Jonathan Thomas is a blogger and social media marketer that runs several successful niche blogs such as: Niche Blogger Today - a guide for niche bloggers and Anglotopia - The world’s largest Anglophile blog. You can connect with him on Twitter: @jonathanwthomas

The best way to build traffic for a new niche blog is to have lots of content and to post it regularly. Many new bloggers don’t realize this and are often disappointed with their traffic when they start out. They write a post or two a week and the traffic just isn’t increasing. It’s demotivating and makes you question whether or not you should waste your time niche blogging.

To help generate steady traffic and attract loyal readers, you need to have a content schedule. This could mean blogging five or seven days a week or it could mean just posting on the same two days of the week. Your readers want to know when to expect new stuff from you. So, why is it good for your niche blog to have a content plan and how should you develop it?

Why do you need a Content Plan?

Having a content schedule helps build loyal readership. If you write about specific things on specific days, readers will know when to come back. Readers will also take you more seriously if you have a methodical plan behind the blog, that is they know it’s not just the aimless ramblings of a procrastinator. It will help foster community and turn your blog into a favorite amongst your audience. A content plan keeps people coming back for more, especially with Niche Blogs.

Time Management

A content plan also helps you manage your time. When starting a blog, you’re often awash with tons of ideas for posts. So many, that you quickly get burnt out as the drudgery or writing about the same things sets in. If you organize your blog into content categories, you can spend your time focusing on several targeted ideas a week, as opposed to hundreds. This will fill your blog with relevant content to your niche, increasing the likelihood that people will find you via the search engines.

Good Habits

A content plan also helps to create good blogging habits. To maintain a successful niche blog community, you need to regularly update your blog (and not just with blog posts), respond to comments and overall monitor the site. You’ll create a production state of mind - meaning that you’ll get in the habit of writing a post a day, or even writing them all in one day and scheduling them to post. This will make the creation process much easier to begin and end.

Establishes Niche Authority

If you’re regularly writing about particular subjects, the sheer amount of content that this creates will establish your authority in your niche subject. Who are you going to trust more? The blog with a few sparse posts written at odd times, with very little information? Or the blog that is filled with relevant content to the subject your interested in that ’s updated in a methodical fashion?

Helps with Ideas for posts

Often, as you write in a more regimented, methodical fashion, you’ll come up with even more ideas for relevant posts. Then, you’ll find yourself altering your own content plan to fit in new and interesting ideas.

How to Develop Your Content Plan

The first step in developing your niche blog content plan is to sit and think long and hard about what you want your blog to be. Do you want to be a rockstar in your niche? Or do you want to be part of the scenery? Or do you just want a creative outlet?

If you want your niche blog to take over the world, then you need to post every day (and maybe more than once a day).

If you want to a part of a larger niche community, post 2 to 3 times a week.

If you just want a creative outlet, then post once or twice a week, depending on how the mood moves you but be sure to make sure it’s the same days.

What are Others Doing?

Research is so important when building your blog. Hopefully, you found people blogging about the same things as you. What are they doing? Do they have a schedule? What do they regularly write about? What are they doing wrong? And then ask the most important question a niche blogger faces:

How can you do it better?

Think About your Niche

Think long and hard about what interests you so much about your niche subject. What would you like to read about? Compare to your competition. Find some way to differentiate yourself while still focusing on the subjects that interest you the most. If you lack passion for any of your posts, it will show in your writing and will turn off readers.

Then think about how you can express your interest the most effective way. Think about the types of posts you’d like to write. That can be lists, interviews, reviews, features, videos, etc. Keep those in mind when it comes time to layout your content schedule.

Features and Small Posts

There are two types of posts that are relevant to niche blogs, features and small posts. Features are long posts (like this one) that focus on a subject and develop it fully (essay like, lists, interviews, etc). A small post is much shorter and focused on something that can be digested quickly (a video, photo slideshow, 2-3 paragraph post, etc).

You need to ask yourself what your feature to small post ratio will be. You will probably get burnt out if you post a long feature every day. Similarly, you niche blog may get stale if you only write quick short posts and don’t give your readers something MORE. Features are also more likely to gain attention on social media sites than a short post.

So, how many feature posts can you write for a week? How many short posts? It’s been my experience that one or two features is plenty for the week while 3 to 4 small posts will keep things interesting.

Always be Ahead

The most important aspect of developing a content schedule is to always be ahead of yourself. If your posts aren’t time sensitive, then schedule them out a week or two in advance. This will ensure that if anything comes up, you have a post going out no matter what.

Have a Backup

It’s not a bad idea to have a well full of articles that haven’t been published in your back pocket to use when you have nothing else to write about. It could be a longer feature you’re waiting for the right time to post or an idea your still wrapping your head around. Having these types of posts will help you when you’ve hit Blogging Burnout and can’t bear writing for a couple days.

Choose the days of the week you want to post

When planning your content schedule, keep in mind that there are blogging cycles during the week. There are days when your traffic will be down, such as Monday or Friday. People are getting back into the week on Mondays and people are exiting the week on Fridays. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the best days of the week to have big, content rich posts go out.

On some of my blogs, I use Friday as a link roundup day. I write about cool links that I found that don’t warrant their own post, but are worth sharing. On Monday, I usually put out a video or quick tip. Something light. Save the meat for the middle of the week when more people are paying attention.

Choose themed days

Some people might think it’s lame to picked themed days, but it’s a very effective way for people to remember your niche blog. For example, on Niche Blogger Today I have Theme Tuesday, Wordpress Wednesday, Technical Thursday, SEO Sunday, etc. It immediately lets people know what the column is about and gets them interested. I also recommend creating separate categories for each of these themed days, that way someone can find your themed posts all in one place when they are browsing your site. It’s not a bad idea to create category links for your themed days in your blog sidebar.

When should you schedule posts to post?

I’ve already talked about choosing the right days to post but what time of the day is it best to post? A general rule of thumb is to set your scheduled posts to go out mid-morning. People often are looking for something to read after they’ve settled at their desks with their cups of coffee. Also, by posting in the morning you’re more likely to get somewhere on social media sites because your content will be in front of people’s eyeballs for most of the day.

Always Double Check

Many bloggers don’t think of it, but they should be subscribed to their own blog feed. That way they will know if their scheduled post has gone up at the right time as well as making sure it’s formatted correctly. It’s also a great way to spot errors that can be fixed before your post hits critical mass. Also visit your own blog. Make sure the posts display correctly, respond to comments and interact with your readers. Engagement will keep them coming back.

Tweak

If something in your content schedule isn’t working, then by all means don’t be afraid to change your plan. If your regular posts on the mating habits of feral cats are not bringing in the traffic you expected, shift the topic into another category. Your niche blog should be an ever changing, ever growing organism that can change as quickly as it needs to in order to stay relevant.

What Strategies have Worked for You in Developing a Content Plan?

Another challenge that faces a lot of bloggers who’ve reached a point of getting their blog past the ‘launch phase’ and where they have regular readers is forming those readers into a ‘community’.

What I noticed in the growth of my photography site was that in the first 6 months most of my readers seemed to be in ‘consumption’ mode (there just to consume and not really interact or participate) and that in the next 6 to 12 months a community began to emerge with readers interacting more with me and one another. In the next 6 months readers have begun to really take more ownership of the site and are more regularly contributing not just in comments but in writing content, volunteering in the forum etc.

This seems to naturally happen over time to some extent - but was also something that I have been quite intentional about fostering within the readership.

Here are a few tips on how to do it.

1. Start with Comments

Perhaps the most natural place to start to build ‘community’ on a blog is within its comments section. This is a good place because in our day and age it is a place that most web users are ‘wired’ to look for interactivity in. The keys in building community within your comments section include:

• Ask Questions in posts (this will draw comments out of readers)
• Interact with Readers (if you’re not willing to comment why would others - this gets the ball rolling)
• Model the type of comments and tone you want (if you want people to feel safe and at home you need to police and moderate the trolls and spammers)
• Followup Questions (answer questions whether they be in comments or via email)

Further Reading: How to Get More Comments on Your Blog and 7 Ways to Turn a Blog Post Upside Down and Get More Comments

2. Reader Centered Posts

Show readers that you value them by regularly publishing posts that are ALL about them. There are lots of ways of doing this including:

• Answering Reader Questions
• Inviting Questions from Readers
• Posting a Question for discussion
• Highlighting a reader and their blog, comment, site

The key is to regularly build into the rhythm of your blog moments where your readers take centre stage and have an opportunity to contribute and be valued.

Further Reading: The Power of Making Readers Famous

3. Interactive Tools and Projects

Whether it be running weekly polls, using quizzes, running a competition in your comments section or some other interactive tool or project - the more you get your readers to ‘do’ something the more ownership that they’ll feel over your site. I find that even the anonymous voting in a poll has the power to make a reader feel connected.

4. Invite Reader Generated Content

I’ve talked about reader generated content in an earlier post in this series with regards to how it can help you keep fresh content on your site - but the other benefit of it is that it can help readers grow in their connection to your blog.

The way I grew reader generated content on my photography site was simply to start a photography tutorials area of the forum there. In that area I invited readers to submit their tips. The idea was that the area would help identify readers from within the community who had a talent and passion for teaching others. I’ve since used some of the best tutorials on the main blog and one or two of the authors have become regular writers.

5. Become a Cheer Leader

Look for any opportunity that you can to cheer your community along. I regularly attempt to give feedback to DPS readers on how well ‘we’ are doing as a community. When ‘we’ hit a new milestone in terms of forum members or traffic numbers I talk about it in our newsletter, when ‘we’ get mentioned in a mainstream publication I make note of that….

My approach with this feedback to readers isn’t to highlight how good ‘I’ am as a blogger - but to show the community what ‘we’ have achieved. I find that each time I do this that the feedback has been excellent and that it spurs readers on to help us grow and become even better.

6. Give Readers Jobs

I wrote about this a couple of years ago now but one of the best ways to build a sense of engagement and ownership within your readership is to give readers jobs. You can’t do this with everyone of your readers but it is amazing how many people don’t want to just read and consume - they want to be a part of building something that matters. ‘Jobs’ can be anything from getting them to help you moderate comments, to being a forum moderator, to coming up with poll topics, to judging competitions, to writing guest posts etc

7. Set Reader Homework

Another great way to get a little more interactivity and buy in from readers is to set them homework in your posts. This is particularly effective when you have a ‘tips’ or ‘how to’ type blog where you’re teaching people and it is a natural way to finish a post to say ‘go and do this’.

Again at DPS we have a photography assignment area in our forum where we have a weekly assignment for readers to go away and complete before reporting back with an image that they’ve taken. Heaven forbid if we miss a weekly assignment - our readers would be up in arms!

You don’t need a forum area dedicated to this to set homework. Just end a post with an invitation to go and do something and to report back on how they did and you’ll find a percentage of your readers will complete the task and in doing so will feel more loyalty to you and your blog.

Further Reading: Building Blog Community by Setting Homework for Readers

8. Give multiple avenues to ‘join’ or be a ‘member’

I’ve mentioned a few times above the forum at DPS. I can’t express to you just how powerful that area of the site has become. While it doesn’t have as many unique visitors each month as the blog segment of the site - it is visited by a growing number of hardcore DPS fans who are visiting on a daily basis and really creating an amazing community there.

Similarly - adding a weekly newsletter to the site has created another ‘connecting point’ with readers and a gentle reminder each week to stop by the blog and or forum to interact. I’ve found that having a blog, forum and newsletter to be a lot of work but a fantastic way to engage with different readers in ways that appeal to their learning style. Many readers have connected in 2 and even 3 of these ways - each time they access a new part of the site they ‘buy in’ just a little more.

One last tip

Above all, the best way of building a community on your blog is to lead the way and start to BE the community that you want to form. This is something that will bring the 8 tips above to life…. or…. if you don’t do it is likely to ensure that you fail in building community on your blog. Readers will take your lead but are unlikely to want to join a community if you as the leader of it seems ambivalent about the whole thing.

How do You Build Community on Your Blog?

That’s enough of me talking - what have you found to be useful in building a sense of community on your blogs?

Further Reading: 3 High-Powered Reader Engagement Tactics and Secrets to Google Community and Conversation on Your Blog.

This post is part of a series on taking blogs to the next level. Next in the series we’ll be looking at shaping the brand of your blog.

by Erik Sass

As a business-to-business marketing platform, Twitter has legs. About 56% of Twitter users say they use the online social communication site for business purposes, according to Rodney Rumford, a social media guru and one of the keynote speakers at the inaugural Gravity Summit on Social Media in Los Angeles Wednesday.

The statistic, based on a survey of 700 Twitter users, suggests the service’s value as a business-to-business marketing platform, alongside its emerging utility for consumer marketing.

“Twitter is a goldmine,” Rumford said, adding that a number of big consumer brands are already on the site–including Starbucks, which currently boasts about 6 million followers.

Rumford also noted that small businesses are using Twitter to advertise, citing the example of a gourmet Korean taco truck business in Los Angeles which since its launch in November has built a following through Twitter: “The driver tweets where the truck will be 20 minutes ahead of time, and literally hundreds of people show up,” one conference attendee confirmed.

Marketers can use Twitter actively or passively, Rumford says–in the first case by reaching out with promotional messages, and in the second by setting up a “listening engine” that allows them to track consumer sentiment in public postings on the site. Any active marketing must be handled carefully to avoid alienating consumers with the appearance of dishonesty or inauthentic, impersonal messages: “It’s not a campaign, it’s a conversation,” he said.

Read article…

If you’re just using LinkedIn to job hunt, you’re missing out on the power of Twitter. Here’s expert advice on how to tweet your way to new contacts and opportunities.

By C.G. Lynch

February 25, 2009 — CIO — Though LinkedIn tops the list of professionally-oriented social networks for job seeking, you can also use Twitter to get the word out about your skills and talents to relevant people in your industry.

But you must take some steps to be a good Twitter citizen before you tweet yourself into your next gig. We spoke with some career and social media experts on how to utilize Twitter for the purpose of job seeking, and the ways in which you can promote your own interests while helping others at the same time. (As you’ll find, you can’t do one without the other).

If you’re new to Twitter, we recommend reading our beginners’ guide to Twitter, as well as our Twitter etiquette guide, to learn more about what makes this community operate. Overall, it’s important to remember that Twitter is about exchanging ideas and letting people know more about you based on the content of your tweets.

Read article…

A little while ago I wrote a post, dubbed “Blog Last.” It examined the strategic process that should proceed blogging in today’s social media environment, in response to the 86 percent failure rate companies are experiencing (image: Blogging and Recording by Jacob Botter). That being said, there’s still tremendous benefit available to those who can successfully blog, including:

This Network Solutions Solutions Stars blogging video (disclosure: we helped produce this) gets into greater details about the benefits of blogging.

But we’ve reached a point in the blogging era where marketing blogger rarely talk about best practices anymore. Darren Rowse still does a fantastic job of providing prescient tips. It seems like a good idea to dust off the cobwebs and put together a list of best practices for those who are just starting out. Here are my tips for writing a great blog.

Structuring Content

You need a guidepost to serve your readers. They are the people that matter, the stakeholders you are trying to serve with the blog. An editorial mission serves as a compass, and keeps a blogger from wandering into the inevitable eddies and pools on the social web that while personally interesting, your readers don’t care about. Write out a simple mission that generally determines the topics you’ll discuss.

What to write about on a day-to-day basis (image: Blogging Readiness by cambodia4kidsorg)? Ever have a creative session? Coming up with ideas can be a brainstorm. When stuck, I try to do anything but sit in front of the computer. Often relaxing, going to the gym, reading other blog posts and news sources online can trigger fantastic ideas.

Another source is my actual day-to-day work. If you’re working on it, it’s likely other professionals or stakeholders are interested in it, too. Your offline experiences are valuable & a great platform for a unique idea or perspective. Keep an idea log for future posts.

Do you have commentary to add? Let’s hope so. Because there are plenty of safe blogs out there. Choose a position, have a stance, offer a point of view, and take a risk. I’m more comfortable being wrong then being boring. And I’m not afraid to be criticized for standing up against what my be deemed popular in the echo chamber. That’s distinguished this blog from other social media conversations.

But opinions are not the only way to add value. Your company must have subject matter expertise of some sort that your stakeholders need. Offer it, show it, and let it shine.

Blog content does not need to be perfect like a white paper or a corporate document. Think in brush strokes. That’s blogging. Taking an idea that wouldn’t necessarily make for a full article in a trade publication, but still has value for your readers is a natural. Remember, add some color commentary on pertinent topics.

Usually, except when writing a long position paper or primer like this one, try to limit posts to 3-10 paragraphs in length. Fully researched concepts can be broken into several posts, and later banded together for an ebook.

If you are trying to build readership, you want to post a minimum of two to three times a week. Great posts and events often drive readers into your blog. Consistent on topic discussion and frequency is what creates loyal readers.

Tone

It’s not a formal business document, folks. This kind of over-massaged approach to blogging kills efforts quickly. Minimize your approval processes and get away from fear-based control.

Personality should be included (image: 2000 bloggers by elaine vigneault). You have to be you, right? Let your humor, your attitude come through. It may not be perfect, and you may learn some things about how you affect people, but it needs to be genuine. Personality infused blogging attracts others to your writing, demonstrates transparency and authenticity, and really just returns your company to a human level.

How do you do this? Just write it like you were talking with someone on a Saturday afternoon.

Proof for grammar and typos, not business style. It’s a good idea to proof a couple of times. You won’t catch every typo (or at least I don’t). Remember, it’s a blog, not the Sistine Chapel. Let it go. Another thing is to try and remove unnecessary first person references (I, me) as the post is about them, not you.

Prepping Your Post for Primetime

It’s a good idea to link to a minimum of three other blogs per post. This gets you read by other bloggers, and also demonstrates that you’ve researched your topic, and actually have subject matter expertise to offer. Find an entire discussion on cross-linking here.

An ideal post offers at minimum a photo, and if at all possible additional video, and audio to supplement the post. This breaks up a post and tells a more compelling story. Shel Israel once noted that when he inserted multimedia into his post, he saw dramatic increases in readership. There are plenty of places to research this kind of cross-linking, multimedia and information.

Check out Flickr Creative Commons for Images (Make sure to provide attribution). A wide variety of video channels and hosting sites beyond YouTube can provide video resources. Places to research blog posts for cross-links:

When searching use key words and phrases from posts to find links. Reading these posts will also make your content stronger as you will be forcing yourself to take an extra half hour and fact check. In an
ideal world, you or your social media marketing partner is using del.icio.us (or other bookmarking service) to build a reservoir of links to informative posts for later use.

Getting Read

Comment on and link to other blogs as other bloggers will become aware of you and link back. Building relationships with other bloggers and influentials online is essential for your blog to become accepted.

Really, I cannot emphasize this enough. Rarely is content special enough to be discovered on its own. You must be participating, and become an active part of a community if you want your valuable content to be discovered and read. This in its own right could be another primer.

Don’t forget to register the blog with Mahalo, Technorati, Google, and other relevant search engines. Other smart tips include adding the blog’s url as a call to action in your email signature, on your business card, and on your social network profiles. In short, integrate with your other outreach efforts.

In this series we’re looking at 9 things that bloggers need to work on once their blog moves out of ‘launch phase’ and into maturity.

Today I want to focus upon the topic of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

While SEO is something that is well worth while focusing upon right from the start of your blog - I’ve found that it becomes particularly important once your blog is at least a few months old. In my experience it is not until a blog is 6 to 12 months old that it really begins to grow in its authority in Google.

I will not rehash everything I know about SEO here (I’ll link to some resources at the bottom of this post) but here are just two tasks that I think established bloggers will particularly want to focus upon (I’m assuming that you’ve got some of the basics like getting titles set up right):

1. Optimizing Successful Pages on Your Blog

I mentioned this earlier in this series of posts but one of the first things to do is to identify and analyze the pages that people are arriving to your blog on from Search Engines. If you’re like most blogs you’ll find that a handful of your old posts generate a significant percentage of your search engine traffic. Identify these pages and you can then go about increasing the ranking of those pages even further in Google by doing some of the following:

• increasing keyword density of these pages - don’t add the keywords that people are searching for too many more times, but it can help to add them 1-2 times more, bold the keywords, add them to heading tags, add them to image tags etc.
• increase the internal links to these pages - if you find a page that is getting a lot of search traffic, any extra links to the page that you can generate (from both within your blog and outside it) can help its authority. You might want to even highlight some of these pages in your sidebar or navigation - or to link to them within other posts on your blog on a similar topic.

2. Create More Content on Related Search Terms

Once you start getting a handle on what type of information that people are searching for you should begin to make a list of other related topics that you might want to write about. You can get ideas from this by looking at keywords that people use to arrive on your blog and thinking about synonyms for those words but also by looking at online services like Google Trends which maps what people are searching the web for.

Another good tool for analyzing search traffic and coming up with new topics to write about it 103bees which gives some metrics on the questions people are asking to find your blog. These questions are topics your readers are actually asking which shows you what they’re typing into Google. Another great tool to try is Lijit which is a search tool you can use on your blog (see it in my sidebar). This tracks what terms people are searching your blog for. The useful thing about it is that they also show you what terms people searched for that there was no search results on your blog for - very handy information.

There is A LOT more that you can do to increase the search engine authority of your blog. Part of it just comes down to writing great quality content over the long haul (which over time increases the number of doorways into your blog and grows the number of links from other sites to it) but below I’ve listed some other resources from both within ProBlogger and from SEO experts that will hopefully give you plenty of things to work on.

Further Reading:

• Search Engine Optimization for Blogs (SEO)
• SEO Book - one of the best resources to invest your time and money into in this area of SEO. I’ve learnt a lot from Aaron the author of this resource.
• 9 SEO Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Have
• How to Get Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog

Also - here are three helpful videos (particularly for WordPress Users) with some great tips from Matt Cutts (Google Engineer), Joost de Valk and Stephan Spencer.

WordPress SEO & Optimisation Strategies a4uexpo London 2008 from existem on Vimeo.

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

17 Ways to Use Twitter for Business and Some Not

More and more small business folks are giving in to what seems like an insurmountable mountain of hype and jumping on the twitter bandwagon.

But, some people still look at twitter on the surface and conclude that it’s one big waste of time. I can’t say I disagree completely, however, like all social media and marketing tactics, before you can determine if something makes sense you need to analyze your objectives. So, instead of asking why you would use it, ask how it might help you achieve some other already stated objectives.

1) Would you like a way to connect and network with others in your industry or others who share you views? It’s a good a tool for that.

2) Would you like a way to get instant access to what’s being said, this minute, about your organization, people, products, competitors or brand? It’s a good tool for that.

3) Would you like a steady stream of ideas, content, links, resources, and tips focused on your area of expertise or interest? It’s a good tool for that.

4) Would you like to monitor what’s being said about your customers to help them protect their brands? It’s a good tool for that.

5) Would you like to extend the reach of your thought leadership – blog posts and other content? It can be a good tool for that.

6) Would like a way to quickly find vendors, partners, tech help, even employees for your organization? I can be a good tool for that.

7) Would you like to promote your products and services directly to a target audience? Not such a good tool for that, but it can light a path back to your web site!

Now, if that weren’t enough, the open nature of the twitter platform is spawning uses far beyond what was ever imagined or what many people can grasp - and this use of the technology will only get bigger.

Here are few things you may have never considered

Publish your Flickr photos on twitter - Visit twittergram and set-up an account and then just upload to Flickr but tag your photo twitter and it goes into your twitter stream.

9) If you use online todo list Remember the Milk - you can set it up to flow into twitter - this might be a way to assign todos to remote teams

10) Using strawpoll you can create mini polls into your twitter stream - great for flash feedback

11) Use twitter to keep up on traffic jams with commuterfeed

12) Have twitter alert you when you have a meeting with timer

13) Get and fill current job openings with tweetajob

14) Track FedEx, UPS and DHL shipments with TrackThis

15) Get help quitting smoking

16) Keep a diet journal

17) Get a tweet when your plants need water - - okay this one would be way cooler if it simply tweeted you when the plant watered itself.

Illustration: Pasquale D’Silva

This is the third post in a series on taking your blog to the next level.

Image by …rachel…

“How do I keep posts flowing on my blog?”

This is a question that most bloggers face at one point or another - particularly bloggers who have been blogging for 6-12 months.

The reality is that there comes a point where most bloggers feel either uninspired, unmotivated, that they’ve got ‘bloggers block’ or that they’ve said everything that there is to say on their chosen topic. This is something that we’ve all felt at one time or another - so what does a blogger do about it?

The first thing that I want to encourage you with is that all is not lost. Every blogger has this challenge at one point or another (in fact most of us face it regularly) and it is possible to break through it. They key is to persist through the tough times - something that many bloggers do not do.

At this point it is important to sit down and work out how you will generate content going forward. There are a number of strategies that come to mind for doing so - all of these I’ve used at different points and I hope that some will give you inspiration and a way forward:

1. Mind Mapping

My favorite technique for coming up with new topics is using mind maps. I outline my mind mapping technique here but in short the technique is that you take one post idea (one from your archives perhaps) and then brainstorm ways that that topic can be expanded upon into numerous new topics. You then take some of those new ideas and think about ways that they too can be expanded upon into new posts. This technique can literally help you identify hundreds of new topics to write about.

Whether you use Mind mapping or some other kind of brainstorming technique the key is to set time aside to do it. I try to do this at the start of each week and find that if I do that the writing task for the week ahead is a lot smoother - sometimes just coming up with the ideas is as hard as the writing of posts.

2. Involve Readers

One of the resources that a blog who has an established readership has (remember we’re writing this series for these types of blogs) is that it has a knowledge based within it’s readership that can be drawn upon in a variety of creative ways to help create content for your blog. There are a lot of ways to do this - but here are a few:

• Guest Posts - in every 100 or so readers there is bound to be 1 that has the knowledge, expertise, motivation and skill to contribute posts to your blog. The key is to identify them and give them the confidence to contribute a post to your blog. Pay particular attention to those leaving comments on your blog. You’ll find that some comments just go the extra mile and contain wisdom and depth that are not far off being the standard of actual blog posts. Also don’t be afraid to invite contributions by writing post asking for guest posts or having a page linked in your navigation inviting contributions.
• Reader Questions - stuck for a topic to write about? Ask your readers to ask questions. A post inviting reader questions can draw out some great ideas to write about.
• Community Written Posts - one of the things that I’m loving about Digital Photography School at the moment is that some of our best posts are actually ones that our readers provide the majority of the content and teaching for. My role is not to ‘write’ the content for these posts - but to ask a question and set some boundaries for a discussion - and then open it up for readers to add their suggestions. Examples: How do I take band promotional photos?, How Would You Photograph a Funeral? and How to Photograph Grandma?

3. Explore new ‘Voices’

One way to break out of a rut as a blogger is to experiment with new types and styles of posts. Sometimes doing so can unleash creativity and new ideas. So if the majority of your posts are ‘tips’ posts - try an opinion piece. If you always write ‘news’ type posts - why not try something with a bit of humor or controversy.

Further Reading: I’ve outlined 20 types of blog posts for bloggers battling bloggers block here to give you a little inspiration.

4. Update Previous Posts and Topics

Even after a few months of blogging you can hit a point where you feel like you’ve covered most topics in your niche. Many bloggers get to this point and simply give up the blog - however I’ve found that most posts that I’ve written in the past can be expanded upon, updated, improved or rewritten with fresh insight.

Also keep in mind that many of your old posts will only have been read by long term readers and your new readers will not have seen these posts.

Further Reading: The Why and How of Updating old Blog Posts.

5. Guest Posts

The decision to allow guest posters onto your blog has both good arguments for and against it - but it is certainly one way to keep the flow of content going on a blog when you’re a little low on inspiration or don’t have enough time on your hands to be writing content (see also Why Guest Bloggers are Great for a Blog).

Getting people to submit guest posts on a blog is not always achievable when a blog is very young and the blog has little profile - but once you gather a readership and build your reputation as a growing community it becomes easier to attract contributions from other bloggers and freelance writers looking to grow their own profile.

If you’re new to the idea of finding guest posters for a blog - start with your own readers (as described above - look in the comments section of your blog) and then also look at other blogs in your niche or even forums that are on a similar topic to your blog. I’ve also had some real success lately with finding guest posts for Digital Photography School from non bloggers, particularly pro photographers who are looking for a little extra exposure to their business sites.

Further Reading: How to Find a Guest Blogger for Your Blog

6. Hiring Writers

Another way to approach bringing others onto your blog as writers is to look at hiring a blogger (or team of bloggers) to help you create content for your blog. This has some cost associated with it - but can (if you do it right) increase the quality and frequency of posts as well as decreasing some of the admin of relying upon guest posts.

I’ve hired a small team of writers for DPS who I pay on a per post basis (as well as giving them exposure in the posts that they write) and have found this experience to be well worthwhile. For a start it has attracted a good caliber of writer to the blog, increased the knowledge base and expertise of the writing, added to the variety of topics we can cover and increased the frequency with which we can post.

When it comes to hiring writers - I’d advise starting with your current reader base - you might find that some of your regular readers would take on a regular writing job for a little financial reward. Another approach is to look at other bloggers on your topic or to even advertise on a job board like the ProBlogger Job board. I advertised for my team of writers almost 18 months ago and had so many great applicants that I couldn’t use them all and most of them still write weekly posts for me today.

Another quick tip on hiring writers - you can also hire them for short periods. As long as you’re up front about the length of the period that you’re hiring for I’ve found that bringing on a staff writer for a couple of months when you know you’re going to be away or have your attention on another project can be well worthwhile doing.

Further Reading: How to Advertise for a Blogger

7. Develop an editorial calendar

One technique that can help a blog grow beyond its infancy is to begin to think longer term about the content that you produce. I personally find that when I only think a day ahead about the content for my blog that it can be difficult to build momentum in the content that I’m writing. It’s also difficult to keep coming up with topics.

A way to help overcome this is to set aside time either on a weekly or even a monthly basis to map out the direction for your content in the period ahead.

This enables you to do some brainstorming/mindmapping (see point #1 above) and set the course for your blog. Doing this takes some discipline and can feel like a chore when you sit down to do it but the result is that it gives you a lot of freedom and can take the burden of having to come up with topics from your shoulders.

I find that the months I set out a plan for the content on my blogs are much better than the months that I do not. I usually find on these months that I end up writing a series of posts and that readers really respond well to the momentum that I build.

Another spin on the idea of an editorial calendar that I know some bloggers have a lot of success with is to set different ’styles’ of posts for each day of the week. For example:

• Monday might be ‘tips’ day where you write a ‘how to’ or ‘tip’ related post
• Tuesday might be ‘review’ day where you review a product related to your topic
• Wednesday might be ‘news’ day where you summarize the latest news in your niche
• Thursday might be ‘link’ day where you link up to another blog in your niche
• Friday might be ‘opinion’ day where you express your opinion on a topic
• Saturday might be ‘reader discussion’ day where you post a question or poll for readers to interact with
• Sunday might be ‘from our archives’ day where you highlight an old post on your blog

The sky is the limit in terms of the types of posts that you write (look at the 20 types of blog posts list that I mention above for other types to consider) - the key is to find types of posts that are relevant to your topic and that readers respond well to. This might feel a little contrived or structured for some bloggers, but I find that many bloggers find it to be a freeing experience, particularly to get them through a tough period.

What Would You Add?

I have literally scratched the surface with this post on how to keep fresh content flowing on your blog. I’m certain that among the readership of ProBlogger that there are a lot more ideas - if you’ve got one, please add it to the comments below. Together we can break though this ‘bloggers block’!

Further Reading: Battling Bloggers Block - a compilation of a series of 25 strategies that are designed to help you get through bloggers block.

Tags: Bloggers Block, content, Writing Content

by LiveCrunch (@livecrunch)

TwitHawk launched not to long ago and first thing that came to my mind is OH another great tool to spam people! But just few hours later I convinced my self as well as @Twithawk that spamers have no place there.

With TwitHawk you can promote your profile, your product or for branding.

TwitHawk lets you reply to people that are using specific keywords on Twitter, it also lets you also auto-follow people that you send replay as well - learn more about it in their FAQ.

Here are few ideas I use TwitHawk for:

Branding my blog:

I target keyword “What is the best tech (technology) blog” - My answers

• “http://www.livecrunch.com is one of the best technology blogs
• “You should checkout Livecrunch.com I post about technology every day”
• etc…

Targeting specific audience:

I target keyword: “What is the best antivirus software” - My answers:

• “Not to long ago I posted about best 2009 Antivirus Software here http://tinyurl.com/8hejkz “
• “How about 5 best antivirus software? http://tinyurl.com/8hejkz”

In other words with TwitHawk you can really engage with other twitter people giving them something they look for, in return you get traffic to either specific blog posts or product you would like to promote. All you really have to watch out that you do not apear as spam and use your imagination on how to setup keywords vs your replies.

Note from Darren: as with many useful tools for Twitter, this one can probably be used both for good and ‘evil’. I’m sure spammers will try to harness it for their purposes but used well I think it also could have potential to start engaging relationships - if you’re willing to followup your tweets and the replies that they get with actual interaction.

The only other word of warning that I’d give (as someone yet to actually use this) is to choose keywords carefully. It strikes me that some keyworks would be used on Twitter many thousands of times a day - to use them could see you sending thousands of replies a day which can’t be great for your reputation as a Twitter users.

I like that TwitterHawk has added the feature to ‘confirm replies before they send’ - this makes a lot of sense as it means you can pick and choose who you reply to and tailor those replies. In a sense this makes TwitterHawk a tool that helps you monitor what people are saying around certain keywords and enables you to reply if you choose rather than having tweets go out automatically.

What do you think of TwitterHawk?

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

by Jamie Harrop (follow him at @jamieharrop and learn more about him at the bottom of this post).

Having reached 750 followers earlier today and wrote over 6,000 updates, I’m a big fan of Twitter. But over the last week I’ve found myself becoming too much of a fan. Defending Twitter to the death has become a part of my daily life.

Across Facebook and forums, I’ve conversed with hundreds of people who “don’t get” Twitter, and people who claim to “get it” but really don’t.

Now, I have no problem with people who don’t understand Twitter. It’s a phenomenon, for sure, and one that is going to take time to develop in to a household name in any area outside of Uber-Geek-Street. But it’s when people claim to understand Twitter, but still say they hate it, that I step up to the plate and feel the need to bear arms and defend.

Sausage and Eggs for Breakfast

The conversation usually goes like this:

John Doe - “I hate Twitter”
Jamie - “Why?”
John Doe - “I don’t want to know what somebody ate for breakfast!”
Jamie - “If you used Twitter, you would know it’s nothing like that”
John Doe - “I have used Twitter, and it’s exactly like that”
Jamie - “Maybe that’s because you’re not using Twitter in the best way?”

At this point I usually scuttle away to John Doe’s now defunct Twitter account to find his last Tweet that reads “Had sausage and eggs for breakfast. Eggs didn’t smell too good”.

The law of attraction plays a huge part in your Twitter experience

If you follow boring, selfless, “I ate sausage for lunch” twitter users, your experience of twitter will seem boring and selfless

When I open up Twhirl each morning, all I’m concerned about is how much value Twitter brings me. But after 19 months of using it, I’ve come to realise that the amount of value I get from Twitter is directly determined by the amount of value I give to Twitter.

If you want Twitter to give you value, try giving some value first.

5 ways to Give Value to Your Twitter Followers

Here are five ways to give value to your followers, in the hope that value is returned.

1. Retweet Messages

There’s not many things on Twitter that grab the attention of somebody more than a retweet. A retweet instantly builds a relationship. It shows the person you’re retweeting that you enjoy what they just wrote and you want to engage in conversation.

When someone retweets a Tweet by me, I’m much more excited, engaged and grateful than I am when I receive a normal reply. Retweets to Twitter are what StumbleUpon is to blogs and word of mouth recommendations are to offline businesses. Positive comments and feedback are great, but it’s so much better to see people taking the time to share your message with others.

2. Build friendships by Replying

It’s very easy to be one dimensional when using Twitter. You wake up in the morning and reach the office, open up Twhirl or Tweetdeck, write a couple of Tweets, minimise the program to the task bar, open the program again at lunch and write a few more Tweets, then minimise it again.

It’s the people who take time to keep Twhirl or Tweetdeck open, and take the time to read their followers Tweets, and take the time to reply to those Tweets, that truly make the biggest impact on Twitter.

Even if it’s just for 30 minutes a day, take time to actively read your followers Tweets and reply to them. Be two dimensional in your use of Twitter and you’ll provide much more value to your new friends.

3. Treat Twitter Like a Party, Not a Show and Tell

Much like how at a party it would be classed as rude to walk up to every person and throw them a business card, it’s rude to show off your blog address on a regular basis in front of people you haven’t built a relationship with.

Parties and networking events are not meant to produce instant results, but rather meant to aid in the building of new relationships to ensure there is a return in the far future. Whether that return is a new customer for your business, or, possibly in Twitter’s case, a visit to your Web site, the relationship should be built first and done so over an extended period.

Don’t expect quick results from Twitter. You must build solid, honest relationships first.

4. Introduce New People

Twitter is a game of emotions and relationships. It’s no surprise, then, that the key to Twitter is to make people smile and to stand out from the masses. Introducing new people is a fantastic way to do this.

Maybe you’ll send a Tweet recommending to your other followers that they “follow John, he’s a great guy!”. Or maybe you’ll send a Tweet recommending several people at once. #FollowFriday, the weekly occurrence where users recommended other people to follow is exactly what this is.

You’re making people feel special, while letting them know how much you appreciate their Tweets. Win win!

5. Start a Conversation and Share the Results

In the same way that bringing interactivity to your blog and letting your audience generate the content is a fantastic way to build relationships, using polls and starting questions for debate on Twitter are excellent methods to engage your audience and promote interaction within your circle of followers.

A poll or question for debate each day will go a long way in helping you establish relationships. Of course, you should always share the results of any poll or debate you manage. All too often, I see Twitter users ask a poll question and then never Tweet the results. What use is a community poll if the community can’t see the results? Tweet your poll results, and retweet good answers to your questions.

What Results Can You Expect to See?

At just over 750 followers, I’m by no means the most popular Twitter user. However, even this relatively small number (relative to the likes of Darren’s 37,000 followers), Twitter has brought me:

• Two job interviews
• $5,000+ of freelance Web development and blogging work
• A quarter of my blog subscriber base
• The ability to build a monthly blogger get together in my local area
• The chance to meet some fantastic people and network like I’ve never done before

When you use Twitter with the community in mind, the results from even a small amount of followers can be quite amazing!

Give to Twitter what you want Twitter to give to you.

What has Twitter brought you? Do you try to ensure you use Twitter as a 2D medium, engaging in conversation with others, rather than just writing about what you are interested in? Let us know in the comments!

This has been a guest post by Jamie Harrop. Jamie has been Tweeting for 19 months @jamieharrop, and blogging for over four years. Today, with posts such as 7 Reasons Why I Wonít Comment On Your Blog, he writes about customer service, business, blogging, social media and self improvement at Jamie Harrop Dot Com.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.