If you haven’t already noticed, blogging takes a ton of time. It’s not as simple as writing a post and throwing it up on your blog. There are so many other, smaller tasks that go into just one blog post.
Notice how I say practical ways to cut your blogging time in half. I’ve seen people who suggest to completely outsource your blog. Well, that’s not really your blog then, is it? But the truth is that every single task you’re doing in relation to your blog, doesn’t need to be done by you.
In this post, I’ll assume that you’ve gotten past the point of “but nobody knows how to do what I do and do it well”, and that you’re actually looking to get rid of some tasks and cut your time in half.
Focus solely on creating content.
Your focus should be to create content for your blog, whether that’s writing posts or creating podcasts and videos. No one can do those things like you can because you are your own brand and you can’t be replicated. Focus on nothing other than getting the information flowing.
Outsource all of the “putting it all together”.
Once you have that raw content, give it to someone else to put together into polished blog posts, podcasts, or videos.
Here’s an example: If you spent a couple hours a week talking into a microphone and then sent those audio files off to your VA, at the end of that week you could have: several blog posts, several articles for article marketing, and a podcast or two. And the only time you spent working was the time you spent speaking into your microphone.
The “putting it all together” can be classified as any of the following:
- editing posts for spelling, punctuation, and grammar
- transcribing the posts from audio files
- editing videos and podcasts
- the systematic queuing and posting of all the content to all of the outlets
- the recycling of content for the future
- Internet research
Create a systematic blog promotion strategy. Then let someone else execute it.
Spend some time creating a blog promotion strategy for your blog. Here are some things you might include in your strategy:
- schedule several tweets about the blog post
- bookmark the post on Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious
- comment on a few other blogs in your niche, then bookmark their posts on Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious as well
- recycle your content into other forms (e.g., turn a written post into a podcast or article, or turn a video into a written post, etc)
- import your Twitter account into Facebook
- set-up Facebook and Twitter to automatically publish your blog feeds
- create a press release, if applicable
And the list can go on. Can you see how doing all of that is just a drain on your time? There’s no reason you can’t hand those tasks off to a VA who’s familiar with blog promotion.
This is how a lot of my clients currently work. They create their content, then hand it off to me.
I guarantee that if you follow this method, blogging will seem like much less of a chore!
