Tag Archives: Content Marketing

50 Can’t-Fail Techniques for Finding Great Blog Topics

Posted on by

It’s one thing to know you need to create lots of great content . It’s another to actually know what you’re going to write about this week. Are you out of ideas for blog posts? Small wonder, if the only place you’re looking is inside your own head. We all need inspiration … and you’re not going to find it banging your head against the desk and hoping an idea falls out. You need fresh inspiration if you’re going to come up with new ideas. To help get your inspirational motor running, here are 50 techniques for generating great blog post topics. Two words: Google alerts . Set an alert with a few industry key words, and ask it to deliver at least 20 stories a day. Read the headlines and throw interesting links into a file for future use. When you get several related stories, you’ve got an instant roundup piece. Skim national newspapers and magazine stories. How does national news such as the recession affect your readers? Talk about national trends, and your audience will come to rely on you to tailor big news to address their concerns. Ask yourself, “What’s missing?” or “What will happen next?” Answer the questions those national rags didn’t address. What’s the next domino that will likely fall as a result of this piece of news? Point it out, and your readers will feel you (and they) are ahead of the curve. Read small publications. If you have an expertise blog, check the experts’ columns in local papers or business weeklies. Few people outside your community will have read these, and their topics are often easily recycled. Read trade publications. Trade pubs cover every imaginable industry and they’re a great source of trend ideas, from Ad Age to TWICE (This Week in Electronics). They’ll also track new companies and products you might mention (see #39). Read your competitors. I subscribe to several competing blogs on my iGoogle desktop, for real-time headline scanning. If you write on a similar topic, you can give the other blog link love. Riff on a popular post. Grab yourself some high-powered linkage by posting your reaction to a big-time blogger’s thoughts. Try a new medium. Burned out on the blogosphere? Look at YouTube videos, listen to podcasts, or watch good ol’ fashioned TV shows or radio broadcasts. Think about pain. What are the biggest problems your readers face? Focus on topics that would provide balm to their wounds. Talk to a friend. That’s right — use your lifeline, just like on the reality TV shows. Jawing about a problem usually helps ideas bubble up. Tackle a controversy. Weigh in on your industry’s hot topic. This can be especially effective if you have a contrarian viewpoint . Join a blogger’s group. Knowing your group will ask what you’re posting should help concentrate the mind. Hearing what they’re blogging on will no doubt suggest subjects for you to cover, too. Scan industry conference schedules. The list of session topics offers a quick guide to your audience’s hot-button issues. Get a critique. Find a mentor. Have them look over your blog and point out what’s missing. Mine your hobbies. People love posts that offer an unusual perspective on your topic. For instance, I once did a post called 7 Things I Learned About Business From Playing Bejeweled Blitz . Do an interview. Do you have a favorite thinker in your space? Get in touch. You’ll be surprised how many authors and thought leaders are game for a quick Q&A. Review your greatest hits. Read your most popular past blogs. Look for ways to take a slightly different angle and further illuminate the same topic. Write a sequel. If something has happened recently that puts a new light on a past blog post, update your readers. Write a new entry and link it back to the old one. Have a debate.

3c3b757d57button.gif 50 Can’t Fail Techniques for Finding Great Blog Topics

See the rest here:
50 Can’t-Fail Techniques for Finding Great Blog Topics

Why Being Too Diligent About Your Facts Can Hurt Your Content

Posted on by

Once upon a time, the world was flat. Now it’s round. Who knows? Maybe some day we’ll find out it’s square. It’s hard to come across a cold hard fact anymore. Drink 8 glasses of water a day. Drink 16 glasses of water a day. Don’t drink any water; get all your water from fruits and vegetables. The contradictory advice goes on forever. There’s almost nothing you can nail down with absolute certainty. Even your own content. When you’re writing a game-changing piece of content, it’s natural to want to nail that article down with irrefutable data. So you spend seventeen hours to come up with data from books, white papers, and online sources. But your research is tainted No matter how hard you work to nail down the facts, you’re going to run into accuracy problems. That’s because your information sources aren’t entirely reliable. Even if the source is reliable, the information may not be. For example, a magazine may accurately report the findings of a study, but who says the study results are actually correct? Here are just a few ways your research can become tainted: Research is often funded by lobby groups pushing their own agendas. Passed-down information can lose relevant bits. What was once fact has since been overturned by new evidence. Let’s look at them one by one. Problem 1: Research may not be objective Let’s say a lobby group wants to increase sales of lemonade. They fund research to find more reasons for you to drink lemonade. They pour squillions of dollars into their research, and amazingly enough, all that research comes to the same conclusion: lemonade has amazing health benefits. Of course, that’s not how the research is presented to you . The research is presented in an interesting, fact-driven way that makes you believe it. Given a slew of reasonable-sounding facts and a truckload of statistics, and most of us will change our perception . That’s not to say lobby groups are bad people. They’re just like you and me. We tell our kids to eat spinach because it will make them big and strong. Doesn’t matter if the spinach doesn’t actually have the nutrients to get kids big and strong. Doesn’t matter if we’ve cooked the goodness out of the spinach. The kids swallow the idea — and hopefully the spinach. We all present information in the best light. And when we add figures and facts, it becomes something written in stone. Except it’s not written in stone. It’s not cold, hard fact. It’s just one view, one presentation of the data. Problem 2: Hand-me down facts Use tea bags to polish hardwood floors. Mix turmeric and honey in hot water and drink it for a cough. Use the underside of a ceramic mug to put an edge on that dull kitchen knife. These are hand-me down facts. They work — but do they work just the way they’re written? Did the author leave out a piece of critical information in the re-telling? Perhaps you have to steep the tea bags for a certain amount of time. Maybe you have to be careful to get the exact correct angle between your knife and that ceramic mug. Facts often develop holes over time. As stories get handed down, they lose information. The main part of the story may be true, but misleading without key pieces of information that go with it. The only way to be sure it to check for yourself. You take those tea bags and polish a part of your hardwood floor. If the floors shine, you’ve got a personal story of your own to tell. Hand-me-down data looks valid, but unless you’ve proved it yourself, you’re quoting unproven research. And that takes us to the final problem: The data keeps changing. Problem 3: Facts evolve As recently as 1980, most neuroscientists would tell you with confidence that the brain had no meaningful plasticity. Plasticity means that the brain is adaptable. That it can heal damage from strokes, accidents, and other horrible things, and that it can change and adapt after the critical period of childhood. There’s now research (yeah, I’m aware of the irony in referencing research in this article) that all areas of the brain can change and evolve even in adulthood. Destroyed function can be “re-routed” to other areas of the brain. And intense mental activity (like studying for med school exams) can change the brain in measurable ways in a matter of weeks. I want you to understand one thing: these original nay-sayers were neuroscientists. They live, breathe, and map their entire careers around research about how the brain works. Some of the smartest people on the planet. And they were wrong. Today, neuroplasticity is an irrefutable fact. But who’s to know what will come around the corner? Does this mean you shouldn’t research your articles? Not at all. Research matters. Facts matter. All I’m saying is that it isn’t necessary to spend all those hours tracking down facts. Often, the facts you find are only half-right, or they’re just a part of greater truths to be revealed. Go ahead and do your research, but put on an egg timer. If you don’t get what you’re looking for in about 20 minutes, it’s time to get your own facts together. Don’t make up facts that aren’t true, but tell us your own experience. It’s better to simply write what you know. Not only does it make for a good story , you can be secure that what you’re saying is really true. Research makes things interesting, but your own case studies are just as interesting. So don’t be bashful. Use your personal stories and experiences more often — you don’t need fifteen sources and two experts to back you up. You might be wrong Sure, you may be wrong about the way you interpret what you experience. The neuroscientists were wrong too. So were all the smart, educated people who insisted the world was flat. There have been countless geniuses who insisted on theories that would ultimately prove to be wrong. Research won’t save you from being wrong. It’ll just get in the way of telling your story — and that’s more important than having irrefutable facts. Especially because the facts are never irrefutable. No matter how much research you do. About the Author: Sean D’Souza offers a great free report on ‘Why Headlines Fail’ when you subscribe to his Psychotactics Newsletter . Be sure to check out his blog , too.

3c3b757d57button.gif Why Being Too Diligent About Your Facts Can Hurt Your Content

Go here to see the original:
Why Being Too Diligent About Your Facts Can Hurt Your Content

3 Reasons to Tell Readers Why

Posted on by

You know you’re right, right? Everyone should fall in line and accept what you know in your heart to be true. Sorry, that’s not how people work. So much of persuasive writing comes down to proof . And so many people fail at persuasion because they offer assertions without giving people reasons . So persuasive writers know to give reasons for everything. Here are the three most important reasons to tell readers why . 1. A Reason to Read This begins with your headline , and that’s why headlines are so important. You can be cutesy or clever to satisfy your ego, or you can get you ideas absorbed and acted upon. Busy people need a reason to invest attention. Do you have one? 2. A Reason You’re Different Why you and not the other options? If your product or service is better, say specifically why. Your winning difference in the minds of the people you’re aiming at has to be distinct, clear, and believably better. Are you leading, or following? 3. A Reason to Believe Specific examples. Compelling case studies. Legitimate testimonials. Interesting facts and figures. A confident guarantee. Authenticity. Authority. Likeability. Most of all, demonstrate, don’t pontificate. What reasons work for you? What other reasons are you giving that work? About the Author : Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Twitter .

3c3b757d57button.gif 3 Reasons to Tell Readers Why

Originally posted here:
3 Reasons to Tell Readers Why

The Freakonomics Guide to Making Boring Content Sexy

Posted on by

It’s easy to write about certain topics, like celebrities, or technology, or even social media. Everybody wants a piece of it. But what if your passion is botany, supply chain logistics, or cognitive psychology? How do you get noticed with a compelling story when your subject is … well … boring? In the summer of 2006, an economics book was on the New York Time Bestseller list. The title was provocative and promised to be anything but a boring read. Even my hero Malcolm Gladwell said, “Prepare to be dazzled.” Since I really can’t stand economics (hated it ever since college), I skeptically handed over my $25 and took Freakonomics home. From the very first page, I was treated to a wild ride through the most bizarre stories I’d ever encountered. I learned about cheating schoolteachers and self-sacrificing sumo wrestlers. Why drug dealers still live with their moms and how the KKK is like a real estate agent. Every story taught a boring economic principle in a way that made me want more. I realized that Freakonomics was an instruction manual for transforming boring blog posts into sexy must-read masterpieces. Check it out: People love “dot connectors” Our world is getting more complicated by the second. Every day your readers are trying to get a handle on what happened yesterday, what’s happening now, and what will happen tomorrow. If you connect the dots for them, you can get popular in a hurry. Freakonomics is built around connecting dots in an interesting way. For example, it’s long been an economic principle that almost every choice we make is connected to incentives. Pretty boring stuff — until author Steven Levitt used a story about daycare centers to show how some incentives backfire. Since parents were showing up late frequently, the daycare center started a policy of a $3 fine to incentivize parents to show up on time. Unfortunately, the fine wound up incentivizing parents to pay $3 for an hour of babysitting and not feel guilty for showing up late! Giving your reader’s these “aha” moments is a great way to keep them reading a so-called boring topic and have them asking for more. Headlines still matter Even with all of our shiny social media tools, good ol’ standby skills like writing a great headline still matter. You can be a masterful storyteller and write killer posts, but you still lose if no one reads them. Titles are the closest thing us writers have to a “silver bullet.” Don’t waste ‘em. Do you think that Freakonomics would have been a New York Times Bestseller with the title Aberrational Behavior and the Causal Effect of Incentives ? The quickest way to give your boring blog a facelift is to put some eye-hijacking power into your headlines. In fact, write your headline first , before you even start the rest of the post. It’s that important. Numbers are a blogger’s best friend One common complaint of blogs is that they can’t be taken seriously. We are accused of playing fast and loose with the facts and being weak on proof. It’s easy to avoid hard numbers and focus on writing the soft stuff, but Freakonomics shows that this is a mistake. Many bloggers are afraid that statistics, equations, and hard facts will scare away our readers, but that’s not giving our readers enough credit. The problem isn’t the numbers — it’s that we stick numbers out there without a story. Freakonomics uses numbers to reveal a hidden story. Levitt looked up the numbers on standardized tests for Chicago students. On the face of it, this was pretty boring data. This district got such-and-such a score, this district got such-and-such a score. Yawn. Until those numbers revealed that teachers were cheating. In some districts, teachers received salary boosts when their students performed better on standardized tests — motivating them to fill in a few additional correct answers for their students. The story makes the numbers interesting. The numbers make the story credible. Give it a try. Everyone loves a mystery Why would a successful sumo wrestler throw a match? The obvious answer would be that he’s getting paid to do so, but Levitt quickly discovered there was a much more mysterious motivation that drove who won and who lost in Japan’s sumo contests. The answer is buried in psychology, probability, and incentives, but the only thing that I care about is that there’s a mystery. Any mystery begs for gumshoe detective work. We can’t leave well enough alone and we want to know why — especially if someone else is going to do the legwork of figuring out the answer for us. That’s why the CSI series has spun off more offspring than a jackrabbit. You can use this quirk of human nature to make your topic enticing. Look closely at your topic and uncover some old-fashioned mysteries. Now write a post that presents the mystery and leads your reader through the investigation to its incredibly satisfying conclusion. Provide a better way to solve common problems Freakonomics uses a powerful set of tools to explain the way the world works. By the end of the book, you can’t help but think that every problem imaginable can be solved with the right incentive, data analysis, or storytelling. When you’re finished you feel that there is a better way to tackle your problems. This is what “added value” means. Simply restating a problem is boring. Offering new tools and perspectives to solve problems helps your reader get closer to their goals — and that makes you someone whose content they’ll want to read every time you come out with something new. Freakonomics: The Movie is coming out soon, and I’ll be first in line — because reading the book was so valuable to me I can’t wait to see what else the authors have to offer. To get devoted fans who’ll anticipate your every output with the same enthusiasm, give them some solutions. Time to get freaky Have you ever used any of these techniques to make your content sexier? Can you see how to apply some of them to your own blog? And if you read Freakonomics yourself, tell us in the comments about any other blog-enhancing tips you picked up! Stanford obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social , except when he’s fishing with his boys. Follow him to get the latest about his new ebook “Get Noticed.”

3c3b757d57button.gif The Freakonomics Guide to Making Boring Content Sexy

View post:
The Freakonomics Guide to Making Boring Content Sexy

How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online (And Make Money Doing It)

Posted on by

Fresh out of college, I landed a job writing one-page sell sheets for a marketing company for $50 each. On a rare excellent day, I might do as many as two of these. Soon after, I found a freelance gig that would pay me $300 per article I wrote for an inter-organizational newsletter. I got to interview people for that one. It was more work, but better money. Eventually, I hooked up with a pretty big industry magazine and was being paid $1300 for 2000-word feature articles. That was the big money. Magazine pay doesn’t go much higher until you get into the really big-name publications. I could often get two of those assignments at a time, but I needed to coordinate and interview around ten people for each article, so doing two in a month was a hell of a task. Today, I’m doing much better in my writing career. Since I started blogging, I’ve written hundreds of posts, both for myself and for other blogs. I don’t have to interview people anymore, so it goes much faster and I can write much more. The combined total I’ve been paid for all of those posts (including what I’ve been paid for writing sales copy, promotional emails, and so on) is zero dollars. And really, it pays the bills better than my magazine writing ever did. How to make “not getting paid” pay off I just recorded a call with Copyblogger Associate Editor Jon Morrow entitled “How We Make $2000 per Guest Post,” and the funny thing about that call was that I’d had the idea to write the post you’re currently reading before Jon came up with the hook for the call. I guess great minds think alike. See, newbie online entrepreneurs often want to “make money blogging,” and seasoned writers often come to the internet to expand their freelance businesses by doing online what they do offline: selling words for dollars. Both of those approaches assume a straight line between composing paragraphs and getting a check, but that straight line hasn’t reflected my experience in the blogosphere (and I’m in good company ). To put it succinctly, I don’t make money writing. I make money through a business, and that business does its marketing almost exclusively through writing. Writing for me is a means to an end. It’s a way to gain exposure, gain popularity and authority, and build trust. Once you have enough exposure, trust, and authority with your audience, they’ll consider buying products and services from you if what you offer them is good. The cool part? It almost doesn’t matter which category or niche those products or services fall into. It works like this: Writing -> Readers -> Exposure, popularity, authority, and trust -> The ability to sell stuff. Need a fancy term to make it legit? Call it content marketing . Notice that I’ve used the very specific noun “stuff” to describe what you’re able to sell to a well-matched, receptive audience with enough of those preceding magic ingredients. Information products? Yep. Software and services of all kinds? Yep. Hats? Maybe. Want to sell hats? Then write enough, in places where people who like hats congregate, to become a popular and trustworthy personality who happens to sell hats. Or makes hats. Or wears interesting hats. Or at least likes hats, and talks about hats a lot. Your audience has to be willing to pay for hats, but if they are, they’re going to buy from someone. If your writing has put you in front of them, and made you popular and trustworthy, they’ll buy from you. It works for just about anything. This is all about thinking outside of the nine dots. I came to the blogosphere as a humorist, but what I found was that people wouldn’t pay for humor. So what could I do with my funny writing? Why, sell consulting and website services, of course. I remember asking my readers at the time, “Can I be the funny guy who writes about business, and also build websites somehow?” Give what attracts, sell what people want to buy And the answer was apparently that yes, I could write humorously about business — and tattoos, and unschooling, and The Matrix — and build a large readership who seemed to like and trust me. And at that point, I could offer websites. And consulting. And info products. And likely waffles. If those folks needed a site and/or were hungry, they’d work with me rather than finding their website guy or waffle house on Google. When Jon and I did that call about making $2000 per guest post, what we meant was that guest posting is our primary (almost our exclusive) marketing strategy, and that on average, each post — each performance in front of a blog audience to build trust and exposure — resulted in around $2000 of income. That’s income that was created through writing, but wasn’t income we received for completing a writing assignment. You want to be a writer? Well, don’t confine your thinking to the obvious example of putting words together for pay. There’s a whole world of ways out there to make money as a writer… and the interesting part is that most of them mean you’ll be writing for free. About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is apparently a writer or something and is one of the two guys behind The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions . If you’d like personal help on getting paid to write for free, he’s got you covered .

3c3b757d57button.gif How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online (And Make Money Doing It)

Read more from the original source:
How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online (And Make Money Doing It)