The Time Strapped Professionals’ Guide To Blogging

The Time Strapped Professionals’ Guide To Blogging

If you’re any­thing like me, you’re con­stantly look­ing for ways to save time.

As a pro­fes­sional in the dig­i­tal sphere, work is a 24/​7 under­tak­ing between office hours, net­work­ing events, social media par­tic­i­pa­tion, and ongo­ing edu­ca­tion.  For most dig­i­tal pro­fes­sion­als, one thing that often falls to the way­side is blog­ging. Blog­ging is gen­er­ally a time con­sum­ing endeavor requir­ing research, mul­ti­ple edits, and cre­ativ­ity. But blog­ging is one of the most impor­tant activ­i­ties any of us can be doing online.

A blog that’s reg­u­larly updated can:

  • Pro­vide highly qual­i­fied search traffic
  • Be a source of qual­ity backlinks
  • Prove thought leadership
  • Demon­strate tech­ni­cal knowl­edge to poten­tial clients
  • Pro­vide traf­fic from social media sites
  • Become a source of leads for your business
  • Increase cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion & brand retention
  • Cre­ate brand evangelists
  • Increase your dig­i­tal footprint

But when you’re on a busy sched­ule, how do you keep it up?

1. Learn to Batch Process

Most ele­ments of blog­ging can ben­e­fit from batch pro­cess­ing.  I like to sit down for a few hours one day a month and brain­storm a cou­ple dozen ideas for posts, mostly con­sist­ing of the title and a few sen­tences about the idea.  I save all of these as draft posts.  Then, on par­tic­u­larly pro­duc­tive days, I’ll sit down and write 2–3 posts at a time.  On a once per week pub­lish­ing sched­ule, that gets me pretty far.

2. Cre­ate an Edi­to­r­ial Calendar

Have prob­lems com­ing up with ideas?  Think of this as your road map to blog­ging.  Take the batch pro­cess­ing idea above, and apply it to a 6 month, or even a full year’s sched­ule.  Come up with one topic per week, or even a new theme to explore each month.  This way you can deliver timely and sea­sonal con­tent, and be pre­pared for it ahead of time.

3. Auto­mate Your Promotion

While not a tac­tic I would always rec­om­mend, it can be a sig­nif­i­cant time saver.  Use a ser­vice like Hoot­Suite to auto­mat­i­cally pub­lish your new posts to your Twit­ter, Face­book & LinkedIn accounts.  You can also use Hoot­Suite to push out to Ping.FM, which can update any num­ber of sites.

4. Become a Dig­i­tal Collector

Inspi­ra­tion can strike at any time, and any­where.  Cap­ture that inspi­ra­tion by becom­ing a dig­i­tal col­lec­tor.  Any­time I see a piece of con­tent online that inspires me — be that photo, video or blog post, I’ll save it to my Ever­note Note­book.  I then tag the clip­ping with “blog idea” for future ref­er­ence.  You can do the same with ser­vices like Instapa­per, or even through your Pos­ter­ous blog.  This can also help when you need to find sup­port mate­r­ial for a blog post that’s in the works.

5. Exper­i­ment with Other Formats

Maybe writ­ing isn’t your thing.  You might be a bet­ter pub­lic speaker then a writer.  As Gary Vayn­er­chuk might say, “Find what fits your DNA.” Go ahead and exper­i­ment with video blogs or pod­casts.  Then, when you post to your blog, include a para­graph or two of text con­tent that describes the video or pod­cast.  This way you’ll get the ben­e­fit of search traf­fic for the con­tent you created.

6. Recy­cle Your Content

Are you cre­at­ing pre­sen­ta­tions, white papers, or other forms of con­tent for your busi­ness?  Many of these can be recy­cled into qual­ity blog posts.  If the con­tent has been pub­lished online in other places, make sure you vary up the text to avoid pesky dupli­cate con­tent penal­ties from the search engines.

7. Learn to Lever­age Mobile

Cre­ate con­tent while you’re on the go.  The iPhone and other mobile devices include fea­tures like voice recorders and video cam­eras.  Use these to cap­ture your thoughts and ideas while you’re on the go.  You can also draft entire blog posts through Gmail, and depend­ing on your set-​​up, post through e-​​mail, or post when you’re able to access a computer.

What About You?

What tricks have you dis­cov­ered for sav­ing time while blogging?

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