Weddingbee PRO

Most blogs are run by one person, and one person only.  I have a lot of help now — I could never run Weddingbee alone at this point — but once upon a time it was pretty much just me.

I thought it might be interesting to list some of the things that go into running your average blog for any aspiring bloggers-to-bee.  Not all of these will be relevant, but I think it’ll give you a good idea of how much work really happens behind the scenes!

Content

1. Writing original posts, writing more posts, and then writing even more posts multiple times a day.
2. Reading tons of magazines, blogs, books, and anything that will potentially give you post ideas.
3. Editing/photoshopping images or creating layouts for posts.
4. Coming up with and writing regular features. 
5. Writing posts that promote other areas of the site like our boards, classifieds, wiki, and gallery.
6. Commenting on blog and board posts.

Ads

1. Sending out media kits and answering questions from inbound advertising leads.
2. Staging ads — we’d sometimes work with an advertiser if their ad could use a little help in the design arena.
3. Invoicing for ads.
4. Emailing existing advertisers re: extending their ads, and contacting past advertisers re: renewing.
5. Responding to and closing RFP’s.
6. Updating media kit with latest traffic statistics.

Site Management

1. Scheduling 20+ posts per day.
2. Coming up with consistent policies.
3. Responding to tons of daily emails from vendors and pr agencies.
4. Answering general customer service emails.
5. Coordinating contests/giveaways with vendors.
6. Resolving user and vendor complaints.
7. Clearing moderation and spam queue.
8. Checking pingbacks.
9. Managing/upgrading servers.
10. Redesigning site when we add a new feature.

Strategy

1. Analyzing traffic sources and patterns via sitemeter, google analytics, and quantcast.
2. Thinking up new features.
3. Managing social media platforms like facebook, twitter, and stumbleupon.
4. Come up with branding tools that tie in with our “bee” and “hive” themes. 
5. Attending industry events.
6. Meeting other bloggers and people in the industry.

Unique to Weddingbee

1. Editing all posts for grammar, spelling, and clarity.
2. Working with individual writers to make tone or larger edits to posts.
3. Going through all blogging applications and sending out acceptance and rejection letters.
4. Setting up new writers in the database.
5. Managing 50+ writers at any given time.
6. Coming up with icons for new features and character generations.
7. Starting board threads.

I know there are many things I’m forgetting, and this is but a glimpse of all the moving parts, but hopefully it’s helpful. 

Does this sound about right for those of you who run your own daily blog?  What would you add to this list?