That title up there could mean several things - it could mean the "tone" or "voice" of your blog. It could also intimate the "frequency" or "energy" of the overall personality of your blog. That's the wonderful thing about words and writing...a word, a title, a statement can all be read and interpreted differently by different people.
The application here is using the word, frequency, per Webster's definition: 1. the fact or condition of occurring frequently.
My focus here today is actually to talk about frequency of posts, as in, how often do you post? What is too much, too little, are there rules, and should there really
BE a definitive school of thought regarding this topic?
I have my own blog,
Healing Morning, and I tend to write and post less often than most. I have weeks where I may write and post blogs several days in a row, but that is a bit unusual - the "norm" for me is to post, roughly, about once a week. I also am a co-author for this blog,
The Authentic Blogger, and a co-creator of its sister FB group page,
Authentic Blogger. Outside of all of that, I am a freelance technical writer with clients and meetings and writing that demand a big chunk of my attention. So, my whole world, professional and personal, is focused a great deal of the day, on writing. Because of that, I prefer to write blogs for Healing Morning when something strongly grabs my heart, or makes me pause and ponder deeply. That might not happen every single day, and I am not a fan of posting an "empty" blog daily just for the sake of being able to say I post daily. I'd much rather hear that people look forward to my posts, than hear they feel overwhelmed by too many posts to give their attention to on a regular basis.
There are several opinions on this topic. Type in "getting started with blogging" into your search window and you'll get thousands of hits, ranging in advice, rules and examples. Many websites, blogs and How To's will suggest blogging daily, sometimes multiple times daily, in order to get yourself established in the blogging world. Much of your personal decision on this practice will hinge on the personality and purpose of your specific blog. Are you writing a blog for yourself, or are you writing for a business? If your blog is your own, are you writing it to monetize it, i.e., to make money? Blogs that are focused on promoting a business will obviously require more frequent blog posts.
Blogs that are of a more personal, non-monetized nature will be open to personal preference regarding how often to write and post. My personal preference is to write and post less often. My blog posts on
Healing Morning are a bit longer than a promotional/business blog post, and as such, I feel that it fits my overall concept better to post 1-2 times a week rather than daily. I write on topics of a spiritual, healing, holistic, thoughtful nature that require the reader to ponder along with me (if they choose). I like to give myself, and my readers, time to absorb the most recent post, think about it for a few days, take time to post comments, reply to the resulting discussion thread and
then move forward to the next post. This works for me. My AB group partner, Marty D., posts more frequently on his
Coffee with Marty blog and that works for him.
I will also say that because I am so heavily involved in the blogging world for both work and personal application, I am not a fan of the posting daily concept. Those that post daily, I admit that I don't always have time to read every single daily post. I might have time to pull up one post weekly on the blogs and authors that I follow. For me, too much posting tends to lessen the impact of that author's writing for me. It becomes a surfeit of riches, so to speak, and I become less enthused when I am barraged with daily posts. Again,
this is personal preference - I recognize that I'm probably in the minority on this. I'm positive that many of you reading this are of the opposite school of thought and truly enjoy writing and posting daily, as well as enjoy reading other authors' daily posts. There are no hard and fast rules, as far as I'm concerned, on any of this. Individuality reigns in the world of blogdom, and that's something to celebrate!
Bottom line on this one is, each blog author will have to experiment with their posting activity and discover what works best for them. If you're writing blogs for a client, that client will state clearly to you the frequency of posts they expect, along with providing guidelines for length and content of blog posts. Those are the easy ones! The more challenging ones are your personal blogs. Try different things. Do some research online, talk with fellow bloggers, find online blogging groups such as
Authentic Blogger that will give you a community forum to ask questions and engage in discussions. It's a continual learning process, and one that gives us as blog authors the freedom to grow, learn new skills and try new methods as often as we choose. Growing, learning and embracing all these possibilities are some of the most entertaining parts of blogging!
As always, feedback and discussion in the Comments section are welcome. What are your thoughts and suggestions on this topic? Comment away!
Dawn S.
Author,
The Authentic Blogger blog
Author,
Healing Morning blog
Co-Creator,
Authentic Blogger FB group page
