How Often Should a Blawging Lawyer Blog?
Frisco DWI Lawyer Hunter Biederman felt some pressure recently when he hadn’t been blogging enough to satisfy his audience. He asked:
So, if anyone out there has some tips on how to keep up better, I'd love to hear them. How do you manage the time to blog? Mark, Jamie, Lawrence, Stephen, Glen, Robert, Scott, Stephen, Shawn, Kevin, What say you?? How about my pal Ken Gibson? You seemed to give up on the blogging too…
Do you set aside particular days? Time slots? My wife says I should have a routine and block off time just as I would for a new client.
Looking forward to hearing your suggestions.
Simple answer, and the best answer from my perspective? As often as you like, even if that’s not every day, or every week. The flip side – there’s always a flip side, isn’t there? – is that less than once a month or so and your blog won’t amount to much in the long run.
If you practice law for the next 20 years, and only blog once a month or so, that will end up being about 200-250 total posts. Not bad actually. Of course, you’re going to retire, but so what? There’s no magic number.
But much less than that and it’s hard to call it blogging. Twice a year? Four times a year?
I’d also say the answer is “as often as you have something to say and the time to say it”. Keith Lauerman, who practices criminal defense in both Williamson and Travis Counties has posted 17 times since he started in January of 2007. So he’s in that approximately once a month range that I’m talking about.
But most importantly, he writes substantive lengthy thoughtful posts when he feels like it. Every time he pops up in my reader, I’m there.
A good blog is about original content – not just cutting and pasting newspaper clippings.
So, to answer the question you really asked, Hunter? How do I manage the time to blog?
Yes, I set aside some time almost every day to read other blogs. But once a week will do for reading. Any less than that and I don’t know that you’re keeping up with the practical blawgosphere. Get an RSS reader to help with that (or call me if you’re a lawyer thinking about blogging – and I’ll talk you through that – it’ll take 3 to 5 minutes tops.)
And personally, I tend to write and post late at night after my wife and kids have gone to bed. But that’s just me. Hunter, post when you have something to say and the time to say it.
My 2 cents: If you're writing just for you, it doesn't matter in the least. If you want regular readership, I'd suggest once per week, minimum. Blogs are interactive which means you're part of a relationship with your readers. You need to set an expectation and meet it, whatever it is. What you don't want is for readers to click on your blog too often and find the same stuff, b/c they won't come back. But if they know you'll have something new up if you come back tomorrow, next week, in three hours, whatever the routine is, more people will return.
Thanks for stopping by Grits.
I think your point about expectation is valid too. RSS readers have made it less of an issue, since folks don't have to actaully go to the blog website, but...
Yeah, you gotta update every once in a while, or some RSS readers will ask, "Hey you sure you still want to even keep track of this blog anymore?"
Plus what's the point, without some sort of regularity and frequency.
If a blog I subscribe to doesn't put up any new content for too long, I delete it from my reader. Too much good stuff out there to spin my wheels.
Todd:
I pretty much do the same, with one slight exception.
I have a folder I put "used to blog blogs" in, if they were high quality content. You know, just in case...