Keep Your Online Presence Up (even when you’re down)

We all know how much time “staying in the loop” takes.

If you’re like me, you have a daily routine that makes up your online presence. As Web Professionals, we know the importance of having all cylinders firing.

  • Tweeting
  • Reading new articles via RSS
  • Updating Facebook accounts
  • Commenting within your desired blogosphere
  • Updating your own blog
  • Reviewing the analytics of your blog

It can be an overwhelming experience, especially to the new blogger. Recently, I caught a nasty cold that put me down for a few days. I was worried that I was going to fall far behind on my routine.

Allow me to share some tips on how I was able to stay connected.

Scheduling Future Blog Posts

Wordpress Scheduling UI

I tend to draft up a handful of my blog posts ahead of time. Once an idea strikes me, I start a rough draft out in my WordPress blog. I let it simmer until all the creative juices are ready to complete it.

One of the great features of WordPress is the ability to schedule your posts. This is great if you know you aren’t going to be connected for a day or two. Having a collection of “on deck” articles that you can finish up in under an hour is great ammunition!

Automating Tweets With Hootsuite

With Hootsuite, you can scheduled your tweets to go out at specific times. This is great even for a busy day. Collect your thoughts and links in one sitting and spread them out across the day. This works hand in hand with the aforementioned blog post scheduling.

Bonus tip: I find it advantageous to send out “reminder” tweets about your blog posts. If you’re posting at 11AM with one headline, remind folks around 4pm with a new headline. There’s nothing wrong with some light self promotion!

Got Content?

No? Great!

There are going to be days, weeks, and months where you just can’t settle in on your writing. What do you do then? I’m a fan of writing shorter blog posts for the sheer fact that I’m not a professional writer. Your writing style will also dictate the interaction with your blog.

If you write posts of biblical proportions, you probably only blog a few times a month. If you’re like me, shorter easier reading posts require you to be slightly more frequent. Read this post for more.

I have a series of blog posts that I try and launch every Friday called, “Thinking for the Weekend.” Here I like to pose a question for the readers to ponder over the weekend and then I touch base back on Monday.

What this does is fill 2 spots in my blog calendar. It’s also a great way to generate some visitor interaction at the end of the week and at the beginning.

Bonus tip: You don’t always need to strike the creative stick. While I was sick, I posted an article “5 Great Blog Posts I Didn’t Write.” It proved to be a pretty popular post and I look forward to doing more of them.

Conclusion

I hope these 3 tips help you with your blogging and social media upkeep. One of the hardest things for a beginner blogger is managing the consistency it takes to stay up to date. There are a lot of other tips out there.

Post your tips below!


Comments

4 responses to “Keep Your Online Presence Up (even when you’re down)”

  1. This was a really helpful article. I’m currently trying to manage school, midterms, meetings, etc. and still keep up with the blog. Thanks for the inspiration!

    1. Matt Medeiros Avatar
      Matt Medeiros

      Glad it helped! Keep the great articles coming!

  2. Good tips! I use automation tools – usually Hootsuite – because I have a lot of other things requiring my attention at the moment. It helps to have those scheduled posts so that I don’t have to worry if I’m not able to check on my Facebook page or Twitter account one day.

    One thing that works for me is thinking in terms of series. I like to interconnect things, so if I write one post about a particular topic, I try to see if I have another, unpublished post that relates to it. Doing so helps me to create a publishing schedule.

    1. Thanks for stopping by and commenting Erin – I really appreciate it!

      You’re spot on with the forming a series of posts. I love that idea. A great WordPress plugin I’ve since learned about after writing this article, Editorial Calendar –> http://bit.ly/oz4FZo

      A calendar overview of your posts, especially useful when you get into guest posting!

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