What’s the best blogging platform? I’m asked that question with genuine expectation of revealing the holy grail. Some times it’s for reassurance that they have the right one it seems, for others what they really mean is ‘What platform will write my blog for me?’

There are options I tell them.

There is of course the blogging facility built into your existing website’s CMS (content management system) Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix and Weebly for example.

There are article posting platforms where the facility to post long form enables friends, followers, connections or in newsletter and blog terms, subscribers provide tools and distribution within a closed ecosphere. LinkedIn and Facebook for example.

Where are your audience I will inevitably enquire.

There are article posting platforms with audiences of their own. Medium and YouTube are examples. Blogging doesn’t necessarily have to be text based.

And there is the dedicated blog with RSS subscription which loops back round to the first option, the existing CMS. In this category I also place platforms that extend to enable a blog presence.

The two I’m favouring right now at the dawn of 2022, Typepad and Postach.io fall into this category. I’m always looking for the path of least resistance. Mapping, observing and following cyberspace desire lines. Both platforms have the post by email facility.

These paths of least resistance out in the world are delightfully named Desire Lines. If you haven’t come across the notion they are the worn routes in the grass that rebel against the fixed outlined path of an authority or architect’s intent.

I want to write, post, proof and publish with the least fuss and constraint.

In 2021 I used Typepad as the platform, composing my posts in Apple Note before sending the final draft with an image by email to Typepad, set to draft where I proof read, tagged, added an extract, published and distributed sporadically to Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn or Meduim.

I also intermittently posted to Postach.io

Postach.io is platform extender that uses Evernote as its CMS. If you are an Evernote fan you will adore Postach.io

It’s free. On sign up it will ask you to assign an Evernote Notebook to contain your posts. A note tagged ‘published’ will post to your postach.io presence. There are some simple mark up instructions to enhance formatting if required but at its most basic it provides an independent presence online for you. I have a domain name it points to www.socialmediawomble.co.uk and connects to Google analytics to monitor activity. It also generates a RSS feed.

The default url is pcmcreative.pistachio.io

Being able to compose posts away from my desk and easily publish from my mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop is important for my workflow.

For me Apple Note is accessible on all my devises and provides a place to build up a repository of blog post ideas and progressive drafts. I title notes with a month and day date for notes I’ll consider for blog posts. This year I’m prefixing with 22 for 2022 and a number to count the posts published. Last year I didn’t have an identification on ideas posted to separate from posts waiting to be written.

It’s important to have a method in your workflow. When you drop the routine (I daily blogged in 2021 to the end of April) it makes it so much easier to start again. This mindset process, workflow and containment encompassing prep to post to publication arose from a desire to blog but a hurdle that not doing it frustrated me. The notorious condition I have heard references as ‘Bloggers Guilt’.

So here are my tips to get you blogging.

Top 5 tips to start you blogging in 2022

1. Its all about the workflow

2. Path of least resistance

3. Log your ideas

4. Your place, your space

5. Understand your cycle

As a social technology consultant and mentor I offer 30 min free video call sessions. Give me a call, I’m pcmcreative on Twitter.

Uncredited found photo - source