What’s the Best Prescription for Posting to Your Blog? Is it QD, BID or PRN?

                                                                   
               “…RSS fatigue is already setting in…” Seth Godin

 I can think of many things where more is better. A few things that come to mind are:

·         The number of karats in a diamond

·         The number of people you know that you can call upon when the “chips are down”

·         The number of mornings you can remember when you really took a moment to enjoy a new day with all of its possibilities

·         The number of times you said, “I’d never do that” (like parachute from an airplane) but you did it anyway and loved it

·         The number of times you took the high road when taking the low road was oh so tempting

But there are many things in life where less is more. We may each have our own list of what those are but one thing that is probably pretty common is the number of blogs that hit your inbox/feed daily by the same blogger.

I haven’t decided what the cause of this “too frequent blog posting phenomenon” is but here are a few theories I found while researching the topic and a few of my own.

Why do people post blogs daily and think that people will read them - daily?

·         There is a lack of understanding of human nature – none of us read anything every day unless it is from our maker, our boss, our loved one, a client or maybe a book we can’t put down (yes, I intentionally left out the newspaper since most people do not read the paper anymore and if they do, they do not read it from cover to cover like my dad did!)

·         In this relatively new era of freedom to communicate one’s thoughts with the masses, some may begin to think that others need to hear their thoughts daily

·         There is a misguided understanding that blogging is a replacement for “cold calling” and the more we write, the more chance we have that someone will read it and reply, take action or evangelize our brand

It is suggested that there is a connection to the quantity of posts to the volume of traffic. However, as seasoned marketers know, you want to choose quality over quantity every time. If you are using your blog for branding, you want loyal readers. You drastically raise the stakes on losing those loyal readers if you bombard them with too much information. They will tune out, log off and unsubscribe.  

If you are using your blog as a lure to get traffic on your page because you are advertising anything and everything on your site then you are hoping that you will create more ‘clicks’ on ads that pay you by hyper-posting. If this is the case, you probably aren’t writing for a loyal audience and you might want to consider some less work intense ways of driving traffic to your site. Blogging can be work. Try keywords, links, ads and other traffic generation tricks. It might work just as well for you and you might not offend true blog readers by filling up their ‘head space’ by over-posting to the same audience.  

So what is the right prescription for blog posting? I think your safest bet is PRN  (as needed). When you have something to say to the audience you are or want to reach… then say it. Don’t post just to post. We’ve all been guilty of saying too much too often, but I know that I get the best response when I write less frequently and only when I have something to say to my audience of SMBE’s and entrepreneurs. I also know that people I may initially “follow” get tossed in the Junk Mail or Block Sender Folders when I receive daily messages that clog my brain. The sad thing about that is that some of these things might be good for me to read, but I just don’t have the bandwidth to read all of it.

So, when it comes to the right prescription for blog posting, I think that substance over quantity will help all of us  to achieve true communication with those who we are trying to help, educate, engage, or…..

Related Articles: How Often Should a Blogger Post by Darren Rowse

                               The Noisy Tragedy of Blog Commons by Seth Godin

Guest Blog: I Fought the Blog and the Blog Won! By Gordon Durich

 As a "traditional" writer for many years, the idea of blogging seemed at first foreign. However, in 2011, the world is full of blogs - some that hit the mark, others that seem, well, rather like a gripe fest. I mean not to minimize this form of popular culture and its prominent validity as a commercial form of mass communication. It is just that I was used to writing copy for publication in print form and then having my ink edited (and sometimes censored) to fit the tone of the medium for which I wrote. In the world of blogging, there seems not to be such a thing as editing!

My writing initially bore a naive and often gushy over-congratulatory and probably over-academic viewpoint. Then, I "sold out" and started writing more "business" pieces than I had ever thought possible. This was not by choice, but for survival - the almighty dollar. I began to write a lot of blatant advertorial copy for local small businesses. I churned them out and the business owners loved every glowing word.

This whole new trend of online blogging is a curious beast and for a time, I resisted it.

In spite of this, I have come to learn that blogging can in fact lead to a new career for some who can manage to put words together in a fetching way. Why not make a living by using the written word in a new forum and format? Look at the journey of Julie, the based-upon-a-true-story character in the fanciful Meryl Streep movie "Julie and Julia" who turned her obsession with Julia Childs into a professional goldmine. I think that's when I really "got" it.

So now I find myself joining the ranks and writing online – blogging!  

In Public Relations and advertising, a simple slogan can tell a story. And yet blogs are all about words, words, words. I would love to see blogs by the likes of Mark Twain, George Orwell, Og Mandino and some of the Greek philosophers. Could they keep up with the routine of cranking out the daily volume of words that the bloggers from San Francisco to Sydney are doing?

We may all be living in a world of monomania, but there is always a void to fill. It's either "them" or "us" and someone has to keep the wheel spinning. What will replace the blog? I can’t wait to see ... but in the meanwhile, I’ll continue to write - online that is.

Gordon Durich studied Media and Creative Writing in Melbourne, Australia, worked as a features writer and in Public Relations. His mentor is Phillip Adams, Australian media guru and broadcaster.  He writes for AOL Patch.com and the odd print publication, odd being the operative word.

Gordon Durich gdd2@roadrunner.com  Also, on Facebook  and LinkedIn.