Keep Your Media Making Alive During Vacations

July 8, 2009 · Comments

schedule posts I noticed that B.L. Ochman is on vacation. I see Christopher S. Penn has given us a week with a view (great project idea!). So is Cookie Madness. Around here, it’s summer, and bloggers are slowing down a bit (nothing negative meant by this).

I’m on vacation and I’ve had at least one post a day the whole time. How? Simple: I scheduled them. I wrote the posts ahead of time, and had enough in reserve that I could have some days of bliss without worrying about things. This isn’t tricky. It just takes some prior planning.

In Chris Penn’s case, he built a project that’s pretty easy to research and put up. In my case, I just blogged like I normally do, but I wrote an extra 3 posts a day for five days, so that I had two weeks of content. (Yes, that’s a lot of work, but you can do it at whatever pace works for you).

The one thing I don’t recommend doing is stopping for your vacation. I mean, you can slow down, but don’t let your media slow down. Why? Because your community and/or your audience are quick to find replacements, because they come to rely on your media as part of their diet, because every post is an advertisement for what you do best.

This isn’t a how-to post; it’s a recommendation. Keep your media making alive. We notice the difference.

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  • @kanter has done a nice job sharing her blog with others while she moved. I like that idea :) , but you have to be well connected for that to be successful.

    I like that approach because it is a great way to build tighter relationships with those that post on your blog. No doubt those people feel encouraged by the opportunity.
  • heh thanks Chris, just another reason you need to get a wordpress app for your iphone/blackberry, no reason not to blog then :) dumb phones are out.
  • I agree. Your posts shouldn't stop just because you're away. These days, it's very very easy for your followers to find replacement. With almost everyone blogging, you can just do a search on google and find a replacement pronto! The hard part is you have to make more bogs than you normally would. But I guess it's still time and effort worth spent!
  • You know it's true...they are quick to find replacements. And it can be tough getting 'em back! Just sayin'...
  • @chrisbrogan How do you choose which topics to blog about? How do you know information won't become out-of-date by the time you're on vacation?
  • There's endless stuff that people ask me for help with. Most every post I come up with is founded on one of four things:

    1.) Answering a question.
    2.) Extending a big thought.
    3.) Reflecting.
    4.) Reporting.

    Only #4 might not be topical. In fact, the few "reporting" posts you've seen over the last 12 days were written while on vacation. The others were written days before. Make sense?
  • I certainly see your point, and you make a strong case for it. But don't you think that a person's mind needs a vacation from writing? ALL writers take time off, and if you write blog posts ahead of time, they won't be very fresh, they potentially might lack the same quality because they are being written with quantity in mind, and potentially can seem forced.

    As well, I'm still a believer in "absence makes the heart grow fonder", and if I love reading Chris Brogan, and he disappears for a week, I will anticipate his return, and look forward to reading him again, and actually be excited about it. This worked in traditional journalism for years, and I think it works as well in blogging.

    Do you think an alternative idea might be to take a vacation, and during that time, post a "Best of Chris Brogan", and repeat some of your more memorable past posts? Just curious.
  • Ahhh, but I did take time off from writing. I took many days off from writing. I wrote all the posts ahead of time.

    The quality/quantity is a concern. I tried hard. I know which ones were lame. Oddly, two of the lame ones took off like rockets.

    Your best-of advice is sound. I promoted an older post and that thing SHOT off the blocks. People really enjoyed it.

    Good points, Joel. : )
  • Joel -- Great minds think alike -- ;) -- I scheduled a couple of omnibus "greatest hits" posts to run on my blog during the week of vacation that I just took.

    But let me add this to what Chris already said in his reply: "if you write blog posts ahead of time, they won't be very fresh" is definitely NOT necessarily true.

    If you write a great, timeless post -- one of those gems that a reader might bookmark and come back to again and again -- it's not going to matter whether you hit "Publish immediately" or schedule the post to appear five days from now when you're on vacation. Conversely, if I write something lame, it won't freshen it up to hit "Publish immediately" -- it will still be lame now or lame later.

    For a parallel, consider this: traditional print magazines frequently assign seasonal stories (e.g. for Christmas decorating ideas) many months in advance. Good writers and editors know how to handle these stories such that they read well in their season even though they were written months before.

    The short version: it's all in how you do it.
  • If only I had actually been on vacation.
  • I wasn't 100% sure. You're wily that way. : )
  • The real trick isn't keeping our media alive while we're on vacation; it's keeping our souls alive while working in media...
  • This is a great point Chris and since my blog is rather new I worried about drop off while I took my first vacation since launch. I did something similar in that I wrote a bunch of posts in advance and set them to go when I wanted them. The only thing I did different is that I departed from my normal topic schedule. It was the week before Fathers Day and I did a special series of interviews with friends of mine that are dads. I figured it might be interesting to provide a different voice on fatherhood to my readers (my blog is about my life as a SAHD) and it gave me one way to do more for Fathers Day. It seemed to work, because all the posts received a good number of comments and I've extended the series to some of my other dad blogger friends.
  • Deb
    I seriously couldn't keep afloat without this feature. Thanks for doing this while you are away, I don't think the SMU (social media universe- yeah, I just made that up... spread the word) could keep spinning without you. ;)
  • This is exactly one of the reasons I got interested in blogging - the ability to schedule content to work around your personal activities. I'm completely hooked - I've never enjoyed any of my Internet businesses as much as I enjoy working on my blog!
  • I happen to agree with JoelWarady. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. In this day of google reader and other RSS readers, people won't desert you for other bloggers/writers/media. They'll just wait until their reader indicates that new content has been posted.

    If you're someone who produces crap/noise, then sure, your readers are probably going to bolt. But Chris, you're a goldmine. People aren't going anywhere if you don't publish fresh content for a few days. I think the worry for you in this case is how many emails/tweets/voicemails you get from people who think you're dead!

    In the end, you, and everyone else has to do what they feel is best. If you're someone who LOVES writing and creating media, then by all means go for it. If you're someone who feels it's their job to do it, I think it would be beneficial to take a break, even for 2-3 days (hell, even a week) and then get back to it.

    I really don't think that an absence of a few days will hurt readership.
  • Cool post Chris. Thanks! The thought of going on vacation and be seen as being idle is a tricky one avoid. That's actually one of the reasons why we've added the 'ReTweet Scheduling" feature on TwitWall. http://bit.ly/fn4kX If a user stagger their schedule right, they can have a decent ReTwitting activity using their old TwitWall blog entries... all on auto-pilot while on vacation.
  • I need to have a better writing schedule. I think I might wind up blogging every other day or something like that. I am using mine as a showcase to find work. I don't know..

    I like the idea of keeping things fresh and everything and still having a discussion but down time is a good thing.
  • I totally want to be organized enough to do this!!! :)

    Happy Vacationing! :)
  • Chris, I read this post almost immediately when I saw the rss feed but only really thought about how it applies to marketing two days later. I posted a blogpost at the Better Response Blog applying this same concept in marketing. (Maybe it is the holidays)

    My experience is that this is the prime time for marketing to start conversations with their prospects. The economy is picking up, everyone is in a better mood and most work schedules are a little less hectic.

    Just this week, we got almost double the response from a marketing campaign than we normally do and are engaging people in conversations from multiple channels.

    My take is slowing down your marketing during the summer is like having an out of office autoreply that says

    "Sorry we stopped talking to you, we're on holiday. For more information, call our competitors."
  • Scary thought, being tied to your blog for the rest of your life!

    Thx for keeping it alive Chris
  • I took a vacation and lined up guest posts by all of my favorite bloggers for the two weeks I was gone. They all agreed. It was probably the best two weeks of content my site ever saw.

    I agree, you can't miss a beat with blogging. Your audience will find what they need elsewhere, and its so easy to keep that from happening.
  • Cool article! Thanks for the great work.
  • I absolutely love the concept of scheduled posts. I have around 20 blogs and most of them have posts scheduled to go up automatically until the end of the year. Makes life so much easier. Going on vacation becomes no hassle at all when everything is running along in the background.
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