Posterous Grows Up as a Blogging Platform
I’ve loved the idea of Posterous from the start.
As a quick-start blogging platform, Posterous offers a pretty robust platform to build your blogging expertise from.
One of the biggest things that puts many folks off from starting a blog is often the time commitment needed. Yet with the ability to post via email, Posterous allowed anyone to experiment.
I’ve introduced a few clients to blogging via Posterous, and it’s given them the confidence to swap to “full-on” blogging via WordPress and self-hosting.
And I have a Posterous account that I use for short-form blog posts. Ideas, basically, that I might expand into longer thoughts here. So, yeah, I’m a fan of Posterous.
Yet for all the good stuff that Posterous offers, it’s always been a lightweight version of blogging (at least to these eyes). No search engine optimization offerings, no real ownership, and none of the ability to expand your blog the same way you can with a dedicated one (pages, for example, and sidebars/toolbars).
Until now.
Posterous Grows Up with Pages
A new feature just announced by Posterous sees the platform become a more bona-fide alternative to full-on blogging. With the addition of Pages, you can now have a pretty cool little online hub to build your brand, business or services from.
Previous to this addition, all you had on your Posterous blog was your posts and any sidebar that came with the theme you chose (Posterous has about a dozen or so pre-built templates for you to choose from). While this is ideal for a simple blog, it doesn’t really offer much in the way of additional information (About, Services, Contact, etc) that you see on more “traditional” blog platforms.
Pages now allows this, and a little bit more.
Now you can have a dedicated About Page with Posterous, where you can expand on who you are and what you do/offer. You can also offer a Contact Page, a Services Page – heck, anything you want to add, you can. And setting it up couldn’t be simpler – just add the new page from your admin area, fill out the content and hit Publish. You can even drag-and-drop the navigation to rearrange where the page sits on your nav bar.
The other cool feature that Pages allows you to do is redirect that page. Let’s say you want to use Posterous as a simple outlet, and your main site is an e-commerce one elsewhere. You can set up a page called Store, for example, and use the redirect function to open up your full-on e-commerce store.
On my Posterous account, I’ve used the new Pages redirect feature to direct folks to my Contact Page here, as well as my accounts at Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
This feature alone puts Posterous above many premium WordPress themes – although the Headway theme (affiliate link) I use on this blog has this ability – and suddenly turns the platform into a more fleshed-out option for bloggers.
Does Posterous Replace Dedicated Blogging?
Having said that, Posterous still doesn’t beat a full-on self-hosted WordPress blog just yet.
There’s still no dedicated SEO options (although you can tag your post with keywords). Nor are there options for plug-ins that a WordPress blog offers, which can really turn a blog into a free-standing social hub. And obviously, as a free platform, you’re still restricted by the terms and conditions of using Posterous.
But then again, that’s probably not the audience that Posterous is after. The platform offers a quick and easy introduction to blogging, and with the addition of Pages, allows even the most inexperienced of bloggers a great starting point.
And that’s all that matters at the end of the day, no?
Note: This blog no longer runs on the Headway framework. Instead, it’s a custom WordPress design by Lisa Kalandjian of SceneStealer Graphics.
20 Responses to “Posterous Grows Up as a Blogging Platform”
Hey there Rob,
But what about us poor non-iPhone users?
I agree, the share functionality of Posterous is a major bonus as well. If they could find some way to add threaded comments into the mix… well, they might just become my second favourite blog system.
I’ve created quick blog posts from my blackberry. There’s no app, but if you set up your main blackberry email with Posterous, you can send a blog post as an email, attach pictures and it gets posted right away.
Sue Anne Reed recently posted…. Three Social Media Experiments
Didn’t know that, but that makes sense – cheers, Sue
*crawling out from under his rock*
When did this happen? Excellent stuff. I have just started using Posterous again as a platform to drop things that I find interesting that don’t fit on my main blog.
I’ve always liked Posterous – so easy to use and the new themes (like the Wired) one I use definitely enhance its appearance. The new Pages feature will enhance it that much more.
Thanks Danny for keeping us up to date!
.-= Frank Dickinson´s most recent blog post …Leaders, Stop the Idea-Train and Help Your Team Get to Work =-.Have to admit, Frank, if I wasn’t subscribed to the main Posterous blog, this would have slipped under my radar too.
I’m exactly like you – I like it as a test bed for this blog, if you like. I also have some throwaways on there (music recommendations, etc) from my early Posterous posts.
Now I use it mainly for ideas that might take on a bigger post here. But if not, I’m fairly happy with having the option over there to flesh out thoughts that may not otherwise see the light of day, and for that reason alone I love the platform.
Hey Danny,
I feel like I’ve been sleeping under a rock because I blog on Posterous everyday but I didn’t hear about this one. This is going to make a big difference in the way I approach my blog – in other words I should take it more seriously. Thanks for the heads up!
.-= Ileane @ Ms. Ileane Speaks´s most recent blog post …Top 5 Social Media Extensions for Chrome =-.Hey there Ileane,
No worries – I think it’s taken a lot of folks by surprise, and I agree – it’s definitely lifted Posterous a notch further up the serious blogging post.
I’m very happy with posterous – I’ve set up 2 small projects with them and they’ve indexed to the search engines perfectly. I would love to see more templates, but other than that the ease of set up makes it a great business blog choice.
It’s also a super easy way to do a group blog. You email your group the invite and they email in their posts. Love it!
.-= Juliemarg´s most recent blog post …Hawaii’s First Lady of Ranching =-.That’s definitely where the likes of WordPress and Blogger have a major advantage over the likes of Posterous and Tumblr – the developer community is much richer.
Having said that, there are some nice new themes appearing – perhaps there’s a market there for a theme developer to offer premium skins?
Posterous??
I see it everywhere, but never seriously thought it would be worth it. Your extremely clear description has convinced me to try.
Reckon it will be great for Traffic, and by the sound of it, dead easy to use. I’m off to Posterous.
Jonathan
Hey there Jonathan,
Glad you found the post useful, and would love to know how you get on with Posterous.
Cheers!
Hi Danny, great post! I’ve tried Posterous and still have an active account. It’s a terrific platform for folks who wish to start blogging but still trying to find their voice or use it as a sort of diary, chronicling their thoughts and experiences.
But most of us want just a bit more (don’t we always?) after awhile and start looking around to other platforms like WordPress.
But with the new Pages feature, Posterous is stepping up. I’ll revisit. Thanks for the heads up!
Tim Baran recently posted…. Protect Your Contacts – Opt Out Of Yahoo Updates Social NetworkAnd I think that’s where Posterous has really found its niche, Tim. I tried Tumblr, but wasn’t too struck on it for some reason (not even sure why, just never took to it). I use it now as an RSS feed for my other online networks.
Posterous, on the other hand, lets me mess with ideas and short views that I don’t think would necessarily work here. So in that respect, like you say, it’s a great way to chronicle things.
It’ll be interesting to see where they build from here. If they add a few more features – primarily dedicated SEO and then more in-post options – then it could be a great alternative to the full-on self-hosted approach the likes of you, I and other WordPress users take.
Cheers!
Hey Danny, I wonder where you sit Posterous fits into a home base – outpost strategy. Posterous syndicates rather than re-publishes so it seems more suited as a home base. But I would much rather have full control over my home base than put it in the hands of a 3rd party service.
Also, I feel that I will have too many places to publish if I start posting to Posterous actively. Would that cause brand confusion?
David Wang recently posted…. Fire your SEO consultant! A review of the Scribe SEO serviceHey there David,
From a personal angle, I see Posterous as a great addition to your branding strategy. Since starting the short-form posts over there, I’ve had a lot of emails from folks saying they really enjoy the punchy approach of a couple of paragraphs, and that they didn’t expect that kind of thinking from me. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, mind you, but it shows it’s working
I think any self-hosted option will always have the advantage over hosted platforms when it comes to home bases, purely from the viewpoint that you control everything, whereas that’s not the case on hosted.
However, moves like the one Posterous have made are definitely closing the gap, and the next year should be interesting as more features become available.
Danny – a friend of mine has been submitting his posts to Posterous and then pushing them through to his own self-hosted WP. He told me that in last three months he’s had 300% increase in website traffic as a result of that method.
Pretty amazing and I have been experimenting with it myself.
Michelle Mangen recently posted…. Hate Paypal Fees? Check out the alternativeYou can’t argue with stats like that, Michelle!
When you say “pushing through his own self-hosted WP”, how does that work? Is he reposting via Posterous’s syndication feature, or promoting as a separate post?
Danny, thanks for keeping us in the know.
I have mixed feelings about this. I have been encouraging people to jump into blogging by starting on Posterous. I call it Idiot-proof blogging. (Although lately, this idiot has had trouble with fonts and spacing, nits like that.) While far from a full-featured WordPress blog, it really satisfies the need to get something up and out quickly. Now, if Posterous gets more snazzy features, what will ever get me off the stick and onto a “real” blog site?
Kat Jaibur ( recently posted…. What’s Stopping You?
Hi Danny,
A great article on Posterous. I use Posterous and have for a long time. A couple of other things I would like to add to the great information which you have provided:
1. Posterous is really easy to use from a mobile phone. Their is an Iphone app that lets you take a picture and upload it directly on the go. This makes your blogging experience more real time.
2. Posterous is great for aggregating your content to other services. You can aggregate to You Tube, Flickr, Picassa and even your own WordPress blog just to name a few services.
3. It makes you part of a community which I also think is important.
I do believe that Posterous will not replace a full WordPress blog. I do believe that it will is a great compliment to your existing blog.
.-= Rob Cairns´s most recent blog post …The Customer Service Experience That Failed =-.