Doing it every day

I’vebeen at it every day for almost a year now. Unlike Tiger Woods’ missus, my wife knows all about my addiction and she’s been very supportive. But then again, my blog doesn’t send me late night SMSs about how it’s missing me.
Obviously, it would if it could – it’s just that I haven’t found a plugin that allows it to do that.

Yet.

Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog) (your premier destination for marketing tips and ideas for small and medium sized businesses – by Jim Connolly) knows why it is. He did an experiment for a whole two weeks…

Usually, my blogging schedule is erratic; often just a handful of posts in a month.  However, as regular readers will have noticed, I have been updating this blog with fresh posts every day, for the past 2 weeks. Why?

I wanted to measure for myself, just what the value to a blogger is, of updating their blog every day with new posts.  I assumed (rightly as it turned out) that 2 weeks would be a long enough period, for me to get some worthwhile data for you.  The results have been VERY interesting!

Yes, with just two weeks of effort, Jim rightly predicted that he would have some worthwhile data. Sure, he doesn’t post any statistical methodologies or calculations, but he’s Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog), so you just know he’s right.

Jim saw that his RSS subscriber numbers rose by 400% (from 1 to 5, I’m guessing), the number of comments increased by 300% (1 to 4?), overall traffic was up by 30% and pageviews were up “massively”. Jim says:

Daily blogging has improved literally every metric I have measured – not just those mentioned in this brief post.  It’s also improved areas that are far harder to measure, like making the blog a lot more ‘alive’ and vivid.  These things are harder to plot on a chart than RSS subscribers or traffic.

Posting every day made a marketing blog “alive”? Wow. The power.
So it’s all good, right?

Wrong.

Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog) is hardcore.

I see zero point in posting dross occasionally, just so that I don’t miss a day!  That material will live on the Internet forever, with my name attached to it. My 4 year old son will see it when he’s older – I don’t want him thinking his daddy writes pedestrian, generic bullshit occasionally, because I’m a slave to some self-imposed, daily blogging schedule.

Fortunately, regular readers of 6000 miles… will know that I never write pedestrian, generic bullshit occasionally.

*ahem* Moving on…

Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog) now has a dilemma. He knows that daily blogging is good for his blog, but he’s scared about what his kid will think about the whole thing in a few years time. (I have no such worries as I am not going to allow Alex to learn how to read.)
Bring forth the insipidly bubbling pot of compromise:

I’ve decided to aim for blogging here on a more regular basis than before, but only when I have something I believe is worth sharing with you.  If that’s daily, then fine. If not, then I assure you, you will be missing nothing worth reading.

However, having browsed through a few of Jim Connolly (from Jim’s Marketing Blog)’s posts since that announcement, I am sad to report that it seems he has slipped back into his pedestrian, generic bullshit habits again.

Someone should tell his son.

Last ditch

With VIP guests arriving in Cape Town from all over the world for the FIFA World Cup draw on Friday, my parents are also popping in for 7 days “on their way” back from Australia to the UK. The it’s “on their way” excuse kind of works if you are flexible and fold the map to make Australia look closer to Africa with Perth and Durban merging to form one megatropolis called Purban or Derth or something. Last time they were anywhere near a World Cup event, back in France ’98, my Mum was mistaken for Prince Charles at Boulogne and there were huge issues with her Visa card being in the wrong name. Since Prince Charles is (as far as I am aware) wholly unconnected with the goings on at the CTICC on Friday, I have high hopes that they will have an uneventful stay, credit card wise.

I’ve worked damn hard today preparing the house and garden for our visitors. After all, it’s not every day the heir to the monarchy of Great Britain comes to stay with you. Wait – I’ve got that wrong again, haven’t I? Anyway, lawns were cut, flowers were planted, some painting was done and then I went out to a birthday party and drank 6 Peronis.  I know. You’re amazed I can even type straight, aren’t you? So am I, although currently of course I only have my perception of what this looks like. It could actually be complete gibberish. I may well look at this in the cold light of morning and wonder what I was thinking. Actually, that often happens, if I’m honest.

Once again, I’m making excuses for not blogging earlier. Experience has taught me that you get less readers to posts that you write late at night under the influence of Italian beer brewed in Johannesburg (one of the lesser known outposts of the Roman Empire) and that some of them don’t even read to the end of the third paragraph. Thanks if you’ve got this far – I really won’t keep you much longer. The reason I’m blogging at all is to keep up my almighty task of a post a day, which began on January 31st and was originally  just going to be for the (short) month of February. That I have kept it going on in various guises for a mighty 302 days so far has cost me readers, my sanity, several hundred hours of sleep and virutally all that remained of my reputation. That I still feel it necessary to come and document my feelings just before midnight and just after 6 Peronis smacks of OCD.

That you’re still reading  probably means that you have completely finished the rest of the internet and now only have a choice between So You Think You Can Dance and this. Incidentally, though I’m not a big fan, SYTYCD is actually pretty entertaining after a couple of litres of beer.

Brian is Back!

Great news this morning in my feed reader: one of my favourite bloggers, Brian Micklethwait of BrianMicklethwait.com has returned to blogging after an extended summer break.
In fact, so long was his hiatus that I had feared we’d seen the last of his eclectic mix of politics, social commentary and photography.

However, as Brian says:

But now I’ve had my little holiday, and have learned that although blogging may sometimes be a bit of a grind, it is, for me, greatly to be preferred to the alternative of not blogging. 

Which is exactly how I often feel about the whole thing too. 

Welcome back, Brian.

Quote of the day

From the always-entertaining Brian Micklethwait on the dangers of writing blog entries in advance and then getting them to automatically post while you’re away on holiday:

I’ve never really felt right with that.  What if an atom bomb goes off, and there I am still blogging about, basically, kittens?  (I know, the internet would not be at its best either, but you get my point.)

Yes, that would be a little difficult to explain to any survivors.

“My most important reader is me”

Why do we blog?

It’s a question that many inferior bloggers attempt (and fail) to answer on an all too regular basis (along with an annoying tendency to use the word “musing” far too often).

Brian Micklethwait* knows why he blogs:

… every so often I have to remind you people that my most important reader is me, in a few months or years time … This will warm the cockles of my faltering heart, the way me burbling on about the Cold War ending, and what a Good Thing that is, never could. Oooh. I see that in April 2008, I was of the opinion that the Cold War ending was Good. Well, twiddledidee.

Brian’s music storage challenges continue in his brilliantly and descriptively entitled Exciting Posting About Shelves, but aside from showing off his new CD rack, he also hits the nail right on the head as to one reason why I’m writing what I’m writing.

Well, twiddledidee.

* certainly not an inferior blogger.