Getting Ahead Of Myself

I’ve always dreamed of being one of those Jack Kerouac, off the cuff, immediate types of writers, but I’m just not. I schedule everything I write at least a week ahead of time. I need the week to tighten and edit. Realize my second paragraph should be my third.

Blogs have the amazing power to react quickly, but for me that can be too quickly. Thanks for the reminder.

Agreed, Chris, and thanks for sharing your thinking. I’ve found having a few ‘evergreen’ blog posts pre-scheduled eases my mind immensely, which lets me focus better on today’s writing. I find it especially helpful for a group blog and may switch from the Google calendar we developed to using the WordPress editorial calendar plugin.

As much as possible I also try to keep my tweeting in real time, but have found HootSuite useful for scheduling when I know I’ll be tied up in a meeting — or I know those most likely to be interested aren’t available until later. Now if there were just a tool other than RSS to call specific tweets I missed but are interested in to my attention when I’m back online….

These are all great ideas and recommendations.

I guess so far as blogging goes, I can luxuriate for now in just scheduling when each day I want to write my posts. I know that I need to allot about half an hour or so to do that, and I know that I like to try to post one before I get completely immersed in my work for the day.

I also am currently not writing posts in advance because I have the luxury of being able to use my blog as kind of a really gratuitously long tweet. You don’t know what is going to set your brain off 2 days in the future (or do you?!?), and that is a lot of what gets me typing.

I would also ask you a question (one that I don’t think can be Googled this time). Let’s say you write a post about something you’re really fired up about, but you set it to publish a day or two later. When people finally start commenting or tweeting, are you still as fired up about it, or is it kind of like when you have to tell the same story for the fifteenth friend or relative. “oh, yeah, that. I’m on to other stuff now.”

I schedule things all the time, posts and Tweets. I need to do a much better job of having posts in the can that I can actually schedule though. I tend to write when the inspiration hits instead of setting down and cranking out two or three posts at a time so that I can get ahead of the curve. For Twitter, I do schedule a lot. Most schedule links and resources that I find so that my stream stays active while I’m busy doing work. I never schedule generic Tweets though, I always customize the message as if I were real-time tweeting.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with announcing with one automated post that there is a new blog post up. For one thing, my workload is such that I often go to bed at 2 am, and get up after 8. But I also know that many people read blogs and tweets when they first get to work, at 8:00.

So I schedule my blog posts to publish at 8 (like you mentioned above), and schedule TwitterFeed to tweet the new post within 30 minutes. I do that with both my personal humor blog and my regular work blog. The rest of the discussion, follow-up, and “in case you missed it” messages all happen live.

The automated spam-blast, when publishing a new post, is not something that I would do, Chris (did I needlessly bias my opinion with that adjective? lol). Without question, you are nearly unique among the “A-list” set, in that you actually socialize with your audience, to the extent that you are able. I cannot fathom how much time this takes, on your part, but I do not have to tell you that being social is a core tenet of social media.

Scheduling post, though, is huge and anyone who is serious about generating consistent content needs to learn the discipline of writing multiple posts, in one sitting. I am not there, yet, but I am working toward that goal.

I’ve been regularly using this scheduling option since I launched my blog two months ago. I use my planning time every evening to polish and schedule my posts, which go live at 6:00 a.m. the following morning. A much saner way to launch into your day with one item already logged as complete.

I use the WP to Twitter plugin for posting to Twitter with new posts. That allows me to personalize it so it’s not something that just says “new post.” I try to schedule my posts so that they go out in the middle of the night where I am so they are around first thing in the morning for those readers on the East coast. It has worked well so far. I think as long as you still engage, that’s what counts. I love the calendar you just told us about and have put it on my site as well! Thanks so much.

Time is much more precious than money, and your audience spends time with you because you spend time with them in such a generous and gracious manner. A few auto-tweets as you mentioned are fine — even expected — but your *gift* and sharing are so rare…try not to dilute it too much :)

Thanks for the assitance=) I’m a rookie with WordPress and all its functionality – so this is going to be really helpful!

Nice post Chris,
How long before I can (literally) speak to my computer and tell it anything I want to happen and it figures out the ‘how to’ between all my vast number of accounts, apps, platforms, etc? That will mean moving from efficiency to true effectiveness.

In the mean time; agreed… post scheduling and other commonly repeated tasks should be automated, human interaction is human interaction… this is always personal. Automation of regular tasks & personal human interaction co exist perfectly, I don’t believe they are mutually exclusive.

I think this is a great tool! The amount of time saved due to scheduling and planning ahead is indeed valuable.

I’ve been playing around with scheduling some tweets lately and I feel like I’ve had some success with it. I would guess that 95% of my tweeting is me live, but I’ve found that I get a bigger “reaction” to tweets that go out during my work hours when I generally don’t have a lot of time to spend on Twitter.I’ve also found, like you, that it helps to repeat your important tweets at different times of the day as people are on at different times and time lines are cluttered. That being said this in no means be a “Ronco” solution don’t just “Set it and forget it” like chrisgarret said below you need to follow up with replies when you have the time to do so.

Your basic tools are good, and so is “trust” but you are generally try to sell something so often that I have stopped subscribing. Try to find some balance here…

Chris–you’re the best–did not know about this tool, busy couple of weeks, writing inspiration right now, and voila, posts scheduled for the rest of this week. Thanks!