Three Gifts You Must Give Your Blog Today
Maintaining a blog means writing or creating content to share to your readers.
At a closer look, you’ll see it has 2 factors:
- Writing or creating content
- Sharing this content
That’s where these 3 gifts come in.
It is a must that you have these 3 things to make running your blog smoother and keep the creative ideas in a system.
Having everything organized will help you write posts or create other types of content for your blog easier and faster.
Why faster?
Because this is the most common thing hindering business owners from starting and continually running their business blogs.
They’re cramped for time, so often they just give up posting on their blogs and/or sharing the contents they’ve created altogether.
Gift No. 1 The Swipe File
A swipe file is simply a document where you write down all your ideas for posts or other content. This is your go-to system when you are cringing and can’t seem to have any idea for a post topic.
You can jot down your post ideas on a notepad, a word document or a spreadsheet.
I have 2 blogs I maintain then those of clients, so I keep one spreadsheet with several worksheets in them. Each worksheet is allocated for each site except when a client has me maintain several of his blogs. That’s when I have a separate swipe file for them.
A swipe file also allows me to fight the dreaded writer’s block. I add ideas or topics to it as I read on the internet for leisure or even while doing additional research for posts I’m currently writing.
Gift No.2 The Editorial Calendar
You can use Google calendar or other online calendars of your choice to create your blog editorial calendar. You can even use a printed planner if you prefer to. There are also a lot of free editorial calendar templates available now on the web.
From your swipe file you can choose the topics you’d like to write about and set a schedule when you’d publish it.
The same goes for other types of content you’d like to post on your blog. For example you’d like to feature a video on Monday then a written post on Friday. You then set this schedule on your editorial calendar.
With this publishing schedule, it’s easier to set other tasks on your to-do list for the day or for the week.
Gift No. 3 The Social Media Calendar
Marketing your blog posts to social media sites is one of the best moves you can continually do for your business.
A social media calendar will allow you to have a fixed and clear schedule for your online marketing strategies.
When you follow this, it’s easier to know what to do for your blog every day.
You will also have a balanced time for social media activities instead of being consumed by too much social media marketing in a day.
A social media calendar will also help you keep track of your social media efforts, especially when you want to know what’s working and what’s not in your approaches.
For example, with a weekly or monthly calendar you can check when you started using Facebook posts or when you started sharing links on social bookmarking sites.
Some things you can include in your social media calendar are:
- When to do your social bookmarking.
- When to share your posts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites you want to be active in.
- When to reshare, retweet, or repin others content.
- When to comment on other blogs. Remember you also need to connect with other bloggers. Blog commenting will attract other bloggers and/or site owners to check out your blog and comment on your posts as well, maybe even subscribe to your blog or follow you on social media.
Whether you manage all the operations in your business or not, having a set schedule of things to do for your marketing and other business operations will help make all workflow run smoothly.
With this you’ll have equal amounts of time allotted for each necessary process to make your online and offline marketing successful.
What other tasks do you think you can include in your editorial and/or social media calendars? If you’re using any of these 3 systems, how have these helped you? Do share your thoughts with me in the comments.
photo credit: allerleirau
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I love this article. I was keeping a swipe file without even knowing it. I’m at the computer when I open my eyes to when I go to sleep if I’m not tied up with an obligation or writing on my MS. So it all seems to split off from my editorial calendar, then social media, etc. Love your site though and your are on my list for VA’s. Thanks for this article!
Hi Lee, it’s so nice to know I’ve helped you with this article and my little blog. All these items are really organized to-do lists in a way which make blogging (business or personal) more systematic.
Seems like it all boils down to organization. I’m a huge fan of calendars, even though I change them frequently and sometimes simply don’t follow them if new/better ideas come along. But the planning of a calendar gives me clarity, direction, and drive. It’s so helpful to have that long term view. It makes a greater impact with a cohesive flow.
I couldn’t agree more Sarah. Thank you for sharing your insights on my post.
Jovell, excellent post! I found you through Carol Tice’s writer party and you offer great ideas on content. I manage social media at my full-time job and am a bit sheepish to admit this, but I haven’t planned out posts before. Thanks for helping me see there’s a less haphazard way.
Cheers!
Hi Crystalee! I also help clients with social media marketing and blog content management. If I do the writing of the blog posts, I sometimes just rely on what I feel or want to write about for that day when I need to publish a blog post but if I’m managing a team of writers, it helps a lot to have ready topics on hand to assign to them asap.
Jovell,
One of the more successful places that I’ve found for marketing my posts (so far) has been LinkedIn discussion groups.
However, you do have to participate in other people’s discussions if you’re to expect other members to be interested in yours.
But you clearly already know the value of building relationships – going by your post above.
Great practical information, thanks for sharing + I 100% agree with you.
Thank you for the additional tip Kevin. Not sure why, but I’ve read more than once that LinkedIn group discussions are really great avenues to get/brainstorm for blog topic ideas and to network with similar professionals but I haven’t been that active in the groups I belong to. I guess I’m still too shy when it comes to that.
Jovell
When you start getting your teeth stuck into them, it’s worth remembering that some LinkedIn groups are discussion wastelands, where all people do is use them to purely to syndicate content.
Others have a healthier balance and work well for everyone.
If you’re into optimising your content then Heather Lloyd-Martin’s SEO Copywriting group is a great place to start getting involved.
Thanks for this post Jovell. It amazes me how many people write without using a swipe file. When I first took copywriting training about a decade ago, swiping is one of the first things they taught.
It is an effective way to learn language tricks and persuasive content – without copying the exact phrases. I am glad you had the courage and wisdom to encourage writers to ethically steal from other good writers.
I love how you put it Kate – “ethically steal from other good writers.” Yes, swipe files will help us keep those ideas flowing and I guess it’s a good way to go back to those pages we’ve bookmarked but never had the time or have totally forgotten to read.