Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.
How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.
If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 18th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.
This was originally posted on March 18, 2018.
How Much Is Too Much?
Do I post too often?
I have been averaging three, sometimes four, posts a day lately. But this morning I read a post from a blogger, Cristian Mihai, who has more than 120,000 followers. His post is titled “The 7 Golden Rules of Blogging.” One of his seven rules: “Blog often enough, but not too often.”
Mihai wrote, “You need to find a balance here.” He went on to point out that “it’s pretty safe to assume that constantly posting more than once a day won’t work really well.”
Okay, here’s an extraordinarily successful blogger with more than 120,000 followers (compared to my blog’s 583 followers) who is essentially telling me that I post too many times a day.
Then I read an article in Forbes that advised, “If you post too infrequently, your audience will forget that you exist and you will quickly fade into the deep dark recesses of their minds. However, if you are posting too often, you will become a complete nuisance and they will dread seeing your posts overcrowding their feed.”
Oh my God! Do you dread seeing my posts in your WordPress reader? Am I a complete nuisance, unnecessarily filling up your email box and your reader with all of my posts?
But how do I go about posting less frequently? What prompts should I stop responding to? Should I curtail my flash fiction posts? Should I refrain from posting about the moron in the Oval Office?
Hmm. Maybe the first thing I should do to avoid being a nuisance is to stop whining about how often I post.
Note: my original post had a link to the referenced post from Cristian Mihai, but it is no longer working, so I removed it from this flashback post.
This, That, and the Other 
I think you have to find your own comfort level as regards to posting.
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Very true.
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👍🏼
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No dread from me – carry on as you like 🙂
And I’ve popped back to Baku this week: https://travelwithintent.com/2022/03/18/exploring-baku/
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As a twice-a-week poster, I am in awe of you and your fellow prolific posters!
Here’s one of mine on a topic that I wish would become dated.
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Interesting that both tell you there is a sweet spot, but neither will say what theirs is.
I must admit, I do tend to unfollow people who don’t post, but we’re talking 6 months or a year, here.
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OMG, I went through that exact same issue. I was posting multiple times a day, everyday. My problem came not from worrying about followers being pestered but by the fact that I cannot seem to stay out of the WP Reader rabbit hole. I start reading, and writing, and reading and reading and next thing I know poof the whole day is shot. Not a bad way to spend a day, but not something I need to do every day. Glad we both (eventually) found some balance. 😉
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It can be addictive!
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I don’t see why some people wouldn’t be able to simply skip what they think is too much in their in folder. As for me, I really do not think you do too much.
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Thanks.
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Okay, a little honesty here? I never got complaints from commenters, but my friends told me I posted too much and my posts were taking over their email. It took me a long time to come to grips with blogging less frequently — and I still post more than once a day. Also, it turns out when you post less frequently you also get fewer hits. I have three times more “followers” than you do, but i don’t get three times the responses or hits.
I think after I passed a million hits, the whole “stat-driven” blogging thing became irrelevant. Do friends complain you ARE filling up their mail boxes? More to the point, If you were getting your posts, would you get tired of trying to read everything?
At some point I decided when your daily posts exceed the number of fingers on one hand, you are probably a well-behaved spammer. At this point in my life, I simply don’t have enough time to even OPEN multiple posts per day much less actually look at or read what’s in the post. I feel bad about it. I feel i should respond to everyone I enjoy “talking” to — by email and online. But reality does bite and mine says “Hey, we aren’t getting any younger around here. Garry’s turning 80 and I’m no spring chicken either. He wants to have more of me. More hand holding. More hugging. He never wanted this stuff before, but time has done what time does and we are changing.
I don’t feel old in my head, but the rest of me feels ancient. My spine is a mess, my pacemaker’s going to need a new battery soon, and I’m running out of teeth. It’s not that I should be more “at home.” It’s that I really WANT to be more at home.
I’m still trying to find a balance. I haven’t found it yet and it may not be possible for me. I think I will continue to blog when I want to and less and less frequently when I have other things to do. I don’t see another solution. Not only can’t I retain my former pace, I really don’t want to.
I’ve got more than 12,500 posts on Serendipity and I’m proud of at least half of them. Okay maybe a third. Still, not bad. It has been a long run and a good run. Nothing lasts forever. I’m not bowing out, but I’m taking a small role in the show.
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I tend to post between two and four posts a day. but there are some days where real life gets in the way and I may only post once, and other days when it seems like everything that is going on around me is post worthy and I may post five or six times (usually very short posts) on those days. Sometimes I do worry that quantity may adversely affect quality so I should cut back. But other times I’m just driven to post. It’s like an addiction and I can’t control it. Hey, it is what it is.
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This is a good post. I’ve blogged on and off for years and have tried various methods. Blogging more than once a day doesn’t seem to generate much interest. Some followers read one post but the not others – some long time followers don’t even read one. Blogging intermittently doesn’t work either. I took a break recently and now that I’m blogging again I find some of old followers have dropped away. The way that works for me is 1-3 post a week. Once again I enjoyed your flashback prompt and found a post that is completely right for these difficult times.
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Thanks. I’m glad you enjoyed my flashback post. Thanks for taking the time to leave your comment.
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If I enjoy a blogger I don’t care how many posts they do daily.
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I did get some comments, over the years, complaining that I was posting too much, and that apparently these people couldn’t ”keep up”. I suspect that in other cases, there was a bit of jealousy involved, as they were in a blank page streak. I did hurt me a little, and I have given it too much thought, looking back. Blogging is a very personal thing. I like some bloggers that post monthly, and others that publish 5 or more posts daily 🙂 As long as you have fun, everything’s fine with me 🙂
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Enjoying blogging is the key.
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It’s like an addition. It is what it is……./.
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Yes, like 7+5=11.
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