Success in blogging : Think farming

Amber Naslund, a communications and business strategist and the Director of Community for Radian6, had a nice post this morning I shared on Twitter entitled ‘9 Ways To Build A Twitter Community With Substance.’

Point number six was to ‘Think Farming.’ The point applies aptly to how to achieve success in blogging.

The problem is that too few people have the patience to be a farmer. Cultivating the seeds of relationships and trust takes time. And you can’t shortcut it; if you don’t sow the seeds at the beginning of the year and tend to them properly, you’ll have nothing to harvest at the end of the season.

And there’s no last-minute shortcut that will fix that. You can’t just throw $99 at it and buy a field of crops to harvest, much less one that will support a crop the following year.

Leadership guru and author of the best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, wrote about the Law of the Farm in 1997.

…[T]his particular habit of short-term thinking is rooted in our social conditioning towards quick-fix ideas. In school most of us procrastinate and then suddenly cram for tests. We cram to get grades and degrees we need to get jobs we want even if we fail to get a good general education. This is in essence totally contrary to the law of the farm.

The Law of the Farm states that, I must prepare the ground, put in the seed, cultivate it, weed it, water it, then gradually nurture growth and development to full maturity. Can you go two weeks without milking the cow and then get out there and milk like crazy? Can you forget to plant in the spring or goof off all summer and then hit the ground real hard in the fall to bring in harvest?

Net Gain by John Hagel was the first book I read about community building on line. In 1997 Hagel explained that building a community on line for professional and business development was like farming. Plant the seeds. Fertilize the fields. Weed out the bad stuff. And Harvest the crop.

LexBlog regularly gets calls from lawyers and law firms looking for overnight success from blogging. This thinking is rooted in legal professionals conditioning toward quick-fix ideas. I don’t have clients. I’m going broke. I don’t have time to work on it. I need clients and money tomorrow. Fix it.

This conditioning is only exacerbated by the legal Internet marketing companies and SEO snake oil sales people who promise the quick fix – for no work – just your money.

Success in blogging takes take time. You can’t cram success.

What you harvest though isn’t fleeting.

• Being a better lawyer capable of doing more demanding, enjoyable, and profitable legal work.
• Having a strong network to learn from and engage.
• Having a reputation as a reliable and trusted authority in your area of practice or locale.

That’s a good crop. One that will feed you for years.