Feeding a Blog
April 23, 2009, 10:25 am
I may be dating myself, but do you remember the first ghost captured by the “Ghostbusters”? It was a green blob with a voracious appetite. That “ugly little spud” (“Ray”:Dan Aykroyd) reminds me of blogging. Blogs always need to be fed and they’re always eating.
If blogs aren’t continually fed, they become svelte figures (temporarily) on their way to a certain death. Who wants to read a blog whose last entry was 1Q2007? Unless you’re an historian or have a paper due on that topic tomorrow morning at 8 a.m., you’re probably not going to bother.
So, how do you feed something with such a ravenous appetite? I certainly did not want the “Small Business Finance & Profitability” blog (SBF&P) to take over my life. For better or worse, here was my approach.
Before you launch a blog, have several of them “post-ready”: written, edited and ready to post. Your frequency of posting (e.g., once a week) will determine what a comfortable cushion is, but a useful guideline is to have a three-month inventory of post-ready articles.
You may object: but then the blogs won’t be timely. In some ways, that’s true. But every area of discussion has underlying principles and concepts. These don’t change much over time. For example, let’s say you are writing a blog about fire fighting. During times when, unfortunately, there are a lot of fires, there is no problem in having subject matter for your blogs and for having them exquisitely timely. But what happens when, fortunately, there are no fires? Then you dig into your “three-month inventory” and post your thoughts on fire fighting techniques, equipment, future trends, past highlights, famous firefighters, the world’s most destructive fires… Even if it’s not exactly timely, there can be a lot of interesting and exciting material in that inventory.
I’ll confess that, for the SBF&P blog, I don’t have a three-month inventory…yet. But before starting, I had a good month’s worth and the stockpile is growing.
The main reason for the inventory is to keep that “ugly little spud” at bay. As well as everything it can cause: writer’s block, deadline anxiety, poor articles, nasty stress. Of course, all of those will happen at some point, but the fatter your inventory cushion, the less of a chance your blog will suffer from them. It gives you a better the chance of overcoming the problems and flexibly handling the inevitable “life intrusions” (those really important things in life like a kid’s soccer game, a romantic night out, a root canal).
True, building an inventory takes a lot of upfront planning and hard work, but it is well worth it. A well-fed blog is a happy blog. Besides, it’s the easiest way to keep your sanity and retain control over your time.
As for the “Small Business Finance & Profitability” blog, you can help feed it by sending in questions and comments. Are there any particular topics you’d like to see covered? Let us know!
Bill
William A. Stong
Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com
SBF&P # 6
© 2009 Integrated ProfitabilityTM
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