I recently attended a workshop on using social media, and noticed a theme that ran through attendees’ comments: Provided we can find or make the time to blog, tweet, post status updates, and comment on other people’s blogs, how on earth do we generate enough content to fill these spaces? A few practical observations:
First off, the key to business writing for social media is to keep it short, sweet and focused. After all, you’re not writing War and Peace; you’re offering a quick tip or a brief comment that provides readers with some useful information, keeps you in front of your target market, and helps reinforce your expert status in your field.
Second, feel free to repurpose your content. In other words, take something you’ve already written for one purpose and create a shorter or longer version of it for another purpose. How does this work? Today, let’s look at how this strategy applies to blogging. Here are two examples:
- A client has just begun blogging, and realized that many of the stories he’s shared in his e-letters over the years offer evergreen lessons of real value to his consulting clients and prospects. He’s now choosing the best ones to adapt to a shorter blog-friendly retelling, and is creating a reserve of these “lessons learned”-type blog posts to alternate with more “newsy” updates. Tapping into your “best of” files is also a great way to overcome the common blogging fear that you won’t have enough to write about.
- What if you don’t have a stash of e-letters or articles to pull content from? Are you a frequent commenter on other people’s blogs or an active participant in discussion groups on sites like LinkedIn? Here’s a great idea from Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound (www.publicityhound.com), who recommends that you create a Google Alert for keywords that matter to you. Then when you see a blog post that makes you want to add a comment, use that comment as the basis for an expanded exploration of the topic on your own blog. Joan says this same trick applies when you’re answering discussion questions on LinkedIn.
Done this way, repurposing is a form of value-added recycling – and it makes you a better and more efficient blogger. Have a tip that’s made blogging easier for you? Please share it here!