Random Thoughts On Writing, Social Media and Cadence

There’s an ebb and flow to writing that I never really thought about until recently.  This applies to the frequency with which a bloggers posts, as well as the rhythm of the piece of writing itself.

I’ve been studying other popular websites to understand how this works.  For example, I’ve written a few pieces for a popular parenting website called Scary Mommy.  This site just crossed the 2 million followers threshold this past week.  It is staffed by a group of writers and posts new content once an hour.  I’m just one person on this blog (A Writing Mama’s Journal) who can barely stay ahead of the two tiny tyrants who rule my house.  There’s no way I can match that pace on my blog.  But loyal Scary Mommy readers expect fresh content at the start of each hour.

So, how frequently should newbie bloggers post on their blogs?  Everything I’ve read suggests as often as possible.  At a minimum of three times a week.  That’s a hard pace to maintain when you’re drowning in small children.  It gets even more challenging if you’re trying to maintain other social media outlets to support the (WordPress) website.

Let me qualify this statement.  Three times a week is hard to maintain if you want to post something GOOD.  (And you want to sleep.)  I could easily throw garbage on this blog every day.  And while I don’t want to get bogged down by perfectionism AGAIN, I don’t want to gravitate to the other extreme of posting crap.

How do I personally define “GOOD” content?  Based on what I read, choosing topics aimed at a specific target audience.  The content should pull at emotions or at a minimum, spark a discussion.  I’m still trying to figure out how to apply this lesson to this blog.  Am I a mom?  A writer?  What is this blog supposed to be?  Is it a parenting site?  A writing site?  A fiction site?  WHAT?????  Although parenting is a large part of my life, I don’t want that to be the only focus of this blog.

It has been far easier for me to maintain a Facebook “blog” (or site) than it has been to maintain this WordPress blog.  In my opinion, Facebook has a superior format for comments.  I’m always making sarcastic comments about the pictures (MEMES!) or articles that I share with my FB friends.  I do the same thing on Scary Mommy.

Comments are the lifeblood of blog engagement.  Without comments, you can kiss your blog growth goodbye.

So, what to do, what to do…….  These are the things that keep me up at night.  It may be time to open my tight fist and fork over some money for a decent website that makes it easier to post comments.  We shall see……