9 Reasons Why A Blog is Important for Your Career and Life

The word “blog” sounds dull to me.

There is no resonating romance, and trying to attach passion to it is a struggle. I see visions of over-sharers wrestling with technology to publish the mundane details of their everyday lives… but maybe that’s Facebook.

“Blog” originated as slang for “web log.” Those two words were mauled and mangled and out popped “blog”. Try and explain that to a blogger at a dinner party – you just have to love the magic of language, grammar and words. Always evolving.

So why should you blog?

Three motivations are the most obvious.

• A passion project. A blog is your digital portal to share your current passion online. It’s text and multimedia without ink stains or Facebook distractions.
• An entrepreneur’s platform. Maybe you’d like to write professionally, working with brands and advertisers to receive compensation for your creativity.
  
• An expert’s expression. A blog is a place where you distill the experiences, thoughts and ideas that you have learned during your education, career and life journey.

The truth lies hidden somewhere in between.

Still…Why should you?

A successful career and life is based upon being “on purpose.” We all bring our own magic and uniqueness into the world. Your goal in life is to discover what that is, embrace it and share it.

Your blog can be the digital platform where it’s revealed.

To start a blog and continue to create and publish you will need to find the inspiration for the words and ideas.

Inspiration does not emerge from a vacuum. No matter how you twist and turn in a digital and media-rich world powered by Instagram photos and videos, the blog is still driven by words and writing.

Stephen King sums up where the inspiration starts…

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or tools) to write. Simple as that.”

Here are 9 reasons why blogging will make a big impact on your career and life if you are prepared to start the journey to create and publish:

1. Blogs refine your thoughts

Sitting down and distilling your ideas and insights into structured sentences and paragraphs is an art. Wrangling and wrestling those words into shape will produce clarity from the cloud. Make it a practice every day, and magic happens.

2. Blogs reward the creator

Creating is one thing, but publishing is another. Being willing to put your ideas “out there” takes bravery and a willingness to be vulnerable. Doubts may stop you. These include:

• Why would anyone want to read my ideas?
  
• I have nothing new to say.
  

Overcome your fears and publish your creation. Rewards will come. 

3. Blogs amplify your humanity

A blog amplified by social networks with simple-to-use interfaces is the intersection of humanity and technology. It is an extension and amplification of our uniqueness, creativity and content to 7 billion people.

The low-friction sharing will amplify who you are to a world that is waiting to hear your voice. 

4. Blogs connect us to our tribes

Tribes are no longer local but global connections of shared interests and passions. Blogs that are powered by Twitter feeds and online communities allow us to connect to those global tribes… in real time.

Connection with global communities provides insights and networks that can accelerate your learning process, opportunity and success.

You change them and they change you.

5. Blogs give introverts a voice

Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking highlights a new opportunity. The introvert now has a voice. It is estimated that 50% of us fit into that category. If you feel that is you then your blog can be your platform to speak to the world, let your personality shine and be heard. 

6. Blogs reward the “new age” publishers

Blogs are online magazines, books and resources all rolled into one.

A portal for expression, learning and publishing, they validate our creative content by quantifying attention through retweets, comments and sharing.

7. Blogs embrace the experimenters

In the age of print, making mistakes was expensive and time-consuming. With your online publishing platform you can experiment in real time with no financial risk.

8. Blogs accelerate discovery

The low friction of the social web allows content creators to bypass the old gatekeepers of editors and publishers. What took years or decades to achieve that important attention can be done in weeks and months.

9. Blogs open up a world without borders

Opportunity in the past was often limited to “local.” Today your online platform isn’t restricted by geography. The world is now your playpen.

You will grow

The consistent and persistent effort of online creation and publishing is a powerful journey in self-discovery and growth. It will be a career enhancer and a life changer. That willingness to be vulnerable, to make mistakes but keep creating will change you.

It is only through the door of risk that growth can enter.

You just have to start.

Disclaimer: I’m compensated by University of Phoenix for this blog. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

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How 7 Top Influencers Share Great Content on Twitter

The digital battle is on!

Content competition is fierce. One billion websites, two billion plus social media users and 3 billion plus mobile owners. So you need to break through the clutter not only on desktop but on smart phones. But build it and they will come is not an option.

Content marketing is two words.

So you not only have to create great content. But you have to build distribution networks for that content and then hustle it to the world on social, email and search engines. It needs persistent focused effort. That’s marketing.

How do you do that?

You can pay for it and pull out the credit card and start advertising on Facebook and Google. This is the fast way to put content in front of potential readers, viewers and customers. This is possible if you have the money but not the time.

But if you want to earn it rather than pay for it then you have a lot to do. This includes doing all of the following.

• Build distribution on Social media by growing your followers
• Make it easy for them to share your content
• Guest blogging for the top influencers in your industry
• Increase the size of your email list
• Grow your search engine ranking so your content gets found on the first page of Google

This is the work of years. But to make it even harder Facebook has changed the game in social. It has made the “earned attention” harder. It’s organic reach is approaching zero.

But there is one social network that doesn’t choke your posts and make them invisible through filtering to your followers.

Twitter.

Twitter power

Twitter is used by many top influencers to display their content and ideas. How do they use Twitter?

They have taken the time and put in the effort to build their social distribution.

Then they make sure that they are tweeting often.

What type of content works for influencers?

To find content I use the Popsters tool.

This is a great social app that allows you to find their top content on Twitter. It is a cool tool that allows me to find the top content not only on Twitter but Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Using this tool I have discovered what type of content gets shared the most and has the highest engagement.

Here are 7 of the top influencers on social media according to Forbes and some of their top tweets.

1. Kim Garst

Kim is a Twitter powerhouse and has over 400,000 Twitter followers. Kim is a prolific tweeter and uses images often and well. If you want to see Twitter “best practice” follow Kim. She is a great example to model your Twitter tactics on!

Kim blogs at KimGarst.com.

2. Mark Schaefer

Mark wrote the book on Twitter. The Tao of Twitter. He is a prolific author and international speaker. You can find him at his blog Businessesgrow.com

3. Joe Pulizzi

Joe is one of the brains behind Content Marketing Institute and knows how content works. This is one of his top ten tweets.

It is interesting to see that this one is not a visual tweet but Joe doesn’t post as many images as some of the other influencers.

4. Jay Baer

Jay’s online portal and authority site is at Convince and Convert. Jay and his team are “Digital marketing advisers”

He is also a speaker and author on social media and other things digital.

5. Pam Moore

Pam is a constant tweeter and a top influencer. She  runs a digital agency with the fun name “Marketing Nut“.

Here is one of her top tweets. She loves using visuals!

6. Jeffrey Hayzlett

Jeffrey Hayzlett is a top selling author and international speaker and blogs at Hayzlett.com.  Of  course one of his top tweets is an image of his book “Think Big. Act Bigger” which I am in the middle of reading.

7. Michael Brenner

Michael is a top influencer, blogger and digital marketer that covers social and content and top digital topics on his blog B2B Marketing Insider. This image he uses below which highlights some of the top influencers on Twitter reveals a great tactic to drive attention and traffic with Twitter.

Do a shout out!

A little curious?

I decided to see what my top tweets were and here is one of them I found on Popsters.

Here is one of my top tweets. It is a mini infographic. I have found this type of visual to be one of the best tactics to achieve a lot of retweets.

What is your top Twitter content?

So if you want to see what your top tweets and content on Twitter, Facebook and some of the other social media networks are in your niche try out Popsters.

 

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How to Use the 3-Act Structure To Improve Your Content Marketing

Unique… Helpful… Engaging.

These are the words that describe epic content marketing – but too many people are getting it wrong.

We can debate all day long about what makes for good content. But the one thing many would-be content marketers stumble on is coming up with an idea that hasn’t been rehashed or done to death.

There’s no point marketing content, if you can’t make it high quality and unique.

In the rush to have something to say, many businesses latch onto half-brained ideas and try to ride it out. The result is a jumbled mess that doesn’t make any sense, and only serves to frustrate their audience.

Storytelling seems to be a buzzword these days when it comes to content creation, but there’s much more to it than you think.

And I’m not here to tell you how to incorporate storytelling into your content, because that’s a topic that’s been done over and over.

However, what I can do is tell you how to avoid the trap of overdone ideas by using classic storytelling techniques. Helping you consistently create refreshing and amazing pieces of content.

Here’s how some classic storytelling techniques will help improve your content marketing.

Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth

The foremost storytelling technique I always keep in mind is the hero’s journey by Joseph Campbell.

In short, the hero’s journey is a classic sequence of actions that can be found in almost every story. Basically it’s a broad template which contends that every epic myth can be broken down into 12 distinct plot points.

As a content marketer you have to ask yourself, who is the hero of this story?

Most of you would have said yourself. Which is understandable, everyone naturally views themselves as the hero of the story.

But the key to creating consistently amazing pieces of content is to remember that you aren’t the hero in this story.

The hero is your audience.

Your role as a content marketer is not to be the hero, but the mentor.

The mentor is the character that every hero meets when they’re stuck. They provide all the necessary wisdom and advice that the hero needs in order to continue on their journey. Think Obi-Wan in Star Wars, Gandalf in Lord Of The Rings, or for a more contemporary example Jeff Bullas and this very article.

Every piece of content you craft has to be framed with the intention that it is the mentor dispensing valuable advice in order to aid the hero along their journey.

If you keep that in mind you’ll always be consistently creating content that is both valuable and useful to your audience.

Three-Act Structure

In screenwriting there is a model that divides a narrative into three distinct parts, or acts: the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Solution.

Like the hero’s journey the three-act structure is a basic template for most fictional narratives. It helps writers structure their narratives in a way that’s easy to understand.

Here’s an example of the three-act Structure in Star Wars.

But I don’t use the three-act structure as a way to model my content. Instead I use it as a way to help me generate new ideas.

You can use this to generate new ideas about any topic.

I’ll show you just how I used it to pitch Jeff Bullas a few ideas for a guest post. I personally like writing it all out in my notebook, but you can easily do yours differently.

The Setup

Classically the setup is where all the major characters are introduced, the world they live in, and all the conflict that will move the story forward.

In our case we already know who our characters are and the world they live in: the audience is the hero, and we’re the mentor. The conflict is fairly straightforward, the hero wants to know a piece of information that only the mentor can provide.

A key piece of advice when it comes to storytelling is this: you find the conflict, you find the story.

My process is to find a general topic of information that my hero wants to know more about.

When pitching Jeff I chose the topic of storytelling and content marketing.

Next up is to turn the hero’s problem into a goal, or declarative statement. What do they want to achieve by learning this piece of information?

As you can see the goal of my hero is, “I want to write an epic article about storytelling”.

There you have your Setup.

The Confrontation

In fiction writing the confrontation is when the stakes are raised because the hero encounters even more problems.

In my process I begin to break down the components of the hero’s goal. This is the most important step, because you have to thoroughly understand what questions your audience want answered.

What are the details they would need to know in order to achieve their goal? What questions would they ask?

I often use Quora as a way to keep in the loop about which questions are being commonly asked in my niche.

Although the easiest way is usually just asking: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Try and break down at least three different questions or problems that the hero will encounter.

As you can see with this other example I already have three different topics to write about. But those topics are just a little too generic, so I’ll break them down even further to generate more ideas!

The Solution

The final act is when all the narrative’s conflicts are resolved. All information and conflicts introduced in the first two acts are resolved in order to, theoretically, create a satisfying ending.

For my process what I do is come up with solutions to the questions raised in the previous section. I always aim for at least two different solutions to every question.

In the end what you’ll end up with is a handful of different topics you can easily write about!

When it came to pitching Jeff I was able to come up with a handful solutions to my hero’s questions. Eventually I settled on three different topics I particularly liked and pitched those to Jeff.

By using this process you’ll be able to consistently generate new ideas for content that are filled with actionable advice. Too many people try to solve every problem in one go, and what you’re usually left with is a very general article that doesn’t answer any specific questions and ends up a boring read.

Instead just focus on one idea and be as in-depth as possible when it comes to that single idea.

What you’ll find is that you’ll never be stumped for ideas again!

Show, Don’t Tell

Every writing student has heard this at one point, to learn how to show, not tell. The principle is that you shouldn’t just spoon-feed information to the audience. Instead writers are encouraged to think of different ways to showcase a piece of information.

The most straightforward way is to pick a topic and write an article about it. But there are so many ways to present a single piece of information.

For example, on this topic of storytelling techniques I could have, just as easily, created an instructional video, or an infographic instead of an article.

Or I could have held an event or workshop and directly taught my method to a group of people.

Using the content multiplier framework in Dan Norris’s book Content Machine I’m able to find different ways to present my information.

As a content creator you have to think of the different ways your audience absorbs information.

This is a great way to significantly increase the different types of content you can produce, and all from one idea!

Key takeaways

• Your audience is the hero of the story, you’re the wise mentor helping them on their journey

• Focus on the challenges your audience faces, and how you can help them overcome them

• There is always more than one way to present a single piece of information

Often the hardest part of content creation isn’t writing it out, it’s coming up with an original idea in the first place.

But what you’ll find is that by using these classic storytelling techniques, not only will you overcome writer’s block – you’ll also be able to constantly generate an awesome piece of content your audience will love!

Guest Author: Jonathan Chan is the Content Crafter at Foundr Magazine, a magazine for young entrepreneurs. He can often be found writing and reading anything and everything to do with entrepreneurship and the startup world. That or spending too much time pretending to be the next MMA star. Check out more of his writing over at the Foundr Blog.

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9 Ways to Make Money On Instagram

Instagram started out as an image-sharing app with only a tiny workforce.

It found a sweet spot in modern society that combined vanity, social networks and a shift toward visual media.

And then one day Mr. Zuckerberg decided to pay a billion dollars to acquire it.

Soon it was a tool for many; famous celebrities, politicians, marketers, and even some top-notch businesses.

Today, Instagram ranks 7^th on the list of the Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites with over 100 million unique monthly users and over 300 million active users posting photos and videos every day.

Apart from the 15-second video sharing option, we’re all excited about the new feature Instagram plans on releasing by the end of this year: targeted advertisements that show up on user’s photo feeds.

Paid ads, means more chance to make money.

If you’re interested in monetizing your Instagram account, here are 9 ways to turn those pictures into profits.

1. Start building a solid followership

Successful marketing on social media is almost directly proportional to having a long list of followers.

Whether the followership was obtained before your marketing efforts or after is beside the point – you just need a significant amount of followers! The more you have, the more you are “seen” and the greater your chances are of turning leads to sales.

There are several ways you can grow your followers on Instagram. Some of the most effective ways  have been highlighted by Melyssa Griffin, tactics such as; liking photos in your niche, socializing, asking people to follow you, running contests, and more.

Also don’t forget to follow and post on several hashtags in your niche.

2. Always provide a link to your blog

Product links and links to your blog are crucial when it comes to making money on Instagram!

Every single image, video, or whatever else you share must include CTA’s (in this case links to your blog or wherever they could purchase the item).

Also make sure you place an item number or tag that could make their purchase easier.

Instagram currently doesn’t allow clickable site links, so for now the users will just have to do with re-writing the link in their browser window.

3. Share quality images

Despite the new features, Instagram is, and always has been about sharing beautiful images.

Nothing will entice your prospects or monetize your account more than high quality, beautiful images.

Show your followers what your brand is about with images that appeal to their visual senses. Show off your products, tell them your brand story, create graphically altered images and get creative.

If you’re a gym service for example, you could show off pictures of hot hunks doing their work-outs. If you’re a yoghurt selling service, share images of your product and perhaps other ways you could use that yoghurt in recipes.

Check out how Starbucks does this with amazing graphics, artistic pictures of Starbuck cups, and their latest coffee creations.

Always be sure to share photos of your latest products. For example, you could be writing a new book. Take a cool snap of the cover and share it with a release date.

4. Use the video function

If a picture is worth a thousand words – then what is a video (which is comprised of practically thousands of pictures) worth? You do the maths!

Thanks to Instagram’s latest feature (and competition with lead rival, Vine) there is a 15-second video sharing option that you get creative with.

Come up with a personal message for your fans and tell them why you think they should try out your new product. Or perhaps, you could share a 15-second fast-paced process of how you build your creations.

There’s no limit to how creative you can get with video building!

Check out top brands on Instagram and Vine for some video sharing inspiration.

5. Get your fans involved

Many fans and followers are willing to endorse your brand only for a little recognition – and of course a post about them on your profile. This is a great way to engage your followers as well as outsource original, quality content.

Give your followers a chance to submit their photos with your product, share their “experience” in a video, or anything they like. The best submissions could get discounts on your products, a small reward, or perhaps just a little recognition through your brand name.

Here’s a great example of Starbucks latest “Hello Fall” video contributed by an artistic fan after they introduced the Fall cup.

6. Organize contests or events

Get people to like your images and follow you because you’re running a cool campaign or an event.

Offer exclusive deals for a short period of time and keep updating your users on how time is running out (urgency works!).

Sharing special promotions or coupons is another way to get your followers involved in a contest and turn those leads into sales. Ask them to double-tap or tag a friend to get their name in the draw box.

One of the best advantages of running contests and campaigns on Instagram is that you can create separate hashtags and keep all contributions in one place.

Buffalo Wings and Rings Jordan contest

7. Get testimonials from clients

Get happy clients to upload pictures or videos of themselves using your product.

There’s nothing more convincing than a handful of images, videos, or testimonials that provide social proof.

8. Get an influencer on the job for you

If you know a celebrity like Kim Kardashian, you’re one lucky duck!

But, of course not everyone has direct access to the Kardashians, much less their Instagram profile.

However, there are other people who have big followings on Instagram that are much more accessible. For example, if you’re selling women apparel look for popular online influencers such as fashion bloggers, entrepreneurs, or social media gurus that have a large fan following.

Plenty of blogger models are willing to share what brands they wear and why purchasing from a specific brand would be a good idea. This is a great way to generate referral traffic through links to your blog as well as your branded Instagram hashtags.

9. There’s an app for everything

Use an app to do a bulk of the work for you!

The number of tools out there for boosting your Instagram marketing is overwhelming.

But here are some of the best:

• Iconosquare: This is a tool that provides Instagram users with advanced statistics about their profile such as total number of likes received, average number of likes and comments per photo, most liked photos, follower growth charts, and more.
• Repost: Allows you to re-post an amazing retina-ready image from another Instagram user’s profile while still giving them the credit.
• Instaquote: Share inspiring “quotes of the day” and keep your followers engaged.
• Postso: This is a post scheduling app that makes a busy marketer’s life easy. Schedule your posts, specify a location, sit back and relax.
• Piquora: This is a visual marketing app that will curate and suggest the best photos for your posts that can pull content based on geography, language, and specific locations.

Guest Author: Alison Stone works at Dissertation cube where she provides dissertation writing help to students. In her spare time she writes blogs for students starting their career and for those who are still in jobs. Find her on Google+.

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