Writing vs. Marketing

[sarahlam]

50:50 writing is important just as marketing..

[stevetrang]

There's no question I spend much more time marketing than blogging. I need to balance more like 50/50. Probably around 80/20 today.

[rypher21]

it's a good thing to have focus on both marketing and writing...i usually do 60% marketing and 40% writing...

[Bloggeries]

Some would argue that GREAT writing takes care of the marketing as others will willingly share it for you...

[Collegiate Messiah]

Although new to the blogging world - I've actually created a blog with content, and a blog without.

Marketing for the blog without content is far easier, as since their is no effort to build a rapport with the reader, all manner of link-dropping and flame-throwing works to drive in traffic.

However, the amount of effort that goes into such marketing is staggering, and I'm hoping to find that my "real" blog (the one with content, the one in my profile), is able to draw repeat viewers, and ultimately transcend the other.

[Alex Fraiser]

Lately I have been trying to improve my marketing tactics. I have spent a ton of time writing, and the only real marketing I did was send the post to Twitter and cross my fingers it gets noticed!

I am trying to spend the same amount of time promoting as I do writing however.

[InfoHelper]

Marketing is always good, but think of good content as fuel and of each visitor you attract as a spark... The more content you've got, the greater benefit each bit of promotion will have for your blog. On the other hand, if you have barely any content, you may drive traffic to your blog, but you won't get the same explosive results.

I say go 50/50 or 60 writing/40 promotion, do a ton of both if you can, and if you stay persistent and creative, the rewards will come in time.

[Darren]

Has anyone looked at hiring a Virtual Assistant or intern to do marketing for them? Off the top of my head, it would be quite easy to get somebody else to do stuff like commenting on other blogs, submitting to directories, researching other blogs/forums/websites.

Has anyone done this or similar?

[QuirkyJessi]

Originally Posted by Bloggeries

Some would argue that GREAT writing takes care of the marketing as others will willingly share it for you...

Very true, but you have to get some of it out there first or no one will know you/it even exists...and therefore, can't share it for you even if it's great.

[AdamKirby]

For me it's about a 50/50 split.

I've mentioned in other posts that I'm doing beta testing for a blog promotion program (no bots! yea!) that will be publicly available soon (and free). Once it's ready, I anticipate being able to spend about 80% on the writing. I'm seeing amazing results considering the small beta test group, and my real goal is to free up all that time spent doing mundane tasks, so I hope to be able to share it with you all in the next couple of weeks.