You ARE Scheduling Blog Posts?

“I’m always scheduling blog posts. Do I detect a bit of sarcasm, Amy Amateurblogger?”

“It is not. You don’t know what you’re writing today, do you, Peter Problogger?”

“You’re teasing me then. You know I’m always writing.”

“But what’s scheduled to post today?”

“Ah ha, that’s a different question! I schedule blog posts three days a week. I started with book reviews on Thursdays. I’ve added Blog Tips on Wednesdays or Sundays, and Photo Challenges focusing on travel or local events on Tuesdays, Mondays or Saturdays.”

“What about the rest of the time? That’s not much work! I’m writing and posting every day!”

“How’s that working for you, Amy?”

“My husband’s getting pretty tired of it. How’s it working for you?”

“I think what you really want to know, Amy, is what a pro blogger does behind the scenes.”

“Yeah, some of my friends throw up a meme or picture or two, and call it good.”

“Even that can take a lot of time picking and processing photos, or choosing memes.”

Influencers Encourage Scheduling Blog Posts

• Mike Allton writes, “One thing that scheduling can do for you is to allow you to post more regularly and increase your posting without spending all day on your Facebook page. But the point is that scheduled posts can make things easier for you so you can batch your work, know that things are being posted at the times you want and you can get on with other parts of your business.”
• Smart Blogger guest author, Dries Cronje writes, “By posting too often, and thus continually replacing the latest post, you reduce the amount of social proof that each post will get. Few people will expend their present effort on yesterday’s conversations.”
• Chris Hoffman of Make Use of Social Media writes, “Buffer is an auto-posting service that’s widely used to schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even App.net. In addition to these services, Buffer has recently added support for Google+ Pages. This support uses Google’s official API, so Buffer should work very well for people who need to schedule updates to Google+ Pages.”
• Jet Luga writes on Hire Rabbit, “With a post scheduler, you have the opportunity to execute your content plans online despite being away from the computer. This enables you to entertain huge portions of your online audience even when you’re not online yourself. This can prove to be most beneficial if your businesses has fans that are scattered across different time zones. …do long-term content planning. With the post scheduler you can plan postings  for a week, a month or a quarter in advance. You can now look at your content plan and ensure that it has a good mix of content types and a variety of interesting posts to keep your audience engaged.”
• Nathan Ellering of CoSchedule writes, “Understand how long your average posts will be. That will give you some indication for a time commitment from your author (maybe multiple). For example, writing a 1,500-word post for the CoSchedule blog takes me about 4–5 hours with research, ideation, and actual writing.”

Behind the Scenes How Scheduling Works

“What’s batch your work, Peter?”

“That means getting a batch of writing done, but not posting it immediately. This is what I do, Amy.”

Three Processes for Scheduling Your Blog Posts

Writing, Designing Graphics and Photos, Publicizing

WRITING

• Write part of a post almost every day. I write early in the morning and late at night. I might save something as a draft for three or four days in a row.
• Research takes a while. First, I open my blogging journal. As I research, I cut and paste quotes from books or articles. Generally, I have more questions as I read. I cut and paste the quote or my question in my journal. Then I start checking for answers about that specific topic. There are a several ways to search for posts about my topic.
  • Usually, I search on Google using a whole question. Pro bloggers usually show up first.
  • As I read, I can narrow the sentence to a few keywords. Then I search some of my blogger friends for the same topics. They don’t always show up on Google, but I want to quote them if I can.
  • Other lesser known bloggers show up, and I read and comment on their articles before I select to link or quote them.
• Now write. Open a new document and write a title. Check it on CoSchedule.
• Write a long keyword. This may be two or three words. they have to make sense at the beginning, middle or end of sentences. Then I can search for those words on Google Blogsearch.
• Write the post. This may take a while. Some bloggers write for eight hours. I usually write no more than four at a time. The beauty is that you can stop when you need to, save it and go back to it later. There is no pressure to post it immediately.
• Final edits Make corrections with Yoast SEO Plugin & Grammarly
• Add Click to Tweet if there is something memorable in your post. Sometimes two or three days lapse before I decide what to Click to Tweet.
• Read the post out loud and make final questions.
• Add any affiliate links that pertain to your article if you are monetizing your blog. These are less obtrusive and helpful to those reading your post. If you are not monetizing, consider adding the links you researched as well as Wikipedia links.
• Look it over one last time in preview mode. I catch spacing problems or wrong sized pictures in that view.
• Go to all posts and check YOUR blog for related posts. Copy  the title and shortlinks into your journal so they are in one place. You can post them on other posts about that topic.

DESIGN & PHOTOS

• Pro bloggers sometimes hire people to do this step. I use Canva and Photoshop to create graphics.
• I usually do the graphic the second or third time I open the draft document.
• Travel and event posts are just the opposite. I start processing the photos before I create the posts because I use many more photos in these kinds of posts. The posts write themselves as the pictures lead the way.
• Lots of bloggers get data from someone’s post, then create their own infographic. An infographic may just be words.
• Some people create memes. They find a quote they like and paste it on a picture they have in their files. Terri Webster Brandt advises bloggers to use their own photos so they don’t run into copyright issues.

PUBLICIZE

• On my calendar, I write what themes will post on certain days of the week. These are not 100% set in stone. For example, I will publish book reviews on Thursdays. Hopefully, I can work a week or two ahead of time on the posts before it is published. I have to read the book first. That is a topic itself.
• Of all the posts I’ve written, I notice that some of them get more attention than others. I use Buffer to repost those posts on Google, Facebook Page, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I post them three or four times a month or two apart.
• Mike Allton has a great book on using social media that I highly recommend.
• Janice Wald has another book that helped me with publicizing.
• One or two days a week, usually Mondays and Thursdays I spend about two hours publishing my favorite post of the last week or two to my Facebook & Google groups and pages. I have to do this inside Facebook or Google+ rather than Buffer. I read several posts in each of the groups. If I like them, I record them in my Blogging Journal for reference later.

Summary

“This sounds like tons of work, Peter.”

“Honestly, Amy, it IS tons of work, but the freedom is that you do not have to try to do everything. If you really love something, then spend your time on that article.”

“Does this mean I shouldn’t post short fun articles?”

“By no mean, Amy.”

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