Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

You’ve got a blog, you’re getting into the education based, content rich, web presence thing, but sometimes you just can’t think of anything to say. Don’t worry, you’re not alone and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Millions of marketers have begun to complain about the symptoms commonly diagnosed as Contentapation.

The good news is, there is a cure. The cure I’m referring does not come in pill form though, it’s a natural, organic and systematic approach to fighting and curing those outbreaks of feeling as though you have nothing to say. (Now, some might suggest this is a disease that shouldn’t be cured – after all, maybe you don’t have anything to say. My belief is that everyone has something to say, it just needs a little shove to get out.)

Here are some quick tips to add to your daily routine:
1) Set up search alerts in Google Alerts or Tweetbeep so you get a steady stream of ideas related to search terms in your industry
2) Use an RSS reader – Subscribe to lots of related blogs in Google Reader or Bloglines and visit your reader to search for ideas that you could explore deeper, apply differently or simply pass on to your readers.
3) Get to know some Social Bookmark sites – Use sites such Digg or del.icio.us to find out what other people are bookmarking, find interesting or are hot right now. This is also great tool to use to bookmark and store sites and pages you might want to right about in a future post.
4) Use an idea notebook – Get a Moleskin notebook and create list of the top ten topics you know you need to write about often because consist of important keyword phrases for search and refer to this list weekly
5) Tap the FAQs – Your customers, prospects, partners, journalists, suppliers and employees ask you questions every single day. Get in the habit of answering these questions on your blog as I’m guessing others might want to know the answers as well.

You can source one or all of the above tactics anytime you’re not feeling wordy but know you need to feed the beast.

Warning – if any of the above approaches cause you to post to your blog more than four times in one day, seek immediate medical help.

Posted by: John Jantsch on Nov 26, 08 | 8:08 am
Category: Blogging, Lead Generation | Tags: , delicious, Digg, Google Reader