How not to blog

Ok, give the guy some credit for trying to do right. Tim Story, director of the Fantastic Four sequel has got a blog on his MySpace page on which he’s trying to keep fans up to date on the filming and apparently getting ideas from them. But he’s also demonstrating a cardinal no-no of blogging: not posting. Since September 3rd there’s been one post, about 3 weeks ago. It was brief and apologized for not blogging more often.

I think this is a classic problem. Everyone suspects that blogging might be a good thing to do. Build fan commitment, generate buzz, all that. But blogging takes time and commitment. If you post once a month, people give up on checking in before long. Buzz doesn’t build, it fizzles. Are they better off doing nothing? Well, a regularly updated web site that doesn’t pretend to be a blog might be a better way to go about it. That way the same thing looks like a nice monthly effort to keep in touch instead of a failed effort to create an ongoing person-to-person relationship with fans.

I don’t mean to pick on Story, my point is that this happens all the time and it doesn’t have to if you understand the different expectations and requirements of different online venues, realistically assess what you have the resources to maintain, and pick the right one.

Comments (2) to “How not to blog”

  1. This is a very good point – as someone who works with hundreds of bloggers, I often see a great site all but disappear due to lack of consistent updates. With so many outlets for content online, nobody is going to stick with one that is haphazard at best..

  2. Hey Jason,

    I’m curious — in your work with bloggers, what are the main reasons that people aren’t able to keep it up? Is it technical stuff? time? not knowing what to say?

    Thanks for the comment. I’d love to talk with you sometime about your experience running online promotions, looks like your agency works with some top notch artists.