Summer break is over, now is a good time to get back into the swing of things and have a strategy! In the past episode, we've been talking about the importance of having a blogging strategy and why it's necessary to incorporate in your overall marketing strategy. In this episode of the Social Media Marketing Happy Hour, Dawn and Traci share some strategies, techniques and tips to help you never run out of ideas for your blog.
What happens when you suddenly get writer's block?
Writer's block is a major issue even for us at Happy Hour. There's nothing worse than sitting and staring at a blank page. We're going to share with you what we usually do when we run out of topics to blog about.
When you get stuck, there's actually so many places you can get ideas and even inspiration from. Here are some of the things you can do to overcome writer's block:
Mind Mapping
Sometimes you think that you've talked about it all, but there are actually different angles and different ways to approach it. You have to start mind mapping to help you see more and get more from a topic. There are actually things you know that you forgot about or that are suppressed inside your brain. Mind mapping can help bring those thoughts out. Just get a piece of paper and start jotting down anything that comes to mind and you'll come up with so many topics.
Research on Amazon.com
You can research for topics by clicking on the image of a book that's on your niche. It will allow you to preview parts of the book. You'll want to look at the table of contents. Dawn loves the Dummies books because they have good titles on their contents pages and these books also cover topics that people are asking questions about. So it's really a good source for finding topics on your niche.
Use Frequently Asked Questions
Sit down and come up with the 10 most frequently asked questions in your business. You could literally write a blog post for each question. You can answer the question, give some backgroud behind it and give some education around that particular question.
If you're new in business and you don't know what are the top FAQs, there's a website you can check out called Quora.com where you can ask about anything. So if you type in a topic, it's going to pull up all the questions that people have had about that topic. LinkedIn also has a similar feature and there are other platforms that have this as well.
Ask Social Media Groups
If you're a part of a social media group that's really active in a specific topic, you'll also see there people asking questions related to the niche of that group. It's good to know what's always being asked so that you can be the one to answer those questions on your website and then you get to be the thought leader.
Search on Google.com
Here's a little trick you can do to find topics. When you go to Google.com and you begin to type on the search field the keywords you are interested in, before you even complete the phrase or sentence, Google automatically gives you a list of possible topics that you may be looking for or are interested in. You'll find a range of suggested topics you can use related to your niche.
Leverage on Your Knowledge
Don't forget the basics. Whatever your business might be, like if you are selling/marketing products and services, you can blog about each of those products and/or services. You can provide knowledge or simply educate people about what that is, it's background, how it can benefit them, and so much more! Don't take for granted everything that;s in your head. You know stuff that the average person doesn't, so leverage on that and blog about it.
We would also like to invite you to join our mastermind group, the Happy Hour Gamechangers. It's a free community of marketers on Facebook. If you're interested, go to https://happyhourhangouts.com/fbgroup.
