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How to Blog. A Lot.

By Tac Anderson ⋅ September 24, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment
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Playing with the TypeDrawing app.
Image by Tac Anderson via Flickr

I get asked a lot lately how I’m able to blog so much. If you look at the bottom of my right hand column you’ll see I’ve had this blog for ~2 1/2 years. You’ll also see that as of the first of this year, my posting went up dramatically. Here’s how dramatically:

  • For the first 23 months I posted 242 times. That’s just over 2 posts a week
  • For the last 9 months I posted 293 times. That’s about 8 posts a week

What happened? I got serious about blogging.

The first step is to decide to blog every single day and then do it.

The best advice I ever received about blogging came From Jeremiah Owyang. He told me to take the first hour of my day and before I do anything else to read blogs and then blog. He also told me that a post should only take twice as long as an email of the same length.

Some days you may not feel like you have much to say. Some posts will be better than others. But over time you will get better. This is the only reason I watch my stats. If my visits, subscribers and number of times people share my posts goes up, I’m doing a good job.

Be a collector and use the tools.

I use Google Reader w/ Feedly, Twitter’s Favorites and Diigo to collect interesting things I find as I read throughout the day. I also use my Posterous site to collect things when I’m mobile. Then when an idea reaches critical mass I use ScribeFire or Windows Live Writer to pull it all together when I’m ready to write.

Zemanta then helps speed up the process by recommending links and pictures to use.

Remember: I am not advocating that popular blogs have to post everyday. The goal of posting every day is not quantity. The goal is consistently good content. But in order to get there you first have to blog a lot.

This is the short answer. Every blogger has tools, tips and tricks that work for them and there are probably hundreds of blogs dedicated to blogging. But until you make the commitment to start blogging regularly all the tools in the world won’t help you.

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About Tac

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.

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  • jillanderson

    Very timely advice for me as I am just kicking off a local neighborhood blog. I think some of your tool recommendations will come in handy. Thanks

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    Always happy to help.

    On Thursday, September 24, 2009, Disqus

  • http://twitter.com/globalcide TradeSkillsLLC

    Who are the best bloggers that can find + are willing to share the information to support the research papers and permaculture logistics legislation needed for these students to prevent global ecosystems critical mass cascade failures? Technology Transfer?

    By, Matthew Lane Tripp
    Moore, SC 29369
    http://www.google.com/profiles/globalcide

    Student Social Media Research Assistant: Three cents per minute.

    This is a not for profit service and I am willing to help people learn to do the same business if they want to run it as a nonprofit…

    (So that the goal of ecological sustainability in global civilization is achieved, it doesn’t matter who does the job so long as it gets done right, at a realistic cost, because the people and other life on earth of 15 and 50 years from now do not have a voice to help you make the best effort for their and your future’s.)

    Ecology/Sociology students only.

    Essentially I will be doing for you what the semantic web and research assistants will be doing for you 7 years from now, but for almost no cost to you.

    Professional Discipline information tracking; on Twitter, Facebook, Ning, LinkedIN, Delicious bookmarks, et cetera, Professional media sites or databases/journals/blogs.

    Call: M.att iPhone# Google Voice #: Twitter = @Globalcide

    Developing networking list’s of people / org’s to connect + be followed by on Twitter, Facebook, Ning, etc.

    Multiple accounts require different strategies. Example’s: Attacking the opposition, Spying on the opposition, Defending your field or corporate position, Finding opposition’s corporate espionage agents… ***Which could show or hide the time line history / projection of your well thought out sustainability activist communications and thereby provide background information in hiring choices. While more and more older or fundamentalist religious american’s put religious propaganda out against the sustainability efforts of the people (you) who are now trying to deal with the devastation via human created climate change.***

    Movies: The Age of Stupid +
    http://youtube.com/homeproject

    There is not enough time while studying; to sort through thousands of tweets which refer to further information… (and I can find context associations with your curriculum); also; which could require immediate scheduling updates for webcasts or events in the community.

    Developing real time active following list for current research paper or group project outline or abstract for more recent dissertation’s on future projects line of sight.
    This functions as the transitional increase in functionality that the web will begin to automate the function of real time knowledge base updates of social media cross referencing.

    You may or may not have research assistant staff in your new field and this will let you learn to administrate request’s for information on your projects and workflow… like having a secretary that sorts your email by priority for you at work (I think GIST.com has this or is developing this now).

    Laundry or Errands service’s

    Laundry: 1 dollar per hour if I have wi-fi while doing the laundry (I can work on Multi-media data mining which is productivity) Errand’s will be 2 dollars per hour if I can accomplish errands for 3 or more people at the same store or route) (Motorcycle)

    I want to develop the logistics of this for helping with home tasks for: Elderly, Disabled, Poverty Parents, Single Parents, and Students.
    Coordinating Volunteer training and Security applications in the community’s surveyed needs.

    Coordinating to fill the gaps of current community programs and budgets of manpower, expertise, and tool library’s or funds.

    Local grown food and life coaching for gardeners based on GTD, The Art of War FlashCard Deck, Ethics semantic tools, and The 48 Laws of Power.

    Life streaming of education automation during neighborhood watch + Yardening, which could integrate development of interpersonal assessment throughput via local and internationally available education programs for localized sustainability. Learning through carefully selected audio.

  • MichelleRafter

    Tac: Thanks for this. I normally post 2 or 3 times a week. But every May I host a blogathon where I and a bunch of other writer-bloggers commit to posting every day of the month. Traffic always spikes during that month and then drops down again - though not quite to the previous level - when I stop. Gee, you'd think I'd get it and keep blogging daily. But as you pointed out, sometimes that's hard to do, especially since big-idea posts can take (me) hours to put together. Moral of the story: not every post has to be a big idea. Little ideas are good to. Look at Seth Godin. He's a blogging god and some of his posts are like haiku.

    Blogging is a lot like writing for a daily newspaper: the more you do it, the easier it gets. If you know you have a daily deadline, you'll rise to the challenge. The trick is making yourself stick to a daily schedule without a cranky old editor breathing down your neck.

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  • jillanderson

    Just downloaded Zemanta - very cool indeed. Thanks so much.

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  • nokfarang001

    Thank a lot for great blog.

    ???
    ???
    ??? part time
    ?????????

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