Doing it every day

I’vebeen at it every day for almost a year now. Unlike Tiger Woods’ missus, my wife knows all about my addiction and she’s been very supportive. But then again, my blog doesn’t send me late night SMSs about how it’s missing me.
Obviously, it would if it could – it’s just that I haven’t found a plugin that allows it to do that.

Yet.

Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog) (your premier destination for marketing tips and ideas for small and medium sized businesses – by Jim Connolly) knows why it is. He did an experiment for a whole two weeks…

Usually, my blogging schedule is erratic; often just a handful of posts in a month.  However, as regular readers will have noticed, I have been updating this blog with fresh posts every day, for the past 2 weeks. Why?

I wanted to measure for myself, just what the value to a blogger is, of updating their blog every day with new posts.  I assumed (rightly as it turned out) that 2 weeks would be a long enough period, for me to get some worthwhile data for you.  The results have been VERY interesting!

Yes, with just two weeks of effort, Jim rightly predicted that he would have some worthwhile data. Sure, he doesn’t post any statistical methodologies or calculations, but he’s Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog), so you just know he’s right.

Jim saw that his RSS subscriber numbers rose by 400% (from 1 to 5, I’m guessing), the number of comments increased by 300% (1 to 4?), overall traffic was up by 30% and pageviews were up “massively”. Jim says:

Daily blogging has improved literally every metric I have measured – not just those mentioned in this brief post.  It’s also improved areas that are far harder to measure, like making the blog a lot more ‘alive’ and vivid.  These things are harder to plot on a chart than RSS subscribers or traffic.

Posting every day made a marketing blog “alive”? Wow. The power.
So it’s all good, right?

Wrong.

Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog) is hardcore.

I see zero point in posting dross occasionally, just so that I don’t miss a day!  That material will live on the Internet forever, with my name attached to it. My 4 year old son will see it when he’s older – I don’t want him thinking his daddy writes pedestrian, generic bullshit occasionally, because I’m a slave to some self-imposed, daily blogging schedule.

Fortunately, regular readers of 6000 miles… will know that I never write pedestrian, generic bullshit occasionally.

*ahem* Moving on…

Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog) now has a dilemma. He knows that daily blogging is good for his blog, but he’s scared about what his kid will think about the whole thing in a few years time. (I have no such worries as I am not going to allow Alex to learn how to read.)
Bring forth the insipidly bubbling pot of compromise:

I’ve decided to aim for blogging here on a more regular basis than before, but only when I have something I believe is worth sharing with you.  If that’s daily, then fine. If not, then I assure you, you will be missing nothing worth reading.

However, having browsed through a few of Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog)’s posts since that announcement, I am sad to report that it seems he has slipped back into his pedestrian, generic bullshit habits again.

Someone should tell his son.

3 thoughts on “Doing it every day

  1. Just as well I don’t have those kind of worries.

    If I did not write generic, pedestrian BS I would have nothing to blog about….. But then I have never had to worry about what my kids would think before. Although I am sure that by the time they are able to read they are already going to think that their parents are geriatric, a bit pedestrian and full of BS anyway.

  2. pedestrian? never!
    generic? no.
    bullshit? totally!

    that is why i keep coming back.

    although i do wonder how many of the daily posts were about… um… posting daily.

    since i battle sometimes to post weekly, i salute you on your huge effort! well done!

  3. So Jim’s going “to aim for blogging here on a more regular basis than before, but only when I have something I believe is worth sharing with you”. How is that going to be different, I wonder, than what he did before.

    We all know how that goes. “I’m going to smoke/drink/call sex chatlines less than I used to”. The best-laid plans of mice and men and marketing gurus …

    Or, as Yoda almost said: “Do, do not. There is no aim”.
    .-= Ro´s last blog ..Good News, Bad News =-.

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