Bloggers today simply cannot afford to become distracted from their blogs, because, if they do, they risk missing out on either taking advantage of a great opportunity to attract more readers or responding to their current readers regarding an issue that has arisen. In either case, the important thing is that bloggers have to remain connected to both their blog and the blogging community, otherwise they risk quickly becoming irrelevant.
Here are a few tips to help you stay relevant and connected all the time; if you can think of others, please leave them in the comments section!
Moderate Comments
Many blog commenting widgets allow you to automate your moderating system. This is most often used to keep spam from collecting in your comment threads and encourage real-time debate; however, it also sort of distances you from the commenting process. But, if you set up a moderating filter, you will always be notified when you have a comment on one of your posts. The conversation will only be delayed a little bit, and you’ll know exactly when people are commenting so you can connect with them in the comment thread.
Blog Remotely
Another thing you can consider doing is blog remotely on your smart phone or tablet computer. The great thing about blogging remotely is it allows you to always keep in touch, while allowing you to publish posts that are not exactly pillar in nature. You can, for example, draft several pillar posts before you leave the house and schedule them to be published, and then while you’re out and about, you can publish snippet posts and links to interesting things at intervals, all from your smart phone. This remote blogging will keep your site fresh for your readers, but it won’t take away from the pillar posts, which you can sticky to the top of the page if you want to emphasize their importance.
Organize Your Feed Reader
Next you should set up and organize a feed reader. I prefer to use Google Reader, but there are plenty of other feed aggregating programs out there that you can use. The great thing about organizing a feed is that you have all of the posts from blogs that you regularly read at your fingertips. You don’t have to spend a lot of time browsing through your bookmarked sites. If you do read a post that inspires you to comment, you can leave your feed reader and go directly to the site very easily. Using a feed reader will minimize the time it takes you to stay updated on all the great content out there in the blogging community.
Interlink All of Your Social Networks
Finally, you should consider linking together all of your social networking profiles. This will put your social networking activity in one easy-to-access place. Again, the idea here is that you can make your social networking more efficient, which will allow you to be both more connected and also more productive in your blogging.
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Tagged as: Blogging, feedburner, focus, get organized, organize
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
I think moderating comments is always a good thing given the situation that most commenting activity nowadays is being dominated with spammy efforts from other bloggers. It truly helps when managing your comments to ensure cleanliness and credibility of your blog.
Yes I agree with you, It help you also to preventing the negative comment
semmy @ Make Money Online´s last [type] ..How To Increase Web Traffic By Writing Guest Posts
I do think, however, that there can be ‘good’ negative comments. I tend to leave the negative comments that offer a responsible criticism of my ideas. The negative comments that simply say ‘I don’t like this,’ however, are not useful, so I just delete them.
Apart from moderating comments, it is also equally important to reply to genuine comments. This will make the commenter feel their comments are recognized.
Jasmine@Top Web Hosts´s last [type] ..CoolHandle Professional Web Hosting Review
Excellent point, Jasmine. Thanks for commenting (this is me responding to your comment!). I hope you feel recognized!
Organising the feed reader is very essential for any blogger, you get great idea for your blog and you remain up to date what your competitors are doing. You can then decide your strategy for future and work out them.
Sam @ Weekend Getaways´s last [type] ..Summer Holiday Packages
ya, adding social networks at one place will be good…
Vijayraj Reddy @ Make Money Online´s last [type] ..How Does Google Make Money
Hi Mariana Ashley,
Hey this is really nice post, and i liked the this one that is organizing the feed reader is very essential for any blogger, to be updated .
regards
Hostmonster Review´s last [type] ..US Government Mistakenly Shuts Down 84K Websites
Many people try to do a lot of jobs at one time and end up doing them all but bad and unsatisfactory.
For example I just read a dilemma someone recently had. How can he build links to his website while also post great content that he can publish. The fact was that he could not do those things at the same time so, he ended up choosing posting great posts and failed to get traffic from search engines.
So, in blogging in order to concentrate yourself on the important stuff like blogging is good to have a lot of contacts with good and reliable freelancers that can help you with other jobs that can be outsourced.
Alex@Jocuri´s last [type] ..Curse 3D
I want to add one more point here. Blogging is not about just writing or moderating comments. You need to study first before writing any article on any topic. So you should have a specific time for your study as well, whether it’s just a blog reading of your competitors or any book.
Riya @ Couponseasy´s last [type] ..HostGator Coupon Codes- Latest Promo Discount Vouchers Daily Updated
Riya, you make an excellent point. It’s extremely difficult to blog about anything, to stay focused, if you don’t even know what you’re talking about! Researching and reading other blogs is a great way to remind yourself of what others are doing out there as well.
You can always create few good tips article and save them in draft . So when you plan your holiday then you can keep publishing them and keep engaging your readers + Google bots for continue activity .
Webmaster Blog´s last [type] ..70 Best Free Wood Textures for Download
Mariana,
Interlinking everything is definitely a must; along with consistent branding across all your social media platforms.
I’ve been thinking of picking up a tablet or just an inexpensive netbook to do my remote blogging. For now, I jot down ideas in a small notebook that I keep with me.
Does anyone else here carry a notebook? Does anyone have a good netbook recommendation so we can do more remote blogging?
Jon
Jon´s last [type] ..The Dark Side of Community- Will You Help Cast Some Light
Jon, I actually use a little Moleskin notebook. It’s expensive, but worth the extra cash. The paper is nice and the leather binding keeps it all together. Rhodia also makes a nice notebook/journal if you’d rather try a different brand.
Mariana, aloha. Your suggestion on interlinking social networks is absolutely right on because doing so makes interacting much more convenient as well as time effective.
A P.S. I want to add to your Moderate Comments section is the additional benefit that responding to your community makes you a better blogger. When you are responding to a comment on your blog, you tend to “listen” to what your readers say and thus you “hear” their messages. Because of that, you write better blog post specifically for your audience. Truly a win-win situation.
Best wishes for a great weekend. Aloah. Janet
Janet @ The Natural Networker´s last [type] ..It’s a Storyteller’s Business by Janet Callaway The Natural Networker
Janet, your comment speaks to the importance of ‘listening’ as another aspect of what TRUE communication is. I always tell myself when I get into arguments/discussions that if I cannot rephrase the other person’s argument, then I cannot fully understand it. If I cannot fully understand it, then how can I communicate with them? Listening is so important.
One thing that puts me off certain blogs with great content is the presence of spammy comments. Moderating comment is totally necessary to weed out the time wasters.
Blogging on the go isn’t much fun for me as I like working with my windows live writer so as to carefully format everything.
Yes, Udegbunam, that’s a great point: a side effect of spammy comments is it hurts your brand!
Hey Mariana,
Great tips. I need to work on bringing my social networks together. I find it a bit distracting when I find a bunch of new tweets in Twitter, I always keep the tab open. I can’t escape my eyes looking there while I think. I am in control, but still need more control. LOL.
Cheers,
Jane.
Jane | Find All Answers´s last [type] ..How I Managed To Get My Posts Featured On A-List Blogs
Good tips there. I find Google Reader very useful to keep me on track of all the usual blogs I visit everyday.
Jasmine@Top Web Hosts´s last [type] ..CoolHandle Professional Web Hosting Review
Thanks for these quick, concise tips, Mariana.
I really appreciated the reminder that not all posts need to be “pillar” posts. As you say, it’s mostly about:
“the important thing is that bloggers have to remain connected to both their blog and the blogging community, otherwise they risk quickly becoming irrelevant.”
I appreciate your insight.
Wishing you well-
Nanette
Nanette Saylor´s last [type] ..Inspirations from Nature & Springtime Creative Musings
Agree with most above tips. Great !
Tony @ Technology News´s last [type] ..WiFi-Only Motorola Xoom Coming To Cellular South
I find it almost impossible to do everything I want to do. I always get distracted with something or another.
Comments take up a lot of time. There has to be a plugin to reply to comments easier. Instead of replying to each one. one by one.
I also find it hard to write a blog post, stuff is always poping up and distracting me. There is a program i now use to make my screen all white. blocks everything out. helps a lot.
A calendar also has helped me a lot. I use a plugin for that.
eric´s last [type] ..Create an Automatic Newsletter from your Twitter Feed
Eric – If you ever find that magical plugin to help with moderating comments, I’d love to hear about it! I love interacting with the people who read my site, but you can’t deny that it takes a lot of time.
Right now, I’m experimenting with responding to comments only at specific times on specific days. Like, instead of going onto my site every time I get an email notification that I have a new comment, I wait until I can sit down and respond to a batch all at once. I’m trying to do it every other day, and that seems to help so far.
Great ideas, though, Mariana!
Sarah Russell´s last [type] ..Writing Content is Boring – Week 3 CMC Update
Staying focused can be the hardest thing, and even if there are many gadgets that can help stay connected, sometimes all we need is a good motivation and lots of will.
Hey everyone, I just wanted to say, first of all, thank you so much for reading my article, and thank you for all of these comments! Sorry I took so long to get back here; I’ve been so busy!