This is a great post by Catherine Toole on the e-consultancy news blog. Entitled "My 7 deadly sins of writing for social media…", she pretty much covers all the things you should be advised to avoid if you're about to blog. I know because like her, I've experienced all of these to one degree or another.

Numbers 1, 3, and 6 on her list speak to things that can be exceptionally painful.

If I were to add anything to the list, it would perhaps be one or more of the following:

#8. Failure to edit aggressively… and this goes for the blogger and his or her own posts as well as contributed post from guests, particularly if we're talking about a corporate blog. It can be tough to tell the VP of Marketing that writing isn't his or her strong point, but quality blogs don't publish bad writing.

#9. Becoming addicted to analytics… while there's nothing wrong with wanting to know if a site is gaining traction, watching and checking analytics all day long, every day, is a waste of time.

#10. Do not list after the look and feel of thy neighbor's blog… by which I mean to say that copy cat blogs (I'm talking layout here) are about as low rent as copy-cat web sites. Social media pioneers should welcome the opportunity to be creative and not look around town to see what everyone else is wearing.

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