Instead of just sharing the statistics from the last month of publishing, which I can provide upon request, I decided to share the lessons I've learned so far. Before jumping into what I've learned, here are the specifics of my challenge.
The Specifics
- I publish at least one new and unique article each day on LinkedIn.
- Articles are selectively republished on MichaelLuchies.com and other sites depending on popularity and the overall focus of the article. I have also republished on Commercery.com, TheLaunchLife.com, Whatif360.com, andTrepRep.com.
- Articles are promoted on my LinkedIn page, Twitter page, and Facebook fan page.
Quality Still Trumps Quantity: Great content is more effective for your content marketing efforts than just producing a lot of content. I strive for quality in every single one of my articles, but writing every day doesn't guarantee results. For example, my most successful article of April received over a third of the total page views I got in the entire month out of 30 articles. I could've accomplished the same impact with three articles of this quality and popularity that I did with 30 articles.
Concentrating solely on a couple of articles doesn't automatically provide favorable results either, but spending time perfecting posts instead of quickly writing new ones is the better strategy.
Engagement, Not Content, is King: When a dumb picture of a cute kitten gets thousands of shares on social media, it's clear that being able to attract and engage an audience, even through simple tactics like using cute kittens, is important. Regardless of how great an article is, if it's not properly marketed and engaging to your target market, no one will read it.
Several of my favorite posts from the last month had less than 50 views while simple interview highlight pieces accounted for three of my most successful five articles of the month. The interview articles were shared by the people I interviewed; engaging their networks as well as my own. You can spend hours writing the best article of your life, but if you fail to think of the reader, what they want, and how to reach them, you won't have an audience to share your brilliance with.
Stubbornness and Goal Setting Can Defeat Procrastination: When stressed and anxious, it can be hard to focus on your goals. When things get hectic, I often procrastinate on things that I should be focusing on. It's much easier to make excuses and give up when times get tough, but I've been too stubborn to quit and have used my end goal as motivation to keep this journey alive even when it looks like I'm destined to fail.
I spent four hours today sick, and it's 11:30 at night, but this is something I really want, and I can't give up just because I'm not feeling well. In April, I came down with Shingles, and I'm sure that there will be other challenges down the road. If there's something you really want to achieve, set your goal and refuse to give up. For me, keeping myself accountable on a daily basis has been the key.
It's More Rewarding When You Help Others: Before writing my first article of the year, I came up with around 100 article topics to write about. As time went by, I decided to include other people in my journey through interviews, highlighting businesses and people, and by finding ways to help others with my writing instead of just going with my planned topics. Not only have these articles been my best and most engaging, I've been able to build stronger relationships with the people I've written about.
Whatever your goals in life are, look for as many ways to help others as possible. Not only will this help others and make you feel better about what you're working on, others will want to help you and you'll achieve your goals faster.
Thank you for reading! What would you like to know about my blogging journey so far?
Michael Luchies is the Founder of TrepRep, Entrepreneurship Lecturer at Illinois State University, Co-Host of the Entrepreneurs on Campus Radio Show,Trepidemic Co-Creator and Co-Host, TEW 2 contributor, and writer of all things entrepreneurship. Connect with Michael on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook andTwitter. Michael is publishing 365 times in 2015. To find out why, read the first post of the year here!