Blog Marketing has always been of interest to me. Two facts popped up on my radar in the past twenty-four hours that made me realize how much the world has changed because of Blogs and how different Blog Marketing can be to any other marketing channel.
Yesterday, I was reviewing my slide deck for the full-day seminar, Blogs – A Marketers’ Secret Weapon (which is done through the CMA – Canadian Marketing Association), and I have a slide about how often you should Blog. My answer (then) was a minimum of once a week. I say “then” because that deck was created about one year ago. I should probably change that slide to say once a day (if you can). That is how fast the Blog world changed. In an overly-simplistic way, Blogs used to be a great way to publish fresh content without having to deal with updating a website constantly. At the time, once a week seemed like a lot. Now, posting once daily seems like bare-minimum up-keep. For a Blog to get respect, ranking and readers, we’re demanding fresh content, constantly. I try and pump something out, at least, on a daily basis and I hardly feel like I am keeping pace with Blogs like Micro Persuasion and the like.
Fact number two: just because it’s the Holiday Season with offices closed and people away on holiday, don’t think – even for a second – that they’re not checking out Blogs even more frequently. I’ve seen the, “we’re going to slow down our Blog postings over the Holiday season,” and I would urge those Bloggers that have gone that route to take a look at their Blog stats.
I was just looking at my Blog stats for Sunday, December 24th, 2006. Sunday is usually a not-so-great day for Blog traffic regardless of month, but Christmas Eve traffic was through the roof. I had several thousand (yes, thousand) more unique users (this does not include RSS feeds) than the week before. Offices may be closed and people may be on “holiday,” but by the looks of my Blog stats (and we all know that Blog stats don’t lie), more people were checking out my Blog on Christmas Eve than any other Sunday this past year. “Holidays” may well mean that it’s time for me to chill out and catch up on all that good Blog stuff that I never really have enough time to focus on during my busy work day.
So my Boxing Day gifts to you are these two practical Blog Marketing new realities:
1. Blog often – more than once a day if you have the content and capacity.
2. Don’t slow down during the Holidays – that’s when most people finally have the time to read your brilliance.
Blog Marketing Boxing Day Gifts
Posted by 
Never another podcast episode or article 
Hey Mitch, I wonder if the ‘once a day’ rings true going into 2007. There have been lots of discussions surrounding RSS fatigue and having compelling content vs. just joining in the ‘me too’ – Eric Kintz had an interesting article about blog post frequency recently as well. I was a believer (and thought I was sucking at being a blogger) for a few months until I realized that if I didn’t have something to say that added value then I didn’t have to say anything at all. If people find value in what I write then I am doing my job as a blogger in my opinion. Sure, I could stand having more traffic, but the readers I do have are engaged and actually read me on their RSS feeds.
For me the fundamental is still – who’s your target audience and what’s your objective – those will determine if you need to be at the top of the heap, or if your 20 readers a week are serving you well.
ps – you are right about checking the feed over the holiday though 🙂
Cheers,
Tamera
Great points Tamera, and that’s why I said, “Blog often – more than once a day if you have the content and capacity.” I think most people do just “Blog often,” without thinking about the “content.” When I am looking to Blog, I focus on these points:
– Is this something that my readers should know about?
– Is this something that has not been covered a million times somewhere else?
– Is this something that is important to me – so much so, that I would bring it up in a phone conversation with a colleague?
I try to make sure that each post has an original “take” on it (i.e. my take) without being a simple regurgitation of what’s out there.
Your biggest concern, is mine as well: people Blogging just for the sake of Blogging and not necessarily because they have something unique, original or important to say.
Absolutely agree Mitch, and I love your third point — “is it something I would bring up in a phone convo with a colleague”. I don’t think every post has to meet that criteria necessarily (i.e. I don’t think I’d just start a convo with “here’s 5 things you don’t know about me…” :)), but it’s a great one to keep in mind and remind you of your audience.
Have a great New Year’s!
T
Mitch,
Great post…the hard reality of the blogosphere is that frequent posting helps…It’s interesting when I look at the biggest weekly climbers on The Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blog, are proportionate to their frequency of posting (your point about the holidays is well taken – the people that took a breather fell back in the rankings in the recent survey)
Tamera’s point is also well taken and at some point, people that blather for the sole reason of getting up their post count will clutter the content channel and we’ll have to rely on Rolling Stone Type of A-Lists of Top 40 Tech Blogs, Top 40 fashion Blogs, Top 40 Marketing Blogs to sort through the blogging coal for diamonds…
cheers to the new year,
sean