After having a bit of a blogger mental block today, I wondered exactly how fast bloggers need to blog?
Do they need to churn out several posts a day or is one post a week adequate?
So I found this article which looks at that exact question and loosely identifies two different types of blogging – one where the posts are longer and more thought out and another where the posts are short, quick and designed to spread information quickly.
It seems that for business purposes, speed and relevance is everything but the quality of the copy also has a big impact on the search engine ranking. Social media applications are also supporting the speed of blogging by only allowing short updates.
But for me it seems that the nature of blogging gives the author the freedom to offer readers choice. They can choose to offer some immediate quick insights or longer, more thoughtful pieces or maybe even a combination of the two.
I suppose it depends on whether readers expect to receive posts of the same length all the time, or whether they would be happy reading posts of different lengths and what they do with them.
The subject matter must also be a driver in dictating how quickly the post needs to be published.
Also, the aim of the blogger affects the regularity of the publishing. For example, blogging for business should aim to generate more regular posts than a personal blog.
One of my daily reads, Zen Habits consists of quite long posts which I like to get absorbed in during the morning. However, the topics are quite timeless, so there isn’t a need for immediacy of information. It’s the regularity that’s important. When Leo, the author, is away, for example, he recruits guest bloggers.
However, I also read Seth Godin’s blog and his style of condensed writing means that I can quickly skim 2 or 3 posts.
Chris Brogan uses a variety of lengths in his posts.
So I guess I the consistency of the blog posts has made me adapt my reading habits to the blogs.
