How to stay consistent with writing team blog posts

#engineeringmonday #writing #consistency

For a little more than a year now, we’ve been writing blog posts on various topics related to development. We've created more than 60 blog posts up to now. This is a huge accomplishment for our team since we’ve already tried to write posts on a regular basis.

It is hard to be consistent in writing, just as much as it is in staying on a healthy diet.

And to be frank, we've had one or two of our cheat days. It’s inevitable. A simple rule of not skipping twice helped.

Team effort

Imagine yourself writing a blog post each week, with all of the obligations your day-to-day job brings to the table. And your primary job is to write code, not blog posts.

But being a part of a team - now that makes it all easier.

So, how did we do it?

We’ve set up a goal: attract other developers to notice us (and hopefully be interested in joining us) by writing about our ideas, challenges, findings, etc. (purpose)
We agreed everyone will participate (a subtle amount of peer pressure)
With 15 members in our team, it turns out you only write 3 posts a year. And that's not much (perspective)
If your post helps one person (and it probably will), you should feel good (accomplishment)
No restrictions on topics or format (autonomy)
We made a procedure:
- a schedule so everyone knows in advance when their turn is
- weekly check on who was the last one and who’s up next

Now, this would be nothing if it weren’t for the great team players, so thanks everyone
@aduda091 , @ajdinmust , @aleksandarperc , @ddrempe , @gh0c , @ibrcko , @ilesar

Turns out you can tag only 7 people in your post, so I'm gonna finish the list in the comments :)

To be fair, some of these posts were created in our free time.
And to be fair, some of the blog posts were written in the last hour before the deadline.
But we’ve kept the consistency.

Statistics

Let the stats say a few words.

Some posts made a lot of reactions.

Some posts made a lot of comments.

And some posts weren’t that successful.

The Newsletter

As a result of our consistency in writing, we started our own newsletter.
It consists of

our own blog posts
links we share to our Slack channels
other materials we produce - podcasts, educational videos, info-packs etc. Basically it is a collection of our development employer branding activities.

Check it out and feel free to leave a comment!
And, of course, subscribe if you find it relevant!