Blog Post Caches

Hi folks. It's been a few days since my last entry, which brings up my topic for today. I was laid low with illness and am just today feeling like being upright and at a computer.

So, what did I think about when I was laying in bed? That I wasn't able to post a blog entry! Ironically, the day before I got hit with the bug, I had taught in the Social Media webinar I'm co-hosting that it's a wise idea to have a cache of blog entries that you are working on, so that if there's ever a day that you can't sit down to write a post, you have some stored for quick access and easy posting.

Here's a simple way to stimulate ideas and then write up several short discussions to keep on hand:

1. Go to Google, Yahoo, or another search engine and type in keywords that match your target audience.

2. View some of the blogs that come up in the search.

3. Read through some of the posts and, whether you agree or disagree with what the writer is saying, write down the topic of what you would say in response (if you have some time and the blogger allows comments, by all means do that; it's good practice and your responses will cause people to want to see more of what you have to say).

4. When you have about 5-6 topics in your area of expertise, start with one and write a 3-5 paragraph post based on your own experience.

5. Do that again with each post, saving them as drafts. In an hour or so, you should have them all written.

6. When you need a new post, take one of the drafts, read through it again, edit if necessary, then post it.

7. Go through this process at least once a week and you will continually restock your cache.

Now you don't have to panic when you don't have time to think and write a blog post.

And now, back to my own cache-building...

Write On!
Marilyn Schwader