Here are ten items under $100 that I couldn’t live without. I’ve discussed online productivity before, and time management, too. Productivity and time management are intertwined, so it’s impossible to discuss one without the other. Here are some items that have helped me, and by the way, none of these are affiliate links. They’re just good tools. If you haven’t read this article about time management, you might like it: In a hurry? Time Management for the Busy Professional!

NokoTime

NokoTime is a great way to keep track of your time on social media, blogging, or anything else that requires you to know how much time you spend. I like putting the timer off to one side because often I promise myself I can quit doing an activity after 15 minutes of activity. At $19/month, it does quite a lot, including reports and invoices.

Google Drive

Google Drive is the best and easiest way to share files, photos, collaborate, etc. It’s easy and free (that counts as being under $100, right?). In case you didn’t know, Google Drive is a cloud-based storage solution that allows you to save files online and access them anywhere from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. My favorite way to use Google Drive is to collaborate with others.

Productivity: Ten Items under $100 That Make a Difference| Image Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

Schedulers

Once upon a time, I would’ve said Hootsuite was my favorite. But after they recently quintupled the price without any warning, I’d no longer recommend them. So if you have an alternative that you like, I’m all ears! I’ve heard good things about Buffer and Tweetdeck. Do you have a favorite?

A good notebook

Are you one of those people who needs to write things down in order to remember them? If you do, then you’ll appreciate a good notebook. I’ve tried probably hundreds of notebooks. The best ones are the ones I’ve used since high school, with ruled paper and plenty of space to write.

My favorite pen

At the moment, I’m enjoying a Pilot hi-tecpoint V5 grip pen. It’s super easy to write with, and makes my to-do list fun. I must say, though, that ever since that #DigiBlogChat where we talked about bullet journaling, I’ve been using Pentel Sparkle Pop pens, too.

Calendars

My giant at-a-glance calendar always comes in handy. So is the calendar on my iPhone.

3 x 5 cards

These are so easy to use and so useful! I write down goals for each account. It reminds me of high school chemistry, when our teacher told us we could have as many notes as would fit on a 3 x 5 card. The general idea is to have a few reminders of what your goals are.

Backups

I like having a backup on a separate hard drive, which I can grab in case anything goes wrong.

Social media apps

These are the social media apps you can get mostly for free from the app store! They live on my phone so I can check in whenever I want.

DashThis

Last but not least I’ve been using DashThis for reporting. You might like it, too. You can get it for as little as $33/month (less if you buy a yearly subscription.

What did I leave out?

Do you have any favorite helpers?

Do you need a guest blogger checklist? Recently, I wrote a post about how to avoid getting spammed by guest bloggers. You might want to take a look at it if you’re getting that kind of spam on your blog. The outcome of that post was that a few of us might need a guest blogger checklist! So here you go.

Who are you?

Check out the potential guest blogger’s credentials. Do a Google search on their name, company, and make sure their email matches up with what they say. You might want to talk on the phone with them, too, if possible. I receive a lot of requests where the email address looks spammy and there’s no real signature.

What topics do you want to write about?

If your topics don’t align with what your potential guest blogger wants to write about, that’s an immediate no in my book. But be creative and see if there’s a way. That’s if everything else about the writer looks legit!

Guest Blogger Checklist: Ten Things to Ask Your New Guest | Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

How many links do you need?

My formula is about two incoming and two outgoing links, maybe one more or less. That’s for a 500-word article. Not 50 links and certainly not 100 links! Also, I wouldn’t add links in silly places. One guest blogger wanted to put links in words like “the” and “an.” Um…no!

Where do you want the links to go?

If the links are spammy, that’s another immediate no. Links should go to legitimate websites, not to unrelated places that would simply anger your readers. Check all the links before publishing and make sure they’re adding value to your post.

Who provides the graphics?

Ensure that the graphics are really in the public domain or create or buy your own graphics for the article. A place like Pixabay has free graphics, but for a guest blog, you might want to go with Shutterstock or another subscription-based site. Also, you might want to take a screenshot (if you use a free graphic and store it somewhere safe in case the artist changes their mind about it being free. It happens all the time!).

Who writes the headline?

You don’t want a click-baity headline. I’ve written about headline writing before: What Happens When You Wtie 25 Headlines Before Choosing One? If your potential guest writes click bait, then they’re not for you. Sometimes I’ll write one for fun, but humor can be tricky.

How many drafts do you need?

I prefer two drafts myself, but maybe three if the subject matter is complicated and needs more research. Beware of anyone who doesn’t want to have their copy checked, researched, or edited. That’s a sign that you’re dealing with someone shady.

When can you write the article?

Is there a specific timeline? Does your guest blogger want fast turnaround? Do you? Spell it out–then tell your potential guest blogger!

How long will the writing take?

Will your potential guest need a week to review each draft? A day? Let the blogger know what to expect. And let them know what you expect, too. For me, the process could take a couple of weeks to review and send back and forth the drafts.

How long will the article be?

Do you have a minimum number of words that you like to publish on your blog? And is there a maximum number, too? Decide upon what you’d like the length of the article to be. Yoast recommends a minimum of 300 words for a blog post.

You have the final say

Remember: it’s your blog and your reputation on the line. Make sure the guest blogger knows that you have the right to change what appears on your blog! Did I leave anything out? Let me know!

Have you been considering restarting your social media? Everyone can have a lull in their creativity or ideas. Maybe you’ve had a death in the family or been feeling low. It’s to be expected, especially during Covid. If you’re thinking of restarting your social media, stick around. Here are a few ideas!

Decide where to start

Have all your accounts gone dormant? Why not start with whichever is the easiest one to restart? That might be LinkedIn for you, or it might be Facebook. Start wherever you think would be easiest. Then pick the second one and the third, and so on. If only one account has gone dormant, then you know where to start. You might also want to start at an slower time of the week (Friday, for instance) to ease back into the water. I’ve written about Fridays before here: Why Friday is the Worst Time to Publish a Blog Post.

Choose some topics

Maybe you’ll have five topics to write about. That could be one topic per day of the week. Say you’re beginning with Twitter and you have a brick-and-mortar women’s boutique. You sell dresses, skirts, pants, plus accessories. Maybe you’d do something like the following: Mondays = bright colors, Tuesdays = designers, Wednesdays = purses and wallets, Thursdays = throwbacks, Fridays = weekend sales. For other ideas on topics, check out 14 Talk-Worthy Social Media Topics. You can also look at what you competitors are doing and do something similar (just don’t copy them!).

How Restarting Your Social Media Can Revive Your Business| Image by 5688709 from Pixabay

Write four posts about each topic

If you do this, you’ll now have enough content for four weeks! Having some structure will help you decide what to post on your social media. It’s important to have some ideas before you really get started. I’ve written about writer’s block before, so this might help: What to do when writer’s block has got you down.

Too busy? Hire someone to do it for you!

If you do the above exercises, you will have some structure to show your newly hired gun. To find someone good, ask your friends in business who they use. And remember–they may not need to be local to you. It really depends upon your business. You might hire someone out of state or even out of the country! For instance, I’d hire my good friend (and have) Bridget Willard in a heartbeat. Read what she says about her Twitter Management Process.

Rinse and repeat to restart your social media

Measure your success rate with the content that you share. What kind of content does best? Try to repeat that success. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but you can do it! Remember that each social media platform has its own analytics, so they’ve made it easy for you. Just Google analytics to get started.

Have you ever received guest blog spam? Recently I was rereading Randy Clark’s book, How to Stay Ahead of Your Business Blog Forever. In it, Randy explains how he gets many requests for guest blogs and he included one that was filled with terrible grammar. However, some requests are much tougher to discern as being possible spam.

Here are a few things I’ve noticed about these many guest blogging requests. Mostly, you can ignore these blogging requests.

They’re unsolicited.

If someone reaches out to you and you’ve never heard of them before, that’s a big clue that you’re dealing with spam. Read carefully if they say you’re the greatest, best, etc. Sometimes there may be a link to one of your blog posts, but often there isn’t. I’ve talked about spam before: Worst Social Media Practices (and how to avoid them)

There are no signature lines.

At the bottom of the email, where there should be a signature line, there’s no phone number, no website, no nothing. Who reaches out to someone with a business request and has no signature line? Spammers, that’s who!

Requests are filled with mistakes.

Does the request read like it was written by a third-grade student on a bad day? That’s another red flag. Do you want someone who doesn’t even edit their own work messing around with your website? NO!!! By the way, if you’ve never used an editor before, you might want to consider one yourself, at least for your important and/or lengthy articles. How a Good Editor Makes Your Writing Shine.

How to Avoid Guest Blog Spam Requests| Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Vet every request thoroughly.

As Randy says in his book, “Don’t let ego get in the way of common sense. It’s nice to be wanted, and some of these requests look impressive. Don’t bite without a complete search of the author and all links he or she represents.” I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Check out any links the guest blogger wants to include.

I generally only have 4-6 links in a blog post maximum. Recently a guest blogger wanted to included upwards of 30 links in a short blog post (under 500 words). You might want to decide how many you want. If someone is creating many many links, that’s a clue. And check where those links are going.

Create a checklist for future guest bloggers.

If you really want to include guest bloggers as part of your strategy, make a list of what those guest bloggers need to do. What is the minimum and maximum word count? How many links in and out? Who provides the images and how many? And don’t forget which topics you’d like your guest blogger to write about. If you have an audience of technophobes, then having a guest blogger write about a technical subject isn’t going to appeal to your audience. What else do you have on your checklist? Leave me a comment!

Why you need to use empathy in your marketing

Recently, I was on Bridget Willard’s podcast, Launch with Words. If you haven’t checked it out, you definitely should because Bridget is awesome! And my friends know that I don’t use the awesome word lightly. Honestly, Bridget is one of the hardest working marketers around and you should get to know her. Here’s the full podcast: Empathy is More Important Than Ever with Carol Stephen. And I want to go into a little more detail about why your marketing should encompass empathy.

Marketing and social media have changed

I’ve talked about this before: gone are the days when you can post a picture of an old lemon and have a hundred people like it. Now your competition is tougher, even if you jump to the newest social media platform. You’re going to have thousands of people posting about lemons, lemonade, recipes for lemon cake, and so on. You have to differentiate yourself, and in many cases, you need to pay. Even a small budget will help get more eyes on your posts.

Engagement counts

If you just post and go or constantly broadcast without any interaction, people will lose interest. That is, unless you’re a big fancy news outlet with millions of subscribers. But for a small or medium-sized business, you need to interact. In order to interact, your business needs to have a unique voice. So it’s a good idea to decide ahead of time what you’ll say, what you won’t say, and what kind of personality or voice you’ll have on social media. For more about engagement, you might like this: You Don’t Need Fairy Dust to Improve Your Social Media Engagement.

More empathy, less snark

Right now, people are hurting. Many are hurting a lot. Think about all we’ve been through recently. Climate change, the Pandemic, and now World War Three (at least many are calling it that). We’ve lost friends and family and haven’t been able to travel. Some of us couldn’t even visit our sick relatives in the hospital. Kids, in particular, are having a tough time with being on Zoom calls and not being able to see their friends. It’s a lot to handle right now. So erring on the side of empathy in your marketing is an especially good idea. Which reminds me of a recent article I read about the Culture of Caring and retaining talent. “Creating a culture of caring really starts also with the leadership team,” said Laura Brusca, senior vice president of corporate communications for Forbes. Leaders must show that they care, not just saying the words. That can be as simple as checking in with employees and making sure they’re taking vacation days.”

We’re tired

All of us are more than a little tired. But as marketers, we still need to be able to see things through our customers’ eyes. They’re tired, too, and engaging with them on an emotional level is a good idea. Sometimes just listening is a good idea. A lot of people could use a high five, a hug, or a big pile of cookies.