Tips for Avoiding Blogging Burnout [Guest Post]

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Do you blog for business? Have you found it difficult to keep up with your original blogging goals?

In this comprehensive look at ‘blogging burnout’, guest blogger Emma-Julie Fox examines the tactics you can implement to avoid a failing content ROI.

Check it out!

Just like starting a new hobby, you probably started blogging with the best of intentions. You know that this particular activity can contribute a lot to your business, especially as part of an effective online marketing campaign.

So, you promised yourself you were going to publish one blog post and respond to your readers’ comments each day. However, just like starting out a new hobby you weren’t hugely never interested in, you’re likely to keep that promise for a few days, after which you start to post less and less often or perhaps even quit entirely.

The most common culprit (one you should definitely avoid) is blogging burnout.

1. Assessing Your Resources


Before you do anything else, it’s important to take a step back and carefully assess the resources you can realistically commit to the upkeep of your blog. To be specific, assess how much time you have available and what specific skills your blogging team has that can be used for the project.

If you’re a small business owner personally managing the day-to-day operations of your company, then you definitely don’t have time to create a well-crafted blog post every single day. Remember that it takes a considerable amount of time to create good content.

In the same manner, you’re going to need a lot of time to create excellent blog posts if you and your team are relatively slow writers. If your blogging team has other responsibilities then they can probably devote only a few hours each week to your content creation.

That’s fine, as long as you adhere to a regular schedule. What’s important is for you to be honest about the time and skills you can commit to blogging. The biggest mistake you can make at this point is to overestimate your available time and skills. You may think you’re being optimistic, but you’re actually just increasing your risk of burning out.

Never overestimate the time and skills you can commit to blogging because doing so often leads to burnout.

2. Setting Up a Calendar


As soon as you have a realistic idea regarding the resources you can devote to blogging, you can start setting up a publishing calendar. Among the things that should be covered in your calendar are three things:

  • the frequency of posting
  • the topics you’ll be covering
  • the person responsible for every single part of the process.

Though you don’t have to post every day, you should at least post regularly once or twice each week. Anything less in terms of frequency might be construed by your readers as an abandonment of your blog and may cause them to stop visiting the site. Posting more often might be a good idea if your resources allow, but only if you’re sure the quality of your posts won’t suffer.

The task of choosing topics for your blog posts should also be approached in a strategic manner to make sure all the topics you cover are deemed relevant by your readers. Remember that quality is always more important than quantity where blogging is concerned and quality starts with the right topics.

How do you know what to focus on?

Your readers’ comments on previous posts can give you a good idea of the things they want to learn more about. Other than that, you can also use online tools with a good analytics feature to figure out what topics are considered relevant by your target audience. Comments and questions on your social networking pages may also yield excellent ideas for blog topics.

Bear in mind that the blogging process isn’t just about creating and publishing articles.

Once you decide on a topic, someone will have to spend time researching that topic. As soon as the research is completed, the article will have to be written, edited, published, and promoted. Someone will then have to monitor feedback about the article and respond to comments and questions on your blog.

By assigning specific members of your team to each task, you can successfully avoid confusion and overlapping of responsibilities. Consequently, you’ll be able to avoid a lot of blogging mistakes as well. If at all possible, schedule your content creation at least a month before publishing to allow your team a bit of room in case they become busy with their other responsibilities.

3. Blogging Pointers


Although it’s advisable to set a schedule for your blogging activities, you should never think of blogging as a requirement or a chore. That will only put you under the kind of pressure that’ll be counterproductive in the long run.

If you’re feeling under-the-thumb, you may want to consider inviting guest bloggers from time to time.

Different bloggers naturally have different writing styles so allowing guest bloggers to post on your site will help keep your blog fresh. It will also give you more wiggle room so your team can perfect the next piece of content you plan to post. If you run out of ideas and no guest blogger is scheduled for the next post, you may want to join linkups with writing prompts, as these can give you fresh ideas and get you in touch with other bloggers as well.

What if you really don’t have enough time to devote to blogging and none of your employees can be spared to take care of the project as well? Should you hire a dedicated team for it or ditch it altogether?

There’s actually a third option and that is for you to outsource at least part of your blogging responsibilities.

For example, you could hire a company to provide you with content for your blog or you could hire an individual freelancer to send drafts, which you could edit and post at a later date. Another option is to pay for virtual assistant software who can take care of uploading your posts and promoting them on your social networking pages. If you do choose to follow this route, be sure to screen outsourcers very carefully to find the one who can best address your needs.

Conclusion


These are just some of the things you can do to avoid blogging burnout. While it may now seem as if blogging is too much trouble for you to concern yourself with, the benefits you gain in the long run will surely be worth the effort you put into it. By avoiding blogging burnout, you maximize your own potential to make the most of this promotional tool.

About the author: Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a Vancouver company that provides SEO services to businesses across North America. 

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