself
On the bloggers' point of view, it is alright to strike while the iron is hot. But sometimes in our haste to get things written down, we push ourselves to the limit and blog as if there's no tomorrow. In short, while we are able to come up with one killer post, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to days when we are bereft of inspiration.
What I'm trying to say is, inspiration is great. It should be nurtured and embraced. However try and pace your inspirational output by giving your readers a little breathing space. Do not show your cards all at the same time. Save a couple of article aces up your sleeve for those really dry days when inspiration tends to be a bit shy. You may feel at this point that you can pretty much write about anything but it's still prudent to be prepared for any eventuality nevertheless.
It's addicting, isn't it?People visiting your blog, reading your entries, leaving you comments on how they enjoyed your latest post; it's like your wildest writing fantasy has come true. Some of these comments can literally make your head spin. They inspire you and motivate you to come out with another killer post.
Sometimes they pump you up so bad that you're choking full of ideas and you feel like you're going to burst if you don't put them all down in writing. So you're doing just that-- writing at a feverish pitch, enjoying this burst of manic creativity, posting as if blogging is going out of style that even your readers have a hard time catching up with you. A word to the wise however, you may want to leave something in the tank. Blogging at breakneck speed is not only dangerous to your neck but may prove to be counter-productive in the long run. Heck, even the energizer bunny runs out of juice sooner or later and will have to recharge his battery. Where will you be when your well of inspiration dries up and all you can think of is a blank screen?
The name of the blogging game is longevity. This is not a get rich quick scheme. True, credibility and readership may be established overnight with one or two brilliant posts but these can also be eroded just as fast when the quality of your content fails to live up to the standards of those initial entries. This is apparent when you observe the practices of the hotshots in the blogging world. What they offer is consistent, quality content. Consistency is not limited to the high quality of their blog entries. It also refers to the regularity with which these bloggers publish their entries.
You do not see any boom-bust cycles in their posting habits; where there are days when their blogs are just bursting at the seams with entries and days when their blogs are as empty as the refrigerator of a guy with the munchies. Consistent, evenly dispersed, quality content. This is what keeps them on top of the game, this is what keeps their readers glued to their blogs and coming back for more.
Lessons From The Corporate World
In some industries, the IT industry specifically, there are companies who are proponents of a manufacturing philosophy called planned obsolescence. These companies introduce products that are designed to be obsolete in a given period of time. We may not know it, but some of the products that they put out there already have a version 2 even before hitting the market. It doesn't mean that these are incomplete products-- they are. At the time when these products were introduced, these were even considered to be the at the cutting edge.
After a few months the same company would then release a better version of the product, this one possessing a new feature that makes it more appealing and more efficient than the first. People who bought their first product and liked it line up to get the newest model. Are you still wondering why the iPod was first released with only so much storage capacity?
In relation to blogging, sure you cannot come up with an entry that self-destructs after a few weeks or months or one that is erased from the reader's memory after a given time, that is just absurd. But this manufacturing philosophy gives bloggers an insight on phased product introduction.
A blogger's product is his article, his blog entries. When you have some really good articles in your possession, you do not post them all in one go. To maximize the exposure of your blog, you post these articles one at a time. Get people excited with one post, then you hit them again with another, then another with each posting inter spaced at well thought out intervals. This way, a whole series of posts become effective link baits to ensure that you get readers hooked and coming back for more. A few bloggers are on to this model. This is why we see posts pertaining to a single subject being broken down into parts. Instead of one single all-encompassing entry, we see a series of posts related to each other and culminating in one climactic conclusion.
Indeed, why come up with a single entry when you can make four out of the same topic. The important thing to note however is that when you come up with your entry in four parts, make sure that these parts can stand on their own, that while they refer to a central theme, they are engaging reads in their own right.
Pace Yourself
On the bloggers' point of view, it is alright to strike while the iron is hot. But sometimes in our haste to get things written down, we push ourselves to the limit and blog as if there's no tomorrow. In short, while we are able to come up with one killer post, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to days when we are bereft of inspiration.
What I'm trying to say is, inspiration is great. It should be nurtured and embraced. However try and pace your inspirational output by giving your readers a little breathing space. Do not show your cards all at the same time. Save a couple of article aces up your sleeve for those really dry days when inspiration tends to be a bit shy. You may feel at this point that you can pretty much write about anything but it's still prudent to be prepared for any eventuality nevertheless.
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