I was a bit wiped when I got to SF WordCamp in Mission Bay yesterday, but woke up when Tim Ferriss, author of “The Four-Hour Workweek,” said he’d switched his presentation from the promised scaleable blogging talk to a conversation about “How to Blog without Killing Yourself.” Among the tips he’s gleaned from blogging about lifestyle design (which he says has been the best promotional tool for his book):
- Find your best writing period: Not everyone writes best at night, and 7 AM EST may be the best time to reach your audience with new info or analysis.
- Testing is important for comparing the performance of various types of content and can easily be done with free analytics monitoring.
- Accept that there can be no correlation between the amount of time you spend editing a piece of video content and its reach. Ferriss said he was disappointed when a minute-long video he threw together about making a hard boiled egg generated many more views and responses than a well-edited five-piece series on chocolate tasting shot at Scharffen Berger. The discrepancy is something we’ve noticed in creating and publishing Women 2.0 In Conversation interviews with female company founders, and I think it speaks to the fact that good content is king (and media-agnostic).
Ferriss finished by telling the oversold crowd to “Think big, but play often.” Only blog if it’s enjoyable, he said. This echoes BlogHer co-founder Jory des Jardins’ observation that women in their network say their #1 reason for blogging is fun. And that’s something I can’t argue with.