“How to Run Two Blogs in the Midst of a Busy Life” plus 1 more

How to Run Two Blogs in the Midst of a Busy Life

Posted: 14 Mar 2011 12:07 PM PDT

This guest post is by Jennifer Fulwiler of ConversionDiary.com.

When I announced to readers of my regular blog that I had accepted a paid blogging gig for a national newspaper, my email inbox was flooded with one question: “How do you do it?” I have four children under the age of seven and am also working on a book, so, needless to say, before I accepted this new blogging position, I had to think carefully about how to write quality blog content with minimal effort.

I am happy to report that everything is going well: I’m able to keep up with both blogs without taking time away from my other priorities, and I’m getting great feedback from readers.

So how do I do it? Here are my top five secrets.

1. Keep a clean list of post ideas and update it frequently

When fellow bloggers tell me that they have trouble updating their blogs frequently, my first question is always: Do you keep a list of post ideas? I’m surprised at how often the answer is no, since I find this to be the key to regular blogging.

When the blank screen looms in front of you, there’s no way you’ll be able to recall every good post idea you’ve ever thought of. It’s critical to have a clean, well organized list to turn to. If you update this list frequently, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you amass great ideas (the list for my personal blog includes 87 items). The more ideas you have to choose from, the easier it will be to find a topic that inspires you when crunch time hits.

2. Have ideas for easy posts at your fingertips

There are times when life gets crazy and I simply don’t have time to write a regular post. That’s when I turn to my trusty list of easy post ideas, each of which allows me to touch base with my readers in a short amount of time. Some of my favorite go-to techniques are:

asking readers a question (I keep a separate list called “Questions to ask readers” for this purpose)
posting a roundup of my favorite links from around the web
creating a “best-of-comments” post, where I highlight the most helpful comments from a previous post
posting an interesting excerpt from a favorite book, with just a couple paragraphs of commentary (I highlight favorite passages in the books I read, which makes these posts especially easy)
asking a question on Twitter and posting a screenshot of responses
doing a photo post with one or multiple pictures with minimal commentary
answering a series of “getting to know you” questions and asking readers to do the same (e.g. “What time do you get up in the morning?”, “What is the most dangerous place you’ve ever visited?”, etc.)
reviewing the top products that make my life easier in the area related to my blog
asking a fellow blogger to write a guest post
writing an “awards” post where I name my favorite people in a certain category (e.g. “My 8 favorite female bloggers”)
rerunning an old post.

3. Embrace deadlines

My new blogging job requires me to write three posts a week, on a set schedule. This has been a new experience, since with my personal blog I could updated whenever I felt like it. To my surprise, having deadlines has been a great benefit to me. It’s taught me to cultivate self-discipline, stay organized, and stop wasting time. Consider setting deadlines for your own blog, even if you don’t have to—you’ll find that it transforms your mindset from “amateur” to “professional” overnight.

4. Let go of perfectionism

One of the most fascinating discoveries of my new blogging venture has been seeing the benefits of lowering the bar. In order to keep up with both blogs, I’ve had to pull items from my post ideas file that I normally would have skipped. I’ve had to publish posts that I didn’t think were perfect. And you know what? My readers have loved it. I’m now sharing information that I would have normally kept to myself, and the response has been fantastic. In fact, my four most popular items within the last month have all been posts that I never would have written if I weren’t under deadline pressure.

My new motto for whether a topic makes the cut to write about is simply: If it’s interesting to me, it’ll be interesting to someone else.

It doesn’t have to be a magnum opus. It doesn’t have to include mind-blowing commentary that will change the world. It doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to include tons of links. If I’m doing nothing more than conveying a simple insight or tidbit of information that I found helpful, that’s enough; there are undoubtedly many other people out there who will find it helpful as well.

5. Remember that it’s not all about you

Before I had so much blogging to keep up with, I felt like everything had to come from me. Each post had to be based solely on my own personal wisdom. With my new workload I’ve been forced to share: I link to other bloggers’ content, ask for guest posts, share excerpts from good books, interview interesting people, post link roundups—and a bunch of other things that highlight someone else’s talents. The result has not only been a grateful response from other bloggers and writers, but my own posts have been better as well.

What tips can you add to help others run multiple blogs as part of their already-busy lives?

Jennifer Fulwiler is a freelance writer as well as the chaos manager for her busy household, which currently includes four young children. Her personal blog is ConversionDiary.com.

Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips

How to Run Two Blogs in the Midst of a Busy Life

Between Google and Bing: Positioning a Blog Using Social Media

Posted: 14 Mar 2011 06:05 AM PDT

This guest post is by Tricia Lawrence of Realbrilliant.com

I'm not one of those people who relies solely on search engine optimization to get me to the top of the heap. I am paid to write blogs for clients every week, and they focus on their SEO enough for the both of us.

Positioning has another meaning to me. It's content-focused and deals only with how my content and expertise is positioned in my audience's head.

You can't get those results from a Google or Bing search. You can only get that from positioning yourself, either weakly or strongly. Either way, you'll learn quickly.

Learning about this "mental positioning" may seem like it has no place in social media strategy. After all, it's not exactly a social media tool per se. But there's more to blog marketing than just loading content onto your Facebook and Twitter profiles. If you're using social media to talk without giving any thought to who is listening, you're not positioning yourself whatsoever.

What's your story?

This is what you feel compelled to share, to write a blog about, to speak about, to share with others. What is the best way to communicate that story? Is it social media? (I always suggest yes, it is.) But what about other channels: public speaking, webinars, or teaching what you know to an entire company? Social media works well when you're presenting ideas and links as teasers to your platform. Social media should point the way to you and your story.

What's your audience?

Who you're speaking to has a lot to do with how you will present your message. A lot of the younger generation may not use email, but if you speak to any other generation, you'll want to use email. If you're teaching people how to be Luddites and to stick to typewriters out of protest to the wasting of bandwidth whenever someone tweets about Britney Spears, then yes, you can stay off of social media quite easily. How does your audience use social media? What do they look at online? What kind of solutions are they looking for when they come looking for your story?

What's your influence?

When you are positioned in your audience's mind, your influence can reach quite far. How far? Your core audience shares you with their core audience, who in turn share you with theirs. Sometimes it's who you know, but sometimes it's not. Your goal is to be visible to many, but to attract a chosen few. Sure, we'd all love everyone to pay attention to us, but that's just not going to happen. Let's be realistic and focus on the audience we can influence toward our solution and our expertise.

What's your engagement?

Positioning yourself online is mistakenly viewed as just about Twitter followers and just about retweeting what you find interesting. Successful positioning includes much more. As your story is communicated over and over and over, you'll learn how to say it differently; you'll also learn your audience's lingo. As they interact with you, you'll learn more from them. Engaging is not getting something or giving something more than the other: it's about the even exchange, the leverage both parties give to make the other successful. As you learn what your audience wants from you, they learn more about your story and what you can give to them. Both parties benefit.

One last word: Even if you've been positioned or have positioned yourself weakly (notice I use the words weak and strong versus right and wrong; I hate for people to view this as being black and white, because the Internet is much more a gray area), it’s never too late to reposition. You can always strengthen your position by going back to these four questions. They are at the core of a strong position.

Let Google change algorithms every hour if they want to! Let Bing see the traffic coming to your site every day! You just keep right on strengthening your position. Have you positioned your blog strongly on social media?

Tricia Lawrence is an author, teacher, and speaker, helping the publishing industry, specifically authors, position their blogs and books to sell. Tricia's book, The Social Network(s): A Field Guide for Writers will be out on Kindle in March and she'll appear at several tech and writing conferences in 2011. Sign up for Tricia's biweekly eZine, Please Write Like You Talk at http://www.realbrilliant.com. Tricia is on Twitter @realbrilliant.

Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips

Between Google and Bing: Positioning a Blog Using Social Media