This expert blogging tip is brought to you courtesy of Kimberlee Morrison, author of VinylNotes and Associate Editor for Know More Media. Today we continue the discussion on the benefits of serial posting.
Recurring series are a great way to give regular readers a feature they can count on every week, every month, or however you set it up. Several of our authors already have recurring features; CareerSuperStar probably has the most extensive since each day of the week on his column has a given theme. "Menu Plan Monday" from Workerette is also a good example of a recurring series.
Not sure how or what you could talk about on a regular or semi regular basis? You may consider your categories and things that happen in your blog topic regularly. For example GrowYourFunds has a recurring series called "Story Stocks" where he features a particular company and tells the story of their stocks. This is not a weekly feature but it is something that Aaron Smith publishes semi-regularly and his readers probably have started looking forward to these posts.
More examples:
- CustomersAreAlways has a "Carnivale of Customer Service" which is a bi-weekly series featuring customer service posts from throughout the blogosphere.
- On Manager's Realm you can read features on various business moguls outlining the keys to their success.
- BusinessBlogWire: Easton started a monthly tradition of blogtipping that pretty much anyone can get on board with by simply finding three blogs in your niche, highlighting some of their strengths and offering one helpful tip.
- On ThePublishingSpot there's the semi-regular Five Easy Questions featuring an author for a week.
Those are just a few examples of recurring series on columns around the network. The key to a successful recurring series is finding something sustainable and interesting for readers. One recurring series for any blog is easily a weekly industry/topic news wrap-up. Every blog topic has something it can offer its readers on a regular basis, you just have to figure out what works for you and what your readers seem to respond to. I also want to add that if you start a series and find that readers don't seem all that enthralled, don't feel bad about letting it go and trying out something else.
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