Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

How to Schedule Your Business Blogging Time

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Have you ever noticed that what gets scheduled, gets done? The same is true for your business blogging. In my latest post at SteamFeed, I reveal the scheduling tool and method I use to keep my blogging on track.

It’s called Wunderlist, and it’s absolutely free (they do have a paid version, but you won’t need it to implement the suggestions I offer in this post). I use Wunderlist in virtually every area of my life – client work, business development tasks, my own blogging, household chores, health reminders, shopping lists, travel planning and more.

As I was writing about the ways I use Wunderlist to increase my blogging efficiency, I realized there was actually a broader set of steps that anyone could apply – regardless of what task management system you use.

Read the post at SteamFeed to learn:

  • Why scheduling is important for business blogging
  • The benefits of Wunderlist as a blog scheduling tool
  • How I use Wunderlist in my business blogging workflow
  • Three steps for scheduling your business blogging tasks

The SteamFeed blog is now closed, but you can read this post here at Content Mastery Guide.

Five Things Not to Do When Restarting Your Business Blog

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© bluedesign - Fotolia.com
© bluedesign – Fotolia.com

I recently had my own blogging slump, which as you can imagine was not something I wanted to talk much about. I am, after all, a business blogging expert who has written a plethora of posts about how to keep your business blog updated.

While I wanted to be authentic, and most of all to share my lessons and strategies with you, I wanted to be sure to avoid any of the classic mistakes people make after a break from blogging.

Your business blog doesn’t come with voice-overs

You know how television shows often begin with the words “Previously on…” and then a few clips that provide context for what you’re about to see? The same isn’t true for your business blog.

People arrive at your blog from all sorts of directions, with varying levels of context. Some are brand new to you. Others have read some of your work, but in a different order than you posted it. Super fans read almost everything as soon as its published.

A blog post is forever. The person reading your first post after the restart may not have any idea that you ever took a break from blogging. They may not see or pay attention to the dates on your posts.

People are on your site to get information about a specific topic, and to form or solidify their opinion of you as an expert in that area. Keep that in mind before making one of these common mistakes when restarting your blog:

1 – Over-explain

This is a habit that goes way beyond blogging. Over-explaining usually stems from the false belief that you can either predict what someone else is thinking, or control what they think about you.

If you were disappointed by my break from blogging, or it changed your opinion of my credibility, I’d rather try to win you back through action, not words. Besides, any explanation I give probably won’t make you feel any more valued as a reader (which you are!).

Instead: Make sure you explain to yourself what happened, so you can understand and avoid the same pitfalls in the future.

2 – Promise

I see this one a lot: “From now on I will blog X times per week/month, at 7:30 a.m. on Thursdays. Watch for it!”

Again, words can seem empty when you’ve just abandoned your blog and its readers for a time. This kind of ultra-specific promise can also create undue pressure on you while you’re getting back on track with your blogging workflow.

Instead: Put your own internal blog publication calendar in place. Make a promise to yourself and maybe an accountability buddy, business coach, or small group of supporters. When you’re feeling more confident, you can start to promote that schedule to the public.

3 – Apologize

Even though you may feel guilty or embarrassed because you haven’t posted as regularly as you hoped or promised, it didn’t do anyone real harm. And for a first-time reader of your blog, an apology will seem completely out of place.

Instead: If you’ve also been sending a regular newsletter on a set schedule, you could include a simple apology there. Email often makes a more intimate connection, and this will let people know how much you appreciate their trust in continuing to receive your messages.

4 – Overcompensate

Whatever got you fired up about blogging again, you may find yourself in a posting frenzy, with new ideas spilling out more quickly than you can capture them.

The problem is that if you double or triple your posting frequency, people may feel let down again when you return to your regular schedule. They may even wonder if you’re taking another break.

Instead: Keep writing – blog every day if you want to! Then schedule those extra posts to publish according to a manageable schedule you’ll be able to keep up with. Even if you don’t finish all the posts, outline your ideas so you can easily fill them in later.

Also, be sure to stay focused on your blog’s central topics – the things your ideal clients are most interested in.

5 – Raise the bar

Similar to overcompensating on frequency, after a blogging break you may also feel pressured to put out an epic blog post – one that’s very long, very detailed, or guaranteed to go viral.

Instead: Choose a blog post that will be easy for you to write – answer a customer question, introduce one of your local customers, or share someone else’s content and explain why you think it would be valuable to your reader.

If you’ve gotten waylaid on your business blogging journey, let go of your letdown and start again. Just don’t confuse your audience or damage your credibility when you do!

Three Keys to Effective Business Blogging – Lessons from the Top Business Blogs of 2014

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© nanuvision - Fotolia.com
© nanuvision – Fotolia.com

In early October, Social Fresh published their list of the top business blogs of 2014. If you’re looking to start or improve your own business blog in 2015, take the time to visit each of these blogs to learn from their examples.

What I found even more instructive about the Social Fresh post were the three criteria the judges used to rate each of the finalists. We can all apply these to assess and plan our own blogging efforts for 2015 and beyond.

As I was writing this post, I also came across a business model based on a three-legged stool. I found helpful synergies between those concepts and these three blogging standards from the Social Fresh post:

  1. Calls to action

Is the blog actively trying to convert a user in some way? This might be an email signup, a white paper download link, or even a simple CTA to watch, share or comment. Is there a clear business strategy being executed?

I love that this was first. It really speaks to the marketing part of content marketing. If each and every blog post isn’t trying to advance your relationship with the reader, then why bother?

Note the last sentence: Is there a clear business strategy being executed? Why are you blogging in the first place? What business goals is your blog serving? How will you know you’ve reached them?

The first leg of the business stool is money – there needs to be a clear path between reading your content and becoming a customer – even if that journey takes a long time and involves several steps.

For example, asking someone to sign up for your newsletter can create an opportunity to build a trusting relationship that leads to a later sale or referral.

Action: Make it clear and easy for your reader to follow through with an action that will lead them closer to doing business with you. Your call to action may appear at the end of the post, somewhere else in the post, and/or as part of the site design of each page.

  1. Content quality/consistency

Is the blog actually providing value? Is the content good and appealing to readers? Is the company regularly producing content?

Quality content is the purpose of the Content Mastery Guide blog and all of my work. While I personally strive for a weekly publication schedule, I would rather leave a hole in my calendar (and that definitely happens!) than post something that feels rushed, incomplete or sub-standard.

The second leg of the business stool is infrastructure – in this case whatever you do to consistently produce high-quality content on your business blog. This may include using an editorial calendar, managing your blogging time, and editing your work before you publish.

Action: Define a clear plan for your blogging success and revisit often to stay on track. Commit to whatever you need to start doing, stop doing, or keep doing in order to blog well and blog often.

  1. Audience engagement

Are there any comments? Are there a lot of social shares? Are people online talking about the content? Is there an audience engaged with the content?

I’ve never used comments as a measure of business blogging success (after all, would you rather get blog comments or calls from customers?). Today there are so many other powerful ways to interact with you and your content.

The third leg of the business stool is people – if a blog post publishes in an empty forest, does anyone read? Your blog needs a community of readers who see, reply to, like, comment and share your posts.

You may also find that you need different people to take on the many tasks involved in business blogging, whether that’s assigning a team member to coordinate and edit submissions, or outsourcing the whole process to a business blog writing service.

Action: Use social sharing buttons that make it easy for readers to promote your post to their networks. Share the posts widely across your different social media platforms. Reply graciously to all feedback and mentions. Build a blogging team to support your efforts.

To learn from 2014’s top business blogs, ask yourself whether your blog has the business strategy, consistency and quality, and audience involvement it needs to succeed in 2015. Start with these simple actions and let me know how it goes!

3 Secrets of Business Blogging for Busy People

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© jesadaphorn - Fotolia.com
© jesadaphorn – Fotolia.com

A client asked me to write a guest post that would take his readers behind the scenes of his blog. As a busy executive VP, he wanted to answer a common question:

“How do you find the time to blog every week?”

Ultimately, he decided not to reveal his biggest blogging secret (that he uses a blog ghostwriter), so I reworked the post to give you the benefits of our blogging experience.

While some people question the ethics of ghost blogging, what I do is take my client’s ideas, words and expressions, and put them together into a blog post written in his voice.

Here are the three most important things we do to keep my client’s blog rolling week after week:

1. We have a blogging schedule

Aside from holiday weeks or times of intensive travel, we’re committed to publish a new blog post every Wednesday. In order to make that happen, we line up as many posts as we can so we don’t have to scramble at the last minute.

I keep a calendar of upcoming blog posts and when they’re scheduled, and tell my client what we need to be working on next. We also have a recurring blog writing call booked in our calendars every two weeks. If one of us can’t make it, we always reschedule so it doesn’t get dropped.

2. We have systems in place

Because there are several moving pieces in the process, especially when we’re working with guests (see below), it’s important for us to use replicable systems that keeps us on track

For example, we use Microsoft Word tracked changes so he can quickly review and comment on my drafts and tweak as needed. At the bottom of that initial draft, I use a text expansion program to paste in a blogging promotion template for the social media updates my team posts to my client’s accounts via Buffer.

3. We love our guest bloggers

As passionate as my client is about his subject, sometimes he’s either not inspired by any topic in particular, or there’s too much going on in his business to devote as much attention to the blog.

At those times we rely on his connections to other related experts in his industry. Not only do guest posts give him a break from blogging himself, they bring more value to his readers with new perspectives and insights.

I work with our guest authors to either interview them and write up the posts (much as I do for my client), polish up something they’ve written for us, or re-print a post they’ve published on their own site.

All guests are promoted with bylines at the top of the article and a bio – with link – at the bottom. As well, we mention our guest bloggers on social media and tag them if we can.

Think you’re too busy to blog for your business? Try these three tactics and let your voice be heard! Or hand over the whole process with Content Mastery Guide’s business blog writing service.

Two Business Blogging Power Tools You Need to Be Using

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If you want to receive all of my latest posts by email, click here to subscribe to the weekly Blogging Tips newsletter.

Do you feel like your business blogging is hit-or-miss, with more misses than hits? In my latest post for SteamFeed, I introduce two systems that work beautifully together to hone your blogging efforts and produce better results.

The editorial calendar puts a structure around how blogging will achieve your business’s marketing goals, by plotting out exactly how and when you’ll produce relevant content for your audience.

Once that structure is in place, your mind is free to look for real-life examples, questions, stories and topics to fill out your calendar. Idea catchers help you quickly and efficiently capture those ideas so you never have to start blogging from a blank screen again.

© xalanx - Fotolia.com
© xalanx – Fotolia.com

Business Blogging Power Tools: Editorial Calendars and Idea Catchers

http://www.steamfeed.com/business-blogging-power-tools-editorial-calendars-idea-catchers/