Have you read something lately that really stopped you in your tracks and made you think? As I write these words, it’s the first day of the new presidency. So lots of changes are coming soon–and many changes have already happened today. Some of those political changes might make you consider things differently. And even if you don’t like politics, or don’t want to write about anything political, a change of administration can bring up a lot of feelings. It’s good to get into the habit of writing because without a good habit, you probably won’t be able to finish anything. Speaking of which, here’s Content Creation: What Are the Best Habits for Writing?

Articles in the News

Covid isn’t the only thing in the news these days. There have been scientific discoveries, such as a new fossils uncovered in Argentina which may belong to one of the largest animals to have walked on Earth. And in something that really affects us all, Netflix’s ‘Shuffle Play’ will get rolled out to all users. And on the social media front, people are reportedly leaving Facebook and Twitter and “privacy-first social network MeWe is scooping these disaffected users up onto its platform.”

 

A Conference You Might Have Attended

If you attended a virtual conference recently, how was it different from others you’ve attended in person? The one I recently attended for a client was usually in person and those who ran it and attended were not so tech-savvy. There were lots of glitches in how it was promoted and how it was run, too. Still, it was a departure from the usual conference and much more convenient to attend, since it was mostly pre-recorded videos and virtual storefronts where you could check in and possibly win prizes. Here’s something that might interest you: 20 worthwhile conferences for women. Why not attend one and then write about it?

Quick Google Search

A Google search on your chosen topic will yield a list of ideas that you can blog about if you’re all out of ideas. And of that doesn’t do it for you, here are some more ideas: How to Find Ten Blog Post Ideas in One Hour That Will Make You Relaxed. I have confidence that you’ll find something to write about, so I hope you’ll get started right away.

 

 

 

You may have considered getting help with your social media or content creation for the first time this year. After all, last year you spent so much time working on it and that was time you couldn’t get back! Here are four good reasons you ought to outsource your content creation!

You Have Better Things to Do with Your Time

This is the first and best reason you might want to outsource your content creation. You’re running your business and you’re busy. Creating content at the end of the day is the absolute last thing you want to do! If you want to know some other ways to save time (besides outsourcing), here’s an article you might like: Repurposing Your Social Media is the Ultimate Time Saver.

It’s Not Your Strong Suit

If content creation were truly your strong suit, you probably wouldn’t mind writing. But you’re much better at running your business and less inclined to want to do any marketing of your business. Besides, when you’re focused on what you’re good at, time disappears and work becomes more pleasant. And if you don’t focus on your strengths, you might want to read this: Why Leaders Should Focus on Strengths Not Weaknesses by Forbes.

You’d Like a More Polished Look

It’s not that you couldn’t do it yourself, but you’d like your articles and social media to look more polished. If you need help with writing, why not find someone else to do it for you? (Ahem.) I might know someone. And maybe you’d like someone who enjoys writing and also someone who writes every day for a living? That would be good, wouldn’t it? Kinda joking, but kinda not joking.

Someone Else Could Do it Faster

Back to that saving time item again, if someone else created your content for you, it would probably take them far less time. Maybe you could create a blog post in an hour, but how good would it be unless you were really practiced at it? Two hours? Four hours? Wouldn’t that time be better spent running your business?

Still Want to Do it Yourself?

If that’s the case, I have a couple of ways to help you, for not very much cash. Maybe you’d like to try it out. In that case, I’ve got two books that you might like, both available on Amazon in either paperback or eBook format:

• 21 Ways to Total Social Media Engagement That Will Make You Look Like a Pro and
• 21 Ways to Repurpose Your Social Media Content

Sound Like You?

If any of this sounds interesting, you know what to do! Of course, you could also leave a comment here. I’d appreciate it. Thank you!

 

For the holidays this year, we shared ideas and recipes for #DigiBlogChat. Randy Clark came up with the questions, and our chat friends came up with the answers. Here are some of them.

Q1. What healthy snacks do you enjoy, or would you rather overdo it? What are your favorite “Guilty pleasure” snacks? Or healthy ones? 

Q3. We’re all so busy this time of year, so what are some quick no-cook snacks? 

Q4. Besides gingerbread houses, what are your tastiest baked treats?

Loni of @JorgensonLocker shared this terrific recipe for”Christmas Crack!”

Jackie Yun shared this wonderful recipe:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q5. Let’s get to the meat of it. Share treats made of meats!

Q6. Share one of your grandmother’s snack recipes, please!

Q7. Not to get too “cheesy,” but let’s talk cheese.

Q8. It had to be asked, what store-bought treats do you serve?

Q9. What snacks have you concocted during the COVID?

Here are two creations from Randy Clark.

Q10. Last but not least, you knew it was coming, holiday adult beverages. Is it 5:00 yet?

Thank you all for participating and Happy New Year to everyone!

A few people have asked about #DigiBlogChat, a chat that Larry Mount and I started on Twitter a number of years ago. So here goes.

In the Beginning…

Once upon a time, there was a startup in San Francisco, which like a number of other startups, no longer exists. At that startup, I began a Twitter chat called #BigDataChat. That was the end of 2013.

The Before Time

#BigDataChat became very popular. We had a number of big players tweeting along with us on #BigDataChat. We had giveaways and prizes. Sometimes we gave away books, other times there were tickets to startup events. O’Reilly Media was one of the big participants in the chat.

Larry Mount Was a Participant

Larry would regularly participate in #BigDataChat. Each week he would log into #BigDataChat and contribute his thoughts.

When #BigDataChat ended, Larry became sad and lonely. Not really. I made that part up, to give this story more dramatic oomph. But he did notice that #BigDataChat had ended.

The Biggest Giveaway

The company I worked with decided to give away the chat to O’Reilly Media. The chat didn’t last too long after that, for reasons I’m not clear about. At any rate, I was no longer involved with the startup or the chat.

Friendship and Brainstorming

Over the course of the months that #BigDataChat occurred, Larry and Carol (that’s me!) became online friends. After that chat ended, we wondered how to continue the chat experience, and brainstormed ways. We decided upon a day of the week and a time.

#DigiBlogChat Was Born

We all missed #BigDataChat. It was a good time to exchange ideas, over the course of an hour. Once we decided upon Tuesdays at 1:00 pm Pacific Time, we started to collect ideas. And we reached out to people we knew. We sometimes have had prizes and giveaways, too.

The Chat Grew…and Grew

Now #Digiblogchat has a regular bunch of contributors who log in every week. We’ve become friends online and offline, too, in some cases.

The People

Since we crowdsource the topics for our chats, we have an extremely engaged audience. There’s Tripp Braden, Randy Clark, and the enthusiastic Beth Staub. John Lewis, who also runs #Innochat is a regular. Finola, Maricar, and Mitch Mitchell regularly weigh in. My friend @MistressPrime occasionally visits. @CharlesMcCool and @jpretorious are there, too. Then there are @nina_wag and @htindesigner. We couldn’t forget our friends at @interprosepr! Sandy of @CreativeWoodVT has been a friend for a long time. Loni of @JorgensonLocker is also a regular on the chat! And @JKatzaman is always making us laugh!

There are probably others that I’m forgetting and for that I apologize. 

Join Us!

Come join us on Twitter. It’s every Tuesday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time. For more info about how to join, read How to Join #DigiBlogChat Twitter Chat.

Maybe you’ve been blogging for awhile, but writing doesn’t come easily to you. Everyone says how easy writing and blogging are, though. There must be some easier ways to do this, you might be thinking. After all, people are creating content every day without so much trouble, right? Right! Read on for some easy tweaks to make to your content creation.

Decide to Begin

Now that might sound silly, but getting started is usually the hardest part for anyone. So get yourself into the right mindset, sit down at your desk (or kitchen table), and get started! Or, if you’d rather do a video blog (vlog), get set up for that. Give yourself permission to quit after 15 minutes. That often helps.

Spend the Most Time on Your Headline

If you only have an hour to write, spend about half that time on your headline. Seriously. Some people won’t even read your article before sharing it, but you want them to click through, right? For more info, you might like this article: What Happens When You Write 25 Headlines Before Choosing One? Lately I’ve been using Google to help me find topics for blogging about. Just type in your keyword and see what Google comes up with.

Write Every Day

Now writing every day might not sound easy, but could you write two sentences a day? Or a paragraph or two? That will definitely help you get started. And those little changes add up. I like this article from Tiny Buddha: Things Change When You Do (and Small Changes Add up). One of those changes is to take care of yourself first, by the way. (Writing can help with taking care of yourself.)

Write Out Loud

Talk to yourself and then write down what you say. Or call a friend and write down what you say to them. You may want to use the talk-to-text feature on your phone. Here are the 8 Best Voice-to-Text Apps of 2020. You’ll still have to edit your text, but voice-to-text apps are getting better all the time. You can certainly talk about your business, even if you think that you can’t write about it.

Completion, Not Perfection

If you’re a perfectionist, you might have a hard time with this one. Yes, you can write something that’s good. But it probably won’t be perfect. Aim for getting it done and it’ll be much easier.

Reward Yourself

This is another quick and easy hint. You’re not supposed to reward yourself with food, but come on. This is 2020! Have the cookie. Or go for a walk, if that makes you feel less guilty. I vote for the cookie.

What If You Have a Time Crunch?

And if you only have an hour to create a blog post? You might like this article: How to Write a Perfectly Fine Blog Post in One Hour. Yes, you really can do it! At least you’ll have a great deal of it done in one hour, and the momentum to move forward.

Have Other Ideas?

Let me know with a comment! And thank you.

 

 

Time is precious, and yet we all tend to waste it (including myself here). Time management can be a tricky business, especially when you’re using social media. Here are some things I’ve learned from ten years managing social media for myself and others.

Use a Timer

A good timer, such as Noko (the one I use) helps you see in graphic format exactly where your time is going. If you don’t have the money for a professional timer or app, any timer will help. I used to use an egg timer, and that worked fine. Something about the ticking really did help. If you’re short on time, you might like: What if you only have 30 minutes for social media?

Plan Each Day

Before you start working, have a plan. Now, you may not follow the plan, but at least you have a structure to fall back onto when you think “now what was I supposed to be doing?” Because you will forget and become distracted without a plan. My planning takes roughly 5-7 minutes to do, either the night before or the day of. A social media content calendar is a very good idea, by the way. You can use Excel or you can use a social media content calendar, such as this one from Later.

Prioritize

Once you’ve written down everything you have to do, prioritize. You probably have 5-7 things you must do each day. Decide which items are necessities. Then decide which you’ll do first, second, third, etc.

Have a Reason

Why are you on Twitter? What are you doing on Facebook? Stick to your reason, post, and have a definite period of time you plan to be there. Then get out before you get sucked in! Because you will get sucked in…there are a million billion videos of cute kittens just waiting for you.

Maintain Focus

Stay focused on your purpose for being on social media. Are you there to comment on others’ posts? Then do that? Are you there to check on your own posts? Do that and (again) get out!

Delegate

If you get distracted easily, you might want someone else to do your social media for you. Find someone who can post, or who can engage on your behalf. Need more time? You might want to Outsource Your Social Media.

Keep it Quiet

Most people thrive with a quiet environment, especially if you tend to get sensory overload from being online.

Use White Noise

A white noise generator can also work if the sound of waves or wind help you. I like one that has birds (quietly) chirping, along with a few frogs.

Learn to Say No

Saying no is perhaps the most important tactic of all. Think of a few different ways to say no. In the article 7 Tips for Saying No Effectively, Joseph Albert suggests being assertive and courteous: “You might say, “I’m sorry I can’t right now but will let you know when and if I can.” This approach is polite, and puts you in a position of power by changing the dynamic.” Isn’t that wonderful? He also suggests standing firm when pushed, which leads me to the next suggestion…

Be Ruthless

Guard your time like a dragon guards its lair. It’s your life and your business, after all! Who else is going to guard it?