What Should I Do To Make My Blog Grow And Kick More Ass Even Though I Have No Free Time?

September 19, 2009 11:41 PM

Tips on how to keep a blog's potential growing when your available time is shrinking...

Okay, so a lot of you guys already know about HiddenLA. I created it 4 months ago when I was unemployed. I had time to update it 2-5 times a day and worked really hard on the design. Then, partly with the momentum of the site, my career started turning around. Now I'm the busiest I've been in 2 years... working full time and commuting 2 hours a day. I'm exhausted. I try to update the event calendar constantly, but it's hard to create posts at work without getting busted so I've just kind of let it slow down.

Thing is... I still have big dreams for what HiddenLA could become... and while the traffic is dwindling as the posts become less frequent, I know the potential is there. I originally told myself I'd give myself 3 years to make it work... and then in less than 3 months it made over 820 Facebook fans. People have really shown a lot of enthusiasm so I can't let this thing die like most blogs do... it needs to thrive. There's so much potential and I think a lot of people really want this type of community site (but better -- because down the road I really want to make it better than it currently is).

I was looking at writing a business plan for the site but am still not completely sure of the big picture so I found myself paralyzed. I feel like what I want to create is something that doesn't exist yet. To start monetizing it, I started a relationship with blogads.com, but haven't had time to put any ads up yet and with with the traffic decreasing while I'm focused on my day job the ads are becoming less valuable I'm sure. I need to figure out the big picture first and get a gameplan for making the site really kick ass. It was really starting to build some serious momentum before I got distracted.

So far everything on the site has just been done by me for free. What I'm looking for is tips on how to make this site successful and not a bear to oversee. I know down the road I'll need to delegate but I don't have much money right now. Even if I could send the copy to someone else and have them import it into WordPress might be helpful since there's less of a chance I'd get busted by my boss seeing the WordPress page on my screen.

Thoughts?

(BTW, I already subscribe to Daily Blog Tips.)

posted by miss lynnster to computers & internet (11 comments total)

I'm pretty sure Wordpress has a "post by email" feature.

Also, I don't know how much of the stuff comes up spontaneously, but if you have an idea of what you'll post in the upcoming week, you could work on all the posts on the weekend, and then use the "schedule" feature to roll them out during the week.

Also maybe you could change the format a bit, and do one or two big summary posts for the week, rather then many little ones? In my own personal experience, I will keep going back to a blog if the content is good and the updates are on a regular schedule. Even if it's only once a week, that's fine, as long as I know what to expect. Where they lose me is when the update times are haphazard and random. Again, "schedule" is your friend. I write my blog sometime in the preceding week or weekend, but a new post always appears at exactly 5am Monday morning PST.
posted by drjimmy11 at 12:32 AM on September 20 [2 favorites has favorites]

With that amount of fans on facebook, it is indeed obvious that there is some potential for your site. So I'd suggest to get this community more involved on the site:

allow visitors to submit content that appears on your site (after moderation by you)

give people who regularly submit content an account to your wordpress backend so they can publish directly (or even moderate other new entries)

it usually takes time to do this, but you have a community on facebook already, so try to get these people involved

Also what drjimmy said: post ahead ! Most items on your site don't seem very time-sensitive from what I've seen.

But I don't recommend posting during your workday, because it could get you into trouble. If your commute is by public transportation you could use a smartphone or a netbook to work on your site.

For sites: I'd like to recommend www.problogger.net

posted by IAr at 1:44 AM on September 20 [2 favorites has favorites]

allow visitors to submit content that appears on your site (after moderation by you)

This sounds like your most promising option, if you ultimately just don't have enough time to devote yourself.
posted by Red Loop at 7:07 AM on September 20

MechanialTurk? That is, pay for content.
posted by sammyo at 7:12 AM on September 20

First, congrats for your site. There is a lot of stuff and a lot of work in it.
But I don't see people.

Basically, the only way I can see to help you would be to think of your blog as a "community" rather than as a "media".

I don't know if you are running Wordpress or WordPress MU but MU will allow you to have collaborators and to use all the bells and whistles of Buddypress.

You have a lot of features but you don't have an "About" page. What is this blog about and who owns this site? Introduce yourself, state that the site is a collective and that you are looking for collaborators. You talk about your facebook page but I see no link to it on the front page (I found it on another page). Nor to MetaFilter either. Not that MetaFilter per se should be there, but all your communities should be: everything on the Web is a network of networks. So are you and your members on facebook, Twitter, friendfeed, delicious, flickr?

Give incentives to participation: there is a plugin that allows every collaborator to have his/her own adsense ID, so that all revenues coming form their contribution go directly to them.

You may think that your blog is about LA but it is not: it is about people, made by people. I don't see any sig with the posts, I don't see personal pages, I don't know who you are from your own site.

I am not sure it's a good idea to have all the people interaction on facebook rather than on your site. Encourage your members to open flickr and youtube accounts so they can contribute content without the need for you to host any media.

And get rid of this "copyright" thing. It's a nuisance that bar people to repost your content elsewhere. Put everything under a CC license and state that everyone keeps the copyright of his/her own content. Look at MetaFilter user agreement.

Basically, everything that works on the Web is about people, not things or documents. You have a lot of stuff on your site but obviously you still have the mindset of traditional media: producing and publishing content. Your site is not a publishing site, it's a place where people exchange info about "hidden LA". So become a meeting place. Use facebook as a way to bring people in, not as the forum of your site.

You work too much. Organize your site so people contribute to the content because they love to do it, because it covers their interests. Stop being a content producer. Become the organizer, the conductor, the curator, the MC, the friend, the host. Become mathowie, not William Randolph Hearst.

You are talented, you work hard, you have great taste: it should be contagious.
It will.
Best of luck.
posted by bru at 7:49 AM on September 20 [4 favorites has favorites]

PS: about the money thing: you don't have to install WordPress MU right away. The basic WordPress install lets you add authors and the adsense plugin is free.
posted by bru at 7:59 AM on September 20

[unlinked blog, seriously don't do that here, put it in your profile if you want people to look at it.]
posted by jessamyn at 8:16 AM on September 20

Please don't use Mechanical Turk to get contact. I promise that it won't be good at all.

Also, posterous.com let's you post blog entries by email if you can't get the wordpress thing fixed.
posted by kylej at 8:32 AM on September 20 [1 favorite has favorites]

First, congrats for your site. There is a lot of stuff and a lot of work in it.
But I don't see people.

That's something I've been confused by. There's a community on Facebook and they comment there and have discourse. I put questions and they answer them. Most of the contests I've held have been won by people who check the site mainly on Facebook. But they don't comment much on the site itself, they do it on Facebook.

I'm *really* new to all of this... so it's all a learning experience. I read all of what you're "supposed" to do, but truth is I really don't *want* the blog to be just me, I want it to be bigger than that and to delegate. Without it being monetized yet, I'm just not sure exactly the right path to do that.

Thanks for all the input... keep the ideas coming if you have more! :)
posted by miss lynnster at 9:57 AM on September 20

You have a lot of features but you don't have an "About" page.

Yes I do, you just didn't see it. It wasn't called "About" it was called Story and Mission. Maybe I should change that to be About, I don't know. Like I said, I'm learning these things.
posted by miss lynnster at 10:01 AM on September 20

nthing scheduling posts!

Ask for guest contributors. Many folks will join in if you just offer a byline that links to their own blog. I don't do this myself, but am thinking about it after having seen it succeed for others while on vacation, etc.

Consider Project Wonderful for both posting your ads and getting ads on your site. I don't make money from my blog, but I do use the small revenue I get from those placing ads on my site to place ads on others when I have a special segment coming up, like "Back to School" or "Holiday Gift Ideas," etc.
posted by misha at 1:15 PM on September 20