5 Sources for Blog Content You Already Have at Your Fingertips
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The world is full of ideas and information you can use on your blog, but you don’t always have to work hard at coming up with a topic, and then spend even more time researching it. If you’ve ever completed any of the following projects, take a look at them – you just might be surprised at the wealth of material you have on hand!
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If you’ve written articles for your own newsletter or for other print or online publications, you may be able to re-use them on your blog. A short article can probably be reproduced as is, or with just a few updates, whereas longer articles can possibly be split into two or more separate blog posts with minor revisions to add an appropriate introduction and conclusion to each.
Seminars, Workshops and Presentations
If you do any public speaking, you’ve already spent many hours researching your topics and preparing your speaker notes. If the information is of interest to a live audience, it’s sure to be equally useful to your blog readers. A short presentation contains enough material for at least one blog post, and longer sessions might become the basis for an entire series, spread out over a longer period of time.
Any handouts that you’ve created can likely be crafted into blog posts as well.
Books and E-books
If you’re the author of a book or an e-book, why not share an excerpt on your blog? In addition to providing your readers with some valuable information, you may find that people are more inclined to make a purchase when they have a good feel for what to expect.
Videos
Watching video is becoming one of the most popular online activities. According to comScore, Inc., 172 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in April for an average of 14.9 hours per viewer. If you’re taking advantage of this trend by creating how-to videos and posting them on YouTube or other video sharing websites, there’s no reason you can’t post those same videos on your blog.
Not all readers will be willing to take the time to sit and watch a 10 or 15 minute video, so you might consider including a text version in your post as well.
Audio
Have you ever delivered a teleclass or been a guest on someone’s podcast? Do you have a recording of it? That could also be great material for your blog, whether you use the whole recording or a selected excerpt. As in the case of video, you may want to include a text version for the benefit of those who prefer to read than to listen.
These are just a few sources of material you’ve created that you may be able to repurpose for your blog. What others can you think of?
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Really great ideas. I often have issues when blogging that I make the blogs too long. I like to keep them short cant always do so. How do you keep your blogs simple?
Don’t worry about editing while you’re writing your first draft. Let all your ideas flow. Then, read what you’ve written and try to figure out which parts are not essential to your core message and take them out. If it’s still too long, consider splitting into more than one post.
Problogger’s Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers is a really great resource for making sure your blog posts are compelling to your readers.
Good luck!
I also use ideas that catch my eye when reading other blogs and newsletters. Sometimes just a part of a sentence or a phrase will jot my mind to a different take on the same topic or an entirely new topic. Am also a big user of ‘note to self’ when I see something in a magazine, on a billboard, hear on the radio or TV. As my blog (http:/www.maurerconsultinggroup.com/blog) is focused on business strategy for small businesses, it’s not that difficult to spot a really good — or really bad — example of marketing or brand strategy to write around.
I actually started my blog with a number of entries gleaned from my five years of newsletter articles and have since used some of my seminar topics, and bits from a business book I published last year, so I’m on track with your ideas.
We are definitely on the same page! I also have an ongoing list of topic ideas, which I tap into when I’m in need of inspiration.
One might think that after you’ve been blogging a while, it would be harder to come up with fresh new ideas, but the opposite is true. Once you have a blogging mindset, you’re constantly seeing things to write about, as you say.
Thanks so much for stopping by and introducing yourself!