HOW TO: Automate Your Blogging [without Stealing Content]

Want to Automate Your Blogging?

Note: This post comes from my “Success Tips!” Newsletter archive. I’ll be relaunching it soon so I wanted to give you a taste of what’s in-store from future editions. Sign-up for the newsletter and get ready to succeed!

Today, I’m going to give you the routine I follow to automate my blogging. Before we go any further let me explain one thing, I don’t use nor promote using automatic blogging software. It’s out there, but it highly undervalues the effectiveness of your blog.

Why?

Because the content it generates is either someone else’s or has nothing to do with the niche of your blog.

What I do to automate my blog is simple, straight-forward, and still requires you to put in time and effort into building a successful blog; but it makes things easier for you in the long run.

Let’s get started!

Step 1 - Start an Editorial Calendar

Keeping a calendar will help you brain-storm post ideas and keep you organized. A few things to keep in mind when putting together your calendar;

Decide what day(s) of the week you want to post.
If you’re going to post once a week then plan out a month’s worth of blog posts. 2 or more times a week then plan for at least 1 or 2 weeks.
It’s ok if you don’t stick to your calendar every once in a while, it’s there to get you serious and organized about your blogging!

Watch this video I put together below. It’ll show you how to do it, the tool I use, and even my blogging strategy for the Success Center. (Run time: 17 mins.)

Step 2 – Write Your Blog Posts in Advance

Sorry, but there’s no magic pill that will help you put together good content. You just have to put your hands to the plow and get to work! Here’s some advice;

Pick a day where you won’t have as many distractions, get comfortable, and write! My day is Sunday.
Devote at least an hour or two of time with no technological distractions (IE. Turn off your phone, no TV, etc.)
Disengage – Social media is a huge distraction when trying to be productive, log off of Twitter and Facebook for a while.

Step 3 – Schedule Your Posts

If you’re a WordPress user you can schedule your articles to “post” on a later date. As you edit a blog post, look for the ”Publish” tab, go to ”Published On,”andclick edit. Select your future date and time (Time uses the 24 hour clock standard so be careful) and you’re good to go.

Publish Sample

Step 4 – Schedule Promoted Tweets and Messages using Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a great social media tool that allows you to manage multiple accounts at once. It’s greatest weapon is the ability to schedule messages.

First, locate the Permalink for your article. It’s the link that WordPress gives to every article you write. You can find it directly under your article’s title.

Permalink Sample
Select and copy the permalink.

Next, open Hootsuite, craft a message letting everyone know of your new post, paste the permalink into the ”link shortener” box [which is below the main message box], hit ”Shrink it”, click “Send Later,” and schedule your message around the time your blog post is set to “post.”

Hootsuite

A few things to note about scheduling messages;

Schedule the messages in “rounds” – I usually schedule messages to post to Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin every 20 minutes. You don’t want to “turn people off” by over-posting.
Switch up your message style – On your first message you might start off with “New Post” but, on the second, give a short description of your article. This keeps your messages fresh and non-repetitive.
Schedule your messages for up to an hour or two and engage with your social networks in between the automatic postings.
Find different things to share within your rounds to keep social content fresh and engaging (IE. quotes, other articles you find useful, etc.).

Having your blog run on automatic still requires you to put in a little work – if you want to build a highly valuable, community-driven, and successful blog. If not, then get some software and steal other people’s content. If you stick to the tips here you’ll be able to have your blog posts written and ready to promote days before it’s time to post. This frees you up to handle other things.

What things do YOU do to automate your blogging? What tools, techniques, or strategies can YOU add to this list? If you’re a beginning blogger, what questions do you have in regards to this? Let me know in the comments below.

Disclaimer: We will never share your email address with anyone, period.

About The Author

Rod Kirby

Rod Kirby helps entrepreneurs, small business owners, and organizations take advantage of social media marketing and new media through his company, Kirby Enterprises. Follow Rod on Twitter here.

http://www.personal-success-factors.com steveborgman

Great information, Rod. It was you who influenced me to create an editorial calendar. Recently, I revamped that calendar to cover some writing I do on other blogs as well, and to include room for guest posting at least once a month. Thanks, as always, for very practical content!
http://www.DeLoresPressley.com DeLores Pressley

Rod, this is very valuable information. I am new to blogging and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed with it, but this post gives me a great blog strategy. Thanks so much!
http://www.rodkirby.com Rod

Hey, DeLores, welcome to the wonderful world of blogging! It definitely can be overwhelming at times, but I promise, if you stick to a schedule it'll get easier. It's like working out – the more you excercise those muscles, the stronger you'll get! Be sure to check out other great blogging resources in the “best of” section of the site.
kiesha_WeBlogBetter

I'm pretty much functioning in the same capacity. I post everyday except Sundays, so I get my Calendar with tentative ideas – then I spend a day or two actually writing those posts – sometimes I come with something different – no problem, I just schedule it in and move the idea to a later date. Other times I get unexpected Guest Posts, I schedule those to post either on Wed. or Saturday.
Then I schedule a few tweets – I do this slightly different. I schedule about 3 -4 tweets to post at least 2 -3 hours apart at peak times.
I set a time to respond to all comments and basically that's how I roll.
However, there is no way to automate visiting other blogs and networking. Some weeks I just do my best and visit a few sites, other weeks I can manage to get all over the place.
If your only goal is to paste any old content on a site and earn some Adsense revenue or something – I guess the content generation software would be okay – but I have bigger goals and I truly want people to benefit from my content. So that just won't work for me.
Thanks for this thought-provoking post!
http://www.rodkirby.com Rod

Steve, that's EXACTLY how you should use your calendar! I think I'm going to do another video on this because things change and I definitely use mine in the same way.
http://www.rodkirby.com Rod

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for sharing your posting strategy, Kiesha. Very insightful and I'm sure you've helped someone with theirs. I agree with you, there really isn't a way to automate “blog engagement,” but that's because you're giving and getting value. However, by following a routine and sticking to a flexible schedule, anyone can get into the habit of engaging on other blogs.
http://www.benway.net benwaynet

Nice post, I've been trying to schedule my post and write in bulk but with two young kids its hard to find the time to write two or three post at once.

Question about the scheduled tweets, are you tweeting about the same blog post just at different times and different 'descriptions' of the post?

right now I just have http://su.pr monitoring my RSS feed and tweeting the blog title once I post.
http://www.rodkirby.com Rod

Hey, Ben, glad you enjoyed the post. I can understand it being a bit difficult to sit and write more than one post at a time. I don't do it because, like most people, I'm busy as well. However, I find that it's easiest for me to concentrate early in the morning and late at night, so you may try switching your routine.

As far as my scheduled tweets – you're exactly right. It can get a bit repetitive if you tweet the same thing over and over, so I switch my descriptions up a bit and at different times. For example;

“New Post: Add Post Title Here – Add Link Here,” or “What do you think about this topic? Add Link Here,” or “BREAKING: Short description, Post title, and link” See what I mean?

Just be strategic, smart, consistent, and you'll drive traffic effortlessly.
http://www.rodkirby.com Rod

Hey, Ben, glad you enjoyed the post. I can understand it being a bit difficult to sit and write more than one post at a time. I don't do it because, like most people, I'm busy as well. However, I find that it's easiest for me to concentrate early in the morning and late at night, so you may try switching your routine.

As far as my scheduled tweets – you're exactly right. It can get a bit repetitive if you tweet the same thing over and over, so I switch my descriptions up a bit and at different times. For example;

“New Post: Add Post Title Here – Add Link Here,” or “What do you think about this topic? Add Link Here,” or “BREAKING: Short description, Post title, and link” See what I mean?

Just be strategic, smart, consistent, and you'll drive traffic effortlessly.