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The 7 Essential Elements of Effective Social Media Marketing

by Sonia Simone on August 31, 2011

So in the past few weeks, we’ve told you it’s a bad idea to be a digital sharecropper, building your business entirely on someone else’s land (like Facebook, Tumblr, or any other third party you don’t control).

We also poked a pin in the sacred cow of social media authenticity, telling you that your audience and customers don’t want an unedited version of the “real” you.

So you may be asking yourself — OK, what should I be doing with social media marketing?

How are savvy businesses using social media effectively to find more customers, boost their reputations, and make more sales?

Here are the seven essentials that will turn your social media marketing from an annoying time-waster to an effective bottom-line booster.

1. Get your home base together

Your home base is your blog or web site. It’s on a domain you own. You control the user experience — from the content to the site design to the user interface.

This is where you show that you know your stuff. That means building a nice cornerstone of high quality content that demonstrates your expertise in a likable, accessible way.

First impressions matter, so make sure the design is clean, professional, and smart. It can still be stylish or funky, if that’s your thing, but it shouldn’t look amateurish or confusing.

Your home base is where you post content to answer your readers’ questions, give them interesting tips, and help solve their annoying problems. When someone wants to know more about you, this is where you send them.

Your home base is a marketing tool, which means you need to be communicating primarily with customers, not with other experts in your topic. Don’t just pontificate to show what you know — tie your news and opinions back to how those things affect your customers.

2. Who’s the face of your business?

If you want to use social networking platforms like Twitter, Google+, or Facebook, you need a human face to make your social media marketing work.

So does that mean potential customers want to know about your personal struggles finding high-quality organic dog food? No. (Unless your company sells organic dog food, that is.)

Just like people have always done in public settings (work, church, volunteer activities), you’re going to adopt a persona — a selected range of your thoughts, emotions, and observations.

You’re going to be social and informal, but in a way that’s relevant, appropriate, and interesting to who you’re talking with.

Just like you don’t (I hope) wear your “I spent the night in Paris, Hilton” t-shirt to your grandma’s house, you’re also not going to share absolutely everything about the “real” you with your social media connections.

That doesn’t mean I want you to be a fraud. I want you to be friendly and genuine. Sound like a human being, not a corporate robot. And you certainly don’t have to stick to business all the time. It’s fine and good to show that you have a life. It’s not so good to show the world you’re careless, rude, or boring.

The truth is, the definition of “appropriate” depends on your audience. Lisa Barone has a very different persona from Ann Handley’s. If it works for your customers, it’s appropriate.

Authenticity for a business doesn’t come from oversharing or boring your audience to death — it lies in doing what you say you’ll do.

3. Who else has your customers?

Social networking platforms were designed to make it easy and fun for people to hang out together. That means you’re going to use them to build relationships that will help your business.

Look for people who have healthy-sized audiences who are a good fit for your product or service. They may be bloggers, they may be authors, they may have a popular podcast or column in mainstream media. They may simply be social media mavens who have lots of friends and like to share good stuff.

These are the people you want to share and promote your excellent content.

Cultivating professional relationships isn’t rocket science. Stick to the basics — link to them from your content, comment intelligently on their blogs and on social platforms, and be a nice person.

Don’t think that picking fights or manufacturing controversy makes you stand out. It doesn’t, it just makes you look like a troll. If you’re going to take a controversial position, make sure it’s one that really matters, and express it with respect.

4. Pick a primary platform

Again, think about where your customers are.

If you love Twitter but your customers spend hours every day on Facebook, you need to recognize that Facebook is probably a better venue for your business. It may not be as fun for you — but that’s why they call it work.

Only move beyond your primary platform when you’re sure you’re handling it well. A lot depends on the industry you’re in. If you’re a copywriter, social media consultant, or online marketer, your customers spend a lot of time in these venues, which means you probably will, too.

5. Manage your time

If you don’t decide how much time and focus you’ll put into social media, the default will be “all of it.”

Sites like Twitter and Facebook are seductive places to drop in and just check what’s new. When your five-minute check turns into 25 minutes, and you’re doing that 4 or 5 times a day per site, you’re going to find your productivity taking a dive.

Remember your home base. That (and actually delivering whatever it is you do) are where the bulk of your time and energy need to go.

The best tool I’ve found for managing social media time is a $3 kitchen timer. Decide in advance how much time you’ll spend checking in and being social, and stick to that.

6. Content first, conversation second

You’ve been told again and again by social media “experts” that your entire business should revolve around something called “The Conversation.”

Too often, this form of Conversation leads to business owners spending hours every day chattering with potential customers and hoping someone will buy something. (Or, more often, chattering with peers and friends and hoping this counts as work.)

Yes, be personable. Yes, keep an ear out for customer complaints so you can respond appropriately. And yes, network with peers in your industry to keep your links healthy.

But if it feels like goofing around all day instead of working, it probably is.

Instead, spend the bulk of your time on content, whether it’s on your own base or used as a guest post to find a wider audience. Use content to educate your customers about what they need to know to make an intelligent purchase. Focus on customer objections, questions, and problems.

When you find someone else’s content that your customers will find valuable, share that too — and add a few insights of your own, if you like.

Even a 100-character tweet can have content value. Think about what you can say that makes readers’ lives better, rather than just filling up time before you run to Starbuck’s. Make sure your reader has a good experience every time she hears from you. Keep it both useful and entertaining.

Social media conversation is a seasoning that makes your content more appetizing. It’s not the main dish.

7. Don’t forget SEO

Too many people think that social media sharing means they don’t need SEO any more. The fact is, social media marketing is a superb complement to SEO.

Play the long game. The same elements that make social media work (content that’s both useful and user-friendly, doing what you say you’ll do, healthy relationships with others in your industry) are the elements search engines would prefer to serve up. Search engines want to find the content that’s a widely-valued resource, and one of the signals they use for that is social media sharing.

Twitter and Facebook are already search engine signals, and there’s no doubt that Google+ is, too.

For too many businesses, social media is a time-wasting ego game. But use the tools strategically, with a focus on content and on getting a useful message in front of a wider audience, and it can be brilliantly effective.

How about you? What do you consider the most essential element of social media marketing?

Tell us about it in the comments.

Comments

I think finding that balance between content and conversation ... by Dewane Mutunga

5 Reasons Why All Freelance Writers Should Learn To Write a Sales Letter

by Sean Platt on July 28, 2011

When was the last time you wrote something with the intent to specifically motivate your readers to take action?

Admit it or not, we’re all in the same game.

Whether you want someone to buy your product, join your email list, retweet or +1 your post, you’re doing one thing — leading your audience down a path at the end of which lies the action they’ll take.

You want them to do something.

In other words, you’re selling.

Unfortunately, many content creators don’t know the first thing about selling.

A few years ago, neither did I. Well, not online, anyway. Not until I developed one skill that changed everything.

I’d had plenty of experience selling at the flower shop I owned. But selling through the written word was an entirely new skill.

To learn this ancient skill, I turned to the experts — those who make millions every year because of their ability to write great sales letters.

Sales letters are roads paved with words which lead buyers to solutions, sellers to profit, and writers closer to their happily ever afters.

Yet, most freelance writers and professional bloggers never consider learning to write sales letters.

Writers often feel as though that particular skill is above their pay grade, while many bloggers prefer to hire a professional when it comes time to creating their sales copy.

That’s probably because neither these writers or bloggers have any idea how life-changing learning to write a sales letter can actually be.

Let’s take a look at five reasons you should learn to write a great sales letter …

1. Never create crap content again

Some clients want nothing more than keyword-stuffed filler content for their sites, and they’re willing to pay you very little for the privilege. They don’t want to hear anything about how Google’s Panda update has made this approach silly, they just want mountains of low-quality content, stat.

Writing crappy content in bulk sucks. Do it for too long, and you’ll wonder why you thought writing online was a good idea in the first place.

Worse than being paid by the pound is the feeling of indentured servitude that comes with being a breath or two beyond running in circles, but nowhere near where you need to be to break away.

Knowing how to write a sales letter elevates your skill set, meaning you can make more money for every word you write, virtually overnight, whether or not you’re a wordsmith for hire.

2. You’ll only need a few clients a month

Managing low-paying copy usually means juggling a long list of clients because you’re stitching one job into the next, quilting your ends until they hopefully meet.

With the much higher earning average of longer form sales copy, just one or two jobs per month can fund the rest of your writing business.

Every sales letter you write makes you a better writer than you were before.

Constantly write, continuously improve, and quickly build a long list of people willing to pay you top dollar for your time.

When you deliver a sales letter that converts, you’re never hired only once.

3. You can develop streams of passive income

Once you know how to write an effective sales letter, you can become your own best client.

Write an eBook, put together a training course, offer a special suite of services, then write a letter to sell it.

You’re doing it for others. Why not do it for yourself?

If you’re a writer, you have the unique ability to synthesize and simplify information.

It’s the next logical step to package what you know and put it online.

4. More time for what you truly want to do

You can always make more money, but you’ll never make another minute.

By being able to charge more money for the hours you work, you will have more time to write the things you love.

You didn’t become a writer to write crap content, or to get lost in the daily blizzard of disposable blog posts, did you?

Earning more per billable hour will give you the time required to build the bank of assets that will elevate your legacy, along with your bottom line.

5. You’ll be better a much better writer

Even if you only write one sales letter in your life, knowing how you did it will make you a better writer.

Sales letters are paint-by-number persuasion, connecting dots we all have in common. You can’t sell if you don’t understand your reader.

Yet, once you know how to slip inside their mind, you can channel their desire.

On a sales page, that means clicking the BUY button.

Offline, it can mean creating word-of-mouth about your latest book, inspiring the reader to tell friends, and maybe even review your product on Amazon.com.

Selling vs. selling out

When I first started online, I wanted nothing more than to write blogs posts and fiction.

Selling seemed like an anti-art, lacking in purity, or just plain “selling out.”

But when you think about what writing is — getting people to feel something, spreading ideas, or connecting with people across great divides — it’s not all that different from selling.

Whether you’re selling a product or selling yourself, learning how to write a good sales letter is one of the best investments you’ll ever make in your writing.

About the Author: Sean Platt is the author of Writing Online and How to Write a Sales Letter that Works (Without Wasting Your Time!). Get his free report, The 9 Mistakes Most Writers Make That Are Keeping Them Poor. Follow him on Twitter.

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3 Simple Steps to Finding More Clients on Twitter

by Joseph Putnam on June 14, 2011

I’ll start by saying that I’m as big a fan of content marketing as any other Copyblogger reader.

And for good reason.

When it comes to selling online, there isn’t much that puts customers more at ease than quality content.

If you put in the time it takes to produce useful, authoritative articles that provide real value to potential customers, you’re halfway to the bank before clients even land on your site.

But should any company or blog use only one technique to get more clients?

Does Dirk Nowitski refuse to drive to the rim because his 20-foot jumper is so smooth? (For those who don’t follow basketball, the answer to that question is no.)

Of course not.

Everyone knows that diversifying is the way to succeed in business and in life.

So how should a blogging business owner diversify?

Make sure you have a solid foundation

Before you do anything else, get your content marketing program in gear. Start by writing great content for your site, and then work on killer guest posts for the most popular blogs that will give you air time.

Go ahead, give that keyboard a workout.

If you’re not quite sure what kind of content to create, sign up for free updates from Copyblogger right now … there’s a box right there in the upper right hand of the site. While you’re at it, pick up their free 20-lesson marketing tutorial by email, it will get you off on the right foot.

After you’ve started on this, what’s another way to get more clients and make more money?

The answer is Twitter.

How to use Twitter to land more clients

After content marketing, the second most successful way that I land clients is through Twitter.

Here’s how I do it:

Step One
I click into the search box in my Hootsuite dashboard (you can do the same thing in the Twitter console).

Step Two
I search for phrases that match the services I offer, then I comb through the results and find tweets that match people looking for my services.

Step Three
Finally, I click through to the blogs from tweets that match my criteria and do one of three things: 1) Leave a comment 2) Submit a message through the contact form 3) Send an e-mail if an address is listed.

That’s all I do.

It’s so successful that I’ve landed more clients this way than through content marketing alone.

Granted, having meaningful content increases the chances that these clients will sign on the dotted line (or click through to Paypal), so content still reigns as king.

My inspiration

What inspired this lead generation technique?

How did I decide to cold tweet clients on Twitter? (Is that what cold calling is called in the Twittersphere?)

Here’s the answer: it came from a print newspaper piece.

The article discussed a business owner who had tried to use blog posts (content marketing) to land more clients.

He was having a rough time of it, and wasn’t landing many clients. Eventually, he decided that content marketing wasn’t for him.

His reasoning went something like this: “Is putting in two or more hours a week into writing blog content the best way to get more clients, or would that time be better spent cold calling?”

His answer was the latter — he decided he got a better return from cold calling. He thought this was the best scenario for him.

But there happens to be an alternative.

The alternative

Instead of relying solely on content marketing or giving it up as too demanding (although don’t kid yourself … it’s work), choose the alternative — use content marketing as one of the many tools in your marketing box.

A good internet marketing strategy starts with content as its base.

After that, you need to find other ways to reach potential clients, like the Twitter method outlined above. You can go old-school (cold calling, direct mail, or even showing up at potential clients’ storefronts — although finding their home address and knocking on the door would be going too far). Or you can use newer methods like pay-per-click and social media networking.

The point is that an effective marketing program is made of more than a single tool. And your great content doesn’t (at least at first) find readers all by itself. You need to promote it.

Contacting potential customers on Twitter works best when it directs them to blog posts that demonstrate your competence.

Cold calling a client will be more successful when you have a well-designed website showcasing a portfolio of your best work.

So the next time you’re thinking about giving up on blogging because it’s demanding, or you aren’t seeing the rewards yet, don’t forget that content marketing works best when combined with the other tools in your marketing box.

Don’t forget how a simple Twitter search can get you more clients, especially when it’s combined with an effective content marketing strategy.

In other words, diversify.

You’ll be happy that you did.

About the Author: Joseph Wesley Putnam has a marketing degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and recently started Blog Tweaks to provide technical services for bloggers. Visit his site to see how you can get your blog tweaked.

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Copyblogger Weekly Wrap

by Johnny B. Truant on May 21, 2011

image of Copyblogger Weekly Wrap logo

I don’t mean to complain because I’m happy to have this gig, but honestly it’s kind of a rip-off that I do all this work on this wrapup and then realize that it’s going to run on the same day as the apocalypse. Although I have to admit that I’ve been suspecting as much ever since I learned about the often-unmentioned Fifth Horseman, “Satire with Limited Appeal.”

There’s really no way to win here. If I’m left behind, all of the evil is probably going to mess up my Wi-Fi signal… but if I get to ascend, chances are I’ll never get the comment notifications.

So, I won’t be offended if you just go about your Armageddon business without reading or replying to this, but it’s still a bummer.

Here’s what happened in the last week of Earth on Copyblogger:

Monday:

How the Buddha Solved His Marketing Problem

This post about Buddhism, meditating under trees, not touching money, and marketing your way to Nirvana (which, contrary to popular belief, is not in Seattle) is one that will really make you think. How do you spread ideas? How do you package and position your teachings? And for once and for all, how is Seth Godin related to Buddha? Because I think he literally might be. I mean, just look at the resemblance.

Read the full post here.

Tuesday:

5 Ways to Write High-Quality Content – Fast

The idea of writing 60 blog posts in a month — as Carol Tice mentions in this post that she used to do — makes me all edgy and nervous. But it also makes me think she might know a thing or two about how to generate a bunch of ideas and turn them into written works fast. So if you’re interested in writing good stuff rapidly and reliably, you should read this post. If, however, you’re interested in languishing and wasting time but experiencing some nice nostalgia, you should go play Oregon Trail.

Read the full post here.

Tuesday part 2:

Make Money with the Premise Affiliate Program

Probably not really necessary to spell this one out, right? Make money. With the Premise Affiliate Program. Cue Freebird.

Read the full post here.

Wednesday:

How Your Worst Enemy Can Become the Key to Your Blogging Authority

This post is all about finding your internal enemy and using that enemy’s power as a driver — using it to move yourself forward and establish your own authority. And I must say, I like this battle motif, where you seek out those who oppose you in your blogging efforts and fight them to the death with a sword. I hear it works best when you steal the enemy’s power, like in Highlander. And come to think of it, Hugh McLeod probably does this all the time, seeing as he’s of the MacLeod clan and that “there can be only one.”

Read the full post here.

Thursday:

How to Captivate New Readers in 5 Seconds or Less

You heard it here first: You can judge a book by its cover. Or at least, most people do exactly that, and they’re doing it while looking at you and your website and your social media profiles whether you’re cool with it or not. This post contains the skinny on how to look good on a first glance. However, there’s one tip this post is missing, and it’s “Wear hot pants.” Because nothing makes you stand out and look good more than hot pants or Daisy Dukes ultra-short cutoff jeans. Most of the professional bloggers I know wear them.

Read the full post here.

Friday:

Marketing the Old Fashioned Way: Earning It

This episode of the IMfSP podcast is all about earning your place in the market through sensible, value-driven strategies instead of flim-flam and arbitrage. Additionally, I may not be the only person who caught the Smith Barney reference in the title of the podcast, but I may be the only one who giggled like a schoolgirl remembering John Houseman’s stoic delivery in those old TV commercials: “We eeeeehhn it.” (Next week’s episode: “Where’s the beef in internet marketing?”)

Read the full post here.

This week’s cool links:

Avoiding the 5 Pitfalls of Free Content: So, there are some problems with creating and giving away free content… and here’s how you can avoid them.
Fear, the Maze, and Freedom: If you think you’re trapped, you’re not. There’s always a way out of any situation (in business or life) if you’re willing to be unafraid and think outside the box.
Four Facets of Strategic Storytelling: I like this idea of “strategic storytelling.” Here’s a post on how to do it right.
The Resume Is Dead, The Bio Is King: I was just talking about this idea with the post’s author. Who wants to read the dry, droll facts about your career if they want to know “who you are?” Tell your story.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant, who actually does know a thing or two about business, recently debuted his Bullet Sessions coaching — so bring out your questions (and also your dead).

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21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue

by Danny Iny on May 11, 2011

Sometimes you’re just flat out of ideas.

It’s not a matter of talent — you’ve written great stuff in the past. But lately, when you go back to the well for a fresh idea, it’s coming up dry.

This happens to the best of us — even veterans who consistently produce quality content have their off days.

Yet they continue to write.

They may grumble about how hard it is to get going and create something solid, but they still do. Again, and again, and again.

They aren’t super-human, and they don’t have magical content-producing powers. So what is the secret?

They do it by pulling out the well-worn toolbox of strategies for creating awesome content.

Steal content and ideas

If you’re flat-out exhausted and out of ideas, then get them from somebody else — either content, or ideas, or both.

I’m not talking about real stealing, of course — it’s more like “borrowing with the author’s blessing”.

Done right, this can produce some valuable content that the authors you “stole” from will thank you for using!

Curate content. Find your ten favorite websites, and then find your favorite post on each of them. Publish a post listing these top ten posts, and explain why you like them. You don’t even have to think about being creative, and everyone you feature there will appreciate it. This is what we do with our Best of the Web feature, and there are lots of other examples.
Ask friends for ideas. If you’re tapped for ideas, then reach out to your friends and colleagues, and ask them what they’d like you to write about. You can do this with offline friends, or with like-minded online entrepreneurs. If you’re not already part of a mastermind group, then reach out to a few bloggers that are about as big as you are, and suggest starting one. I’m in a mastermind group with Jon Alford, Paul Wolfe and Caleb Wojcik, and they’ve all been a great help to me.
Ask your audience. You can kick the last strategy up a notch by reaching out to your audience. This can be done in several ways — it can be as simple as running a “what would you like me to write about” post (which is a bit lame), or it can get more interesting by asking for their input on a problem, as Marcus Sheridan did to create his tag-line, or by asking a question so that you can compile their answers into another piece of content, like nittyGriddy’s free blog posting schedules e-book.
Do an interview. There are lots of reasons why interviews are great for blog content, but right now let’s focus on the simple fact that it’s a lot easier to write a handful of interview questions than it is to write an entire post! Plus, it can be a great way to connect with really interesting people. (I got to interview Randy Komisar, who is my hero in the business world – and all I had to do was ask!)
Solicit guest posts. This is a great source of content, and it’s easier than most people think – find a handful of blogs that are your size or smaller, whose content you really like, and invite them to write a guest post for you. They’ll be flattered, and happy to get exposure to your audience. They’ll work hard to bring their A game, and not only will you get a great post, but they’ll happily tell their contacts about it, and bring you a few new readers in the process.

Create content without creating content

If you have to create your own content, then there are a whole bunch of ways to do it without “creating content”.

In other words, you can write something great without having to be creative or original.

This doesn’t mean that the content won’t be good — only that you’re going to rely on creativity and originality that has already been percolating in your mind.

Create a best-case study. Think about your favorite blog, company, or product, and write a post about why you like them so much (like Marlee Ward did about Rise, Pushing Social, and IttyBiz). Explain what you think they’re doing right, and what others can learn from their example.
Create a worst-case study. Same thing, but focus on a blog, company or product that you hate. This can be even more interesting, particularly if it’s a popular offering. Explain your frustrations with it, explain why it is successful anyway, and explain what you would do differently.
Write a review. Think about a product that you like, and are happy to endorse, and write a review about it. No need to get too creative, just explain what you like about it, and why. And then write what you don’t like about it, and why — easy peasy. You can kick it up a notch by contacting the company and asking them to donate a product that you can raffle off to blog commenters, like Kristy Hines did with an IBM ThinkCentre M90z.
Explain your success. Think about a time when something went really right for you, and write a post explaining how you got it to happen. Don’t just brag about successes — explain all of the steps that you took to get there. Draw out the lessons that you learned from the experience, the lessons others can learn as well. This is what I did when I shared how I landed Guy Kawasaki on Problogger.
Explain your failure. If there’s anything that people love reading about more than a great success, it’s an epic business failure. A post about your most challenging experiences is likely to be powerful just by virtue of how intense the original experience was for you, and you don’t have to make up anything original or creative — just tell it like it is (or, was), and explain what you learned from the process.
Link to old favorites. Go through your archives, and make a short list of your old favorite posts that newer readers probably haven’t read. You can even do a quick deconstruction, and explain what you were thinking when you wrote the posts, what worked, and what didn’t.

Borrow some name recognition

Okay, so maybe what you really want is to find a great original idea to write about, but it just isn’t happening.

In that case, all you need is a creativity jump-start; a useful constraint that can send you off in the right direction.

The idea is to take two unrelated things, and force them together into a really interesting post. It’s really easier than it sounds.

Start by picking something that your readers are interested in, and then pick something unrelated, that your audience will be familiar with.

Merge them together into a post with a headline that goes something like:

Are you starting to see the pattern?

Just to get your brain going, here are some of the things that you can plug into the “fascinating hook” part of that equation:

Use a movie. Use either the name of a movie, or a character from that movie. Think about the last movie you’ve seen, and think about what you can learn from that movie about your topic of interest. There’s always something there, if you dig deep enough. It doesn’t have to be a recent movie, either — it can be an old favorite, like the Princess Bride, which Brian references in his Inigo Montoya’s Guide to 27 Commonly Misused Words
Use television. Same idea, but this time pick a television show that your audience is likely to watch. That’s what Jon Morrow did in his super-successful Mad Men Guide to Changing the World with Words post, and I did the same when I wrote Desperate Housewives on Writing, Storytelling and Selling. For extra credit, you can make a list of the top five TV shows you can think of, and do keyword research to see which one is hottest.
Use a book. Just make sure it isn’t a book about your subject matter (“What How To Win Friends and Influence People Can Teach You About Winning Friends and Influence People” is kind of lame). As long as it’s off-topic, you’re good to go. It doesn’t even have to be the book, it can be the author (“What Tolkien Can Teach You…”), a poet, or even a line out of a poem.
Use a comic. There’s a reason why they’ve been remaking movies about Superman, Spiderman, the X-Men, and half a dozen other, more obscure comic book characters. Unless it is a spectacular failure, you can pretty much count on a certain volume of sales at the box office. By the same token, if you lean on the super-powers of one of these characters, your post should perform just as well!
Use a celebrity. This is a blanket category for any kind of icon that your audience would recognize. It could be your favorite pop star, movie star, or blogging star (whether it’s a big name like Brian Clark, or an equally awesome but slightly lesser known blogger like Jk Allen) … as long as your audience would recognize the name, it should be solid.
Find out what’s trending. While we’re on the topic of celebrity, take some time to see what else is currently trending. Visit google.com/trends, click on the “More Hot Searches” link, and pick something from the list.

Get inspired

The last thing you can do when you’re fresh out of ideas is to recharge and get inspired.

This may sound difficult when you’re looking at a desk covered in crumpled note papers with lousy ideas, but it can be done.

There are at least four ways to do it.

Go for a walk. This is the generic advice that you’ve probably heard a hundred times before. If you just can’t do it anymore, then take a break, go for a walk, and get some fresh air. It’s not quite that simple, but it’s close: we all have routines and practices that are good at triggering high performance mental states. It’s just a matter of finding the right triggers for you.
Go to the theater. The theater is a fantastic source of ideas — much better than just going to a movie, because there’s so much more atmosphere, and so much more happening, which means there’s that much more for you to deconstruct and draw analogies from. Find a show in your area, get out of the house, and come back refreshed and ready to start writing.
Explore new cultures. No, no, I’m not suggesting you book a vacation every time you’re out of ideas. You don’t have to fly half-way around the world — why not start with an authentic restaurant? Go somewhere that you aren’t familiar with, and really pay attention to the experience. All of this is fodder for analogies that can get your creative juices flowing.
Tell your story. This is if you’re ready to kick yourself into overdrive, and write a post about an experience that is powerful and deeply personal. For this, you’ve got to dig deep, and pull up a formative story in your life — share a real crisis that you overcame, and how you became a better and happier person for it. This isn’t an easy thing to do, but you don’t really need original content, because it’s all stuff that has already happened to you. And the results are stories that stick with people for a long time, like Danny Brown’s failed suicide attempt, Jon Morrow’s childhood fight for survival, and Brian Clark’s subdural hematoma.

Bonus #22 — Write when you do have ideas

You can fall back on these strategies when you’re fresh out of ideas and don’t feel like writing, and with a bit of discipline you’ll be able to create a really solid post.

But that doesn’t make it easy.

The reality is that when you’re feeling uninspired, it isn’t the best time for you to do your writing. That’s why the last strategy is to do the writing when you are feeling inspired.

Write a handful of articles and keep them in an “emergency posts” folder, to run when you absolutely don’t feel like writing.

And of course, you can use any of the ideas described in this post as a starter for filling up that folder. So go to it — start writing! But first, join the discussion …

Which of these methods has worked for you? Which one do you plan on trying first? Leave a comment below and let me know.

About the Author: Danny Iny is an author, strategist, serial entrepreneur, and proud co-founder of Firepole Marketing, the definitive marketing training program for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and non-marketers. Visit his site today for a free cheat sheet about Why Guru Strategies for Blog Growth DON’T WORK… and What Does!.

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