The 30 Minute Blog Post: Are You Up to the Challenge?

It’s a crazy week for me at OpenView and I just haven’t been able to carve out much time to write a blog post. As I thought about it, I realized that the “I just don’t have time” excuse is probably the single biggest reason why people don’t blog on a regular basis like they should.

I’ve decided to prove them wrong by committing to writing and promoting this blog from start to finish in the next 30 minutes. I mean everyone can find 30 minutes in their week to write a blog post, right? Well, in my case I actually only got 28 minutes left, so I had better get cracking.

So what does it take to produce a 30 minute blog post? Here are 6 tips:

1) Block off the time to work on it undistracted. No checking e-mails, answering the phone, or talking with coworkers. You basically have to lock yourself into a room and get the job done uninterrupted.

2) Prepare a list of ideas for blog posts in advance. Coming up with them really isn’t that hard. Here are some to get you started:

• Post a useful checklist that your readers might need
• Dispel a common myth
• Write a book review
• Respond to someone else’s post
• Provide solutions to a common problem your customers face
• Summarize an interesting conversation you had with someone else
• Promote a larger piece of content your company has created
• Explain what your company does
• Curate a list of valuable resources on a particular topic
• Write about a relevant current event
• Create a mini case study
• Share tips and tricks for resolving a particular issue
• Make a prediction (and then write a follow-up post about whether or not it was right)
• Create a top 10 list
• Critique something
• Talk about a lesson learned

3) Write the whole post all the way through without stopping. Don’t go back to do any editing. It’s so easy to use up a lot of time wordsmithing. Get a full draft out first and then go back and make adjustments. You’ll save a ton of time.

4) Forget about SEO. If you’re pressed for time, there’s no way you’re going to be able to find the right keyword and then optimize your post for that keyword. Don’t get me wrong, SEO is extremely important. But it’s even more important to blog on a regular basis, so let the SEO slide if that’s what it takes for you to start generating content.

5) Format the post. It needs to be visually engaging with a nice image, good use of headlines, bolding, and bulleted lists. The idea is to make the blog post scannable so that people can quickly consume it.

6) Make promotion a breeze. Using Hootsuite, I create a single tweet which I then schedule to be distributed at various times (once every eight hours for the next 24 hours and then up to 10 more times over the next three months if it’s evergreen). Through Hootsuite, I can also simultaneously schedule promotion through LinkedIn.

Ok, I’m almost out of time. Suffice it to say it’s not easy to create a blog post in 30 minutes, but it is possible. So no excuses, get to it! (And please forgive any typos!)