Last week I spoke with a blogger who had thrown the towel in on his blog. One day he simply stopped posting with no explanation.

I emailed to ask him why he stopped and his response was:

“I can’t keep up with the advances in technology. Every day there is a new tool, widget or social networking site to test out. I can’t keep up. I’m feeling overwhelmed by it. So I gave up.”

This is a sentiment I’m hearing a lot lately. Bloggers are increasingly feeling the pressure to have their fingers in lots of pies at once and are feeling overwhelmed by the choice and effort needed to ‘keep up’.

We look at people like Robert Scoble who manage to keep blogs afloat, produce videos, engage with thousands of people on Twitter, FriendFeed and who knows how many other social accounts – all while having a family and traveling the world speaking at conferences! Our efforts in comparison to people like Robert pale by comparison….

If you’re feeling this pressure I’d like to talk to you today and give you a few words of encouragement.

Image by danielgebhart

5 Tips for Overwhelmed Bloggers

1. You’re Not Alone

There are days when I look at the things that I do and feel like I’m going backwards. I’m lucky enough to be able to dedicate full time hours (in fact I’m probably doing this 60-70 hours a week) to what I do – and I there are times when I can’t keep up!

You’re not alone. I hear stories of people who can’t ‘keep up’ every day.

2. Focus Upon Your Core Tasks

My Mum isn’t on Facebook, she’s never heard of Twitter, she thinks YouTube is a deodorant stick and things RSS is something most people keep in their boxer shorts.

Sometimes it feels like we’re falling behind in adopting technology but it is good remind ourselves that what we do do online is actually ahead of the curve of the majority of ‘real people’.

What I remind myself on those days when I feel overwhelmed by it all is that 95% of the people who read my main blog don’t really care that much about social media or web 2.0 – they’re coming to my blog to read information on how to use their cameras.

As a result my core task is to develop that content and to distribute it using mediums that they are familiar with. My core task is NOT to have my finger on the pulse of every new technology. While it can be helpful to know about the latest widgets and tools to become distracted by them could actually be taking me further away from my audience.

3. Be Smart, Establish Boundaries and Focus Your Energies

I am not suggesting that we all ignore social media, emerging web technologies or forget about Web 2.0.

There is a lot to like about Web 2.0 and it can bring a lot of life to your blogging. However unless you’re blogging about Technology or have a very Web Savvy audience you’d do well to pick and choose what you do and don’t focus your attention on and to put boundaries around these activities.

I wish I could list the 3 tools and technologies that you should focus upon – but it will differ for each blog and every topic – but rather than focusing upon everything, narrow your focus and pick a few achievable technologies to ‘play’ with at a time. My approach with social media has always be to pick up new technologies one at a time rather than to start with multiple ones at once.

Picking new tools to play with one at a time allows you to fully understand it, work out how it might work for you and to add it to your natural work flow. Do too many new things at once and you’re not likely to be able to integrate them into your life to it’s potential.

Remember my post from last week on Home bases and Outposts and how it relates to Social Media – while spending time on outposts can be useful you also need to spend time on your home base – that needs to be your priority.

On Boundaries – One of the techniques that I use to help me to put boundaries around the things that I do is to use Batch Processing. Put most simply it is about setting aside blocks of time to work on tasks in a focused way instead of flitting from one thing to another all day.

4. They are Tools – Refocus Upon Your Goals

Sometimes the tools and technologies become bigger than they need to be. I am constantly reminding myself to spend less time focusing upon the tools and more time focusing upon my goals.

If you know what you want to achieve you can then decide how to move towards that desired goal. In doing so you can select the best tools for the job. If you start with the medium or the tools and try to fit it to your ‘goals’ and objectives you’ll just get muddled.

Web 2.0 technologies can help you achieve your goals – but they are much more effective if you know what you want to achieve.

5. Have Fun

Sometimes I take things too seriously. Sure – blogging has become a business and a way of sustaining my family so there needs to be some element of taking it seriously – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. Social media is a space that is at it’s best when it is fun and playful. Let it bog you down and you’re kind of defeating the purpose of it all.

What would you add as a tip for people feeling overwhelmed by social media and Web 2.0 technologies?

Tags: Robert Scoble, social media, Social Media Tips, Web 2.0

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Are your readers doing what you want them to do? – In this post blogger and author Jonathan Fields explores this question and gives some tips on how to get readers to take the actions you want them to take on your blog.

Ask a roomful of bloggers why they blog and you’ll get a wide variety of reasons.

Some do it for fun, others for profit. Some do it for platform building, while others love the community aspect. Some do it to practice their writing chops. And, hey, I even know a few who do it as a form of public therapy. The potential motivators for bloggers are endless. But, no matter why you blog…

Nearly every blogger is looking for her or his readers to take some action.

So, I have two questions for you:

• What action or actions do you most want your readers to take? And…
• Are you making those actions as effortless as possible?

Let’s explore the questions, one at a time…

Question #1 – What action or actions do you most want your readers to take?

Hands down, the three most common actions most bloggers would love readers to take are:

1. Subscribing, either by RSS or e-mail
2. Clicking on revenue-generating ads or links, or
3. Evangelizing content through social media

There are likely a number of secondary desired actions, but these tend to be most universally desired.

Whatever your reason for blogging, it’s critical to take a step back and ask what single action you most want readers to take. Because, knowing the answer to this question will allow you to make some basic design and formatting tweaks that may dramatically increase the percentage of readers who actually do what you want them to do.

Once you’ve sussed out an answer to question #1, it’s time to move on to question #2.

Question #2 – Are you making those actions as effortless as possible?

Take a look at the design and “action options” offered within your blog. The design may be drop dead gorgeous, but if the design and structure are making it difficult for readers to do what you most want them to do, then the design may actually be working against you.

Ad positions and reader action

If you want people to click on PPC ads more than anything else, take a look at the positioning and type of ad blocks you using and ask whether the positioning and block type you are using will give you the highest possible click thru rate. Sometimes, actually many times, the answer is no.

Many bloggers know one of the highest click thru rates comes from positioning square ad blocks within the content itself. StevePavlina.com and JohnChow.com are great examples of this. And, many larger, more commercial blogs and websites use this approach.

Problem is, it’s also one of the most disruptive places to position ads, and many bloggers are not comfortable with this, so they go for less intrusive ads, knowing it’s also very likely going to knock down their clicks and potential revenue. That’s fine, the point is, if you are going to make that choice, at least do it consciously, with an awareness that you’ll be diminishing your most desired reader action in the name of a less “in your face” feel.

Or, do what Steve does and make your content so compelling and highly differentiated, people will put up with more disruptive ad positioning.

Social media button positions and reader action

Another example of the role that positioning plays is social media buttons. Let’s say the action you most want readers to take it to promote your content using social media. In order to make that easier, you decide to insert social media submission/voting buttons into the content.

The question arises, then, where should you place them to make is easiest for readers to submit or vote on your content and increase the change they’ll promote it? Some people position buttons at the top of an article, others position them at the bottom and some do both. The question is…

Does one option make it easier/more effortless for a reader to click?

At first glance, it seems that positioning social media buttons at the bottom would be most logical, since people would want to read the post first to decide whether it was worthy of promotion, before hitting the button.

But, practical experience also tells you that, as you build your following and network, many people will simply skim the first few sentences and be willing to promote your content based only on their first impression. So, for those people, many of whom might not want to have to read the entire post to find the social media buttons, placement toward the top would work best.

Or, maybe, the best way to cover your bases it to place the buttons in multiple places—top, bottom, sidebar. A similar question exists when asking people to subscribe, one of the other most desired reader actions. Do you ask before the post, after the post, in the sidebar, all over…or none of the above?

Our first hunch is often to give the most possible options in the greatest number of places, but, as we are about to discover, that could be a recipe for disaster. Because, positioning is important, but there’s another factor that may be even more critical. And, it’s something so many of us get wrong…

When it comes to inspiring our readers to take some action, we may, in fact, be giving them too many choices

There’s some fascinating research that reveals that, much to most peoples’ surprise, too much choice actually dramatically decreases, rather than increases action.

In a study conducted by Sheena S. Iyengar from Columbia University and Mark R. Lepper of Stamford University, a display of jams was set up in a grocery store. On the first day, 6 flavors of jam were displayed. Then, on day two, the number of flavor options was increased from 6 to 24.

No doubt, the 24 flavors attracted more people. Sixty percent of the shoppers stopped at the table with 24 jams, while 40% of the shoppers stopped at the table with 6 flavors. But 30% of the people who visited the table with 6 flavors of jam actually purchased jam, while only 3% of the shoppers who visited the table with 24 flavors bought jam.

Translation—The people who were presented with 400% more options were 90% less likely to purchase ANY jam. So, the 6 flavor display actually ended up selling way more jam.

The theory is that too many options make people have to work to decide what action to take. They become overwhelmed. And, for many, instead of working to choose what they want most, they just walk away without taking any action.

Now, transfer this principal to blogging

In a 2006 seminar, optimization mavens, MarketingExperiments.com, backed up the jam experiment, revealing:

“Too many choices fragment a prospect’s attention. In a split test, we simplified from 3 columns to 1, the subscription process from 2 pages to 1, and reducing the number of subscription options from 3 to 2 resulted in conversion rate increasing 42% and revenues more than doubled.”

This is precisely why the classic long format sales pages is only one column wide and offers but a single action option…buy now. Marketers have known for years the power of minimizing action options. So, how does this apply to blogging?

The effect of ad quantity on reader action

Positioning is important, but quantity is also important. If you place too many different ads on your blog, you may in fact offer so many click-thru options that readers will feel overwhelmed. The volume and variety of ads will literally shut down a reader’s click response. So, often, a small number of highly relevant ads with yield a substantially higher click-thru rate than a veritable sea of unavoidable ads. Counter intuitive, yet true.

The effect of social media button quantity on reader action

A similar thing happens with social media buttons. There are now so many different potential social media hubs and promotion options, many bloggers feel compelled to add a lot of social media buttons in an effort to give the most possible submission and voting options. And, certain plug-ins, like Sociable or Share This for WordPress make it easy to simply check boxes and add dozens of buttons or options with the swipe of a mouse.

As we’ve seen, though, there’s a good chance this strategy will backfire, leading not to evangelism, but overwhelm and inaction.

So, you may be better off limiting your readers’ submission/voting choices, placing only to one to three social media buttons on your blog and encouraging readers to aggregate their promotional effort among these hubs.

Reality is, too, people who are in the regular habit of promoting content, the social media mavens, often already rely on shortcuts and tool bars to facilitate the process. They don’t need to be prompted all that much. So, it’s really those not highly accustomed to content promotion that social media buttons target, and those are the very readers most susceptible to becoming overwhelmed and bailing on action.

The effect of too many overall action-options on reader action

Last item, let’s bring it all together here, go bigger picture and look at all of the action-options presented on your blog.

A big place we see reader overwhelm shut down action is in presenting too many “overall” options. This is most likely to happen when a blogger doesn’t strongly favor a given action. So, instead of simplifying and featuring one or two most desired reader actions, there is equal and frequent emphasis on a wide variety of actions.

So, for example, if don’t have a strong reader action preference, we might ask a reader to subscribe by RSS or e-mail in three or four different places, click on a variety of ads and links in 5-10 different places, promote content in 3 or 4 different places and at offer them the option of 10 to 20 potential social media hubs. In the end, rather than taking all of the above actions, or even a single action…they shut down and take none.

It comes down to knowledge and simplicity

Know what action you most want your readers to take. Then make the changes in design, content format and layout that will make it as effortless as possible for your readers to take that action. Create what marketers call a sales/action funnel that leads the reader to a single, compelling action…the one you “most” want them to take.

Then once you have your blog optimized for that action, slowly introduce other potential action options, test how they impact your most desired reader action and choose consciously as you add then.

As always, feel free to share your own experiences, insights and observations in comments below.

We’re all in this blogging evolution together…

Jonathan Fields writes on the crossroads of work, play and life atAwake@TheWheel and is the author of forthcoming book Career Renegade: How To Make A Great Living Doing What You Love (Jan ‘09).

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The number one excuse I hear from people for not starting a business blog  is time.  

Most of these people don’t fully understand the value of business blogging and how it supports on page and off page SEO, builds a community of followers, shortens the sales process, etc. 

I consider it my job to ask them the right questions and share appropriate stories so they begin to understand the significant upside when business blogging is embraced as a lead generation tool.

However, people often over estimate the amount of time it takes to write a killer blog post. 

Successful blogging never occurrs in a vacuum. Only 1/3rd of a successful blogger’s time is spent writing. They’re not usually sitting down in a quiet room with a pad and paper to write. They’re reading, commenting, networking, and spending a good majority of their time interacting online with people who have similar passions. The unexperienced blogger might think that this process would take even more effort and more time, rather than less. However, by interacting with other people, ideas come easier and words and paragraphs begin to flow.

But, most importantly, a network of collaborators enables you to churn out content a lot quicker.

Here’s 8 ways to leverage your network to generate content for your blog quickly: 

1. Aggregator Blogging. At his Business Opportunities Blog, Dane Carslon has mastered the art of being an aggregator blogger. Instead of writing a new article everyday, Dane scans 100s of blogs for articles that he thinks would interest his readers. He then links to the original source and republishes a paragraph or two from the original source. When I do this, I like to add a sentence or two with my thoughts of why I thought the article was interesting. But, Dane is focused on efficiency. Dane also has the advantage of owning the most viral link building widget ever created; traffic comes to him like you could only hope for. So, I do not recommend only doing “aggregator blogging” like Dane does. But, it’s certainly a way to produce lots of content, network with other bloggers, and be a resource for your readers at the same time.
   Estimated Time: 5 minutes.
2. Interview an Expert Over Email. Awhile ago, I interviewed internet marketing expert, Courtney Tuttle. Other bloggers are willing to do quick interviews because it’s an opportunity for them to be exposed to a new audience and build a few links at the same time. Brian and Dharmesh have been sending the Proust Questionnaire to some very well known personalities on the web and they’ve been sending back great answers.
   Estimated time: 15 minutes.
3. Link blogging. HubSpot is about to release software for our clients to run link blogs on their websites. We’ve been experimenting with our own internet marketing link blog for awhile. I think our new feature will be called web voter, since it’ll also allow readers to promote a story like users can do on Digg, Reddit and countless other sites now. Link blogs are usually link magnets (ie. attract a lot of inbound links) as it’s not easy to find authoritative resources on specific topics that are updated with new content frequently. Assuming the author puts a good amount of time and effort into finding great articles and posting them, they can create great followings. No writing required.
   Estimated time: 30 seconds.
4. Solicit Guest Articles. I solicit guest articles all of the time for my own blog about lead generation. A few months back, I started noticing that a lot of internet marketing virtual assistants (IMVAs) were raving about HubSpot. I reached out to Shari Sultana and asked her to write an article about the benefits of hiring an internet marketing virtual assistant. She did. I posted it. Two of my clients hired her. Not only did I score a great article for my site, my site now ranks high for a search for “internet marketing virtual assistant” in google and I helped a few clients find a great resource to aid their internet marketing success. It’s a win-win-win.
   Estimated time: 15 minutes.
5. Remix Previously Written Content. This one is one of my favorites. I often go back and read old blog posts. Often times, the lesson is still relevant, but after the quick burst of attention it received, it’s basically been residing in a hidden crevice on the internet. A few months forward, I usually have a fresh story to share or a new take on the same lesson. So, I’ll link to the old post, extract a paragraph and add a few new thoughts to the subject.
   Estimated time: 30 minutes.
6. Run a Contest. In a sudden stroke of idiocy/genius, I suggested to a client that we ask our blog readers how much traffic they’ll get after they optimize their 3,000+ pages of content for better search engine placement. Rick Burnes wrote up a quick contest. We received 50+ entries/comments.  Contests deliver an extra-quick-easy-blog-writing-bonus because contests require two posts: one to announce the contest and one to announce the winnner. We’ll be doing more contests. For sure.
   Estimated time: 20 minutes.
7. Highlight Other People’s Lists. First of all, I encourage you to start creating lists. You might have noticed that a good percentage of HubSpot’s blog posts are “lists”. Chris Brogan writes great lists all of the time. Lists usually write themselves and they are easily digested by people who are skimming your content. (Sorry. Most people are just skimming your content.) When I see a good list, I’ll often copy the highlights and leave out the fluff. Then, point people to the original article. Usually, when people write lists, they are paragraphs… like this list is. You could extract the bold parts and repost it on your blog pretty easily. That’s simple, smart, much MORE digestable content for your readers. I’d recommend you always link to the source of the original article and change the title of your post, like I did when I posted this article about “What Kind of Idiot Runs a Business without a Customer Relationship Management System“.
   Estimated Time: 10 minutes.
8. Ask Questions. Sometimes, all it takes is a question to spark a conversation. If you don’t have a following on your blog yet, I suggest joining and building your following on Twitter. You can be asking questions and getting great answers from people inside of a month – as it’s much easier to build a following on Twitter than your blog. Michelle Wolverton is an expert at using Twitter this way. (eg Q. A. Blog post.) My sales coach is the master at asking questions and sparking dialog on his sales coaching blog. Chris Brogan never writes a blog post without a question at the end. So… 

What other ways have you developed to help you write quick blog posts?

(Photo from NathanFromDeVryEET)