The Cure for "Blog Block"

In this week's meeting, one of our members posed a familiar (and cleverly phrased!) question: how does the average business person solve the problem of "blog block." More specifically: how does a busy entrepreneur carve time out of his or her day to make time to create original, fresh, insightful content for their blog, especially if this person's primary skill set doesn't involve writing?

Writing is something that's always come naturally to me (and something that absolutely helps my business every day). I love blogging, but I myself find it challenging to carve out time every week to create content for my company's website. I found the question a good one and I decided to put together a list of pointers that will hopefully be useful not only to members of my own chapter, but anyone out there looking to help increase the overall value and usefulness of their company's site.

1. You read the news, right?

All of us, no matter what our field, stay abreast of changes in that field. We have RSS feeds, newsletters, blogs that we follow, and quite a few of us probably still read these things called "magazines" and "newspapers." Is there an issue that you follow that you know your customers will want some help interpreting? Did you find an editorial piece to be either supportive of your professional viewpoint, or so infuriatingly off the mark that you just HAVE to respond?

Use that news story as an impetus to create a short blog entry. Remember, blog entries do not have to be novels. Include a few back links to the story in question and write around the story to make your point. If time is short (when isn't it?) just include a link to the story with a little qualifier for it ("I thought this was a great piece about XYZ and wanted to get it out there") and then repost the link to the blog on your social media accounts.

2. Make a regular deadline for blogging weekly

Okay, so now we've stumbled upon one of my (sort of) New Year's resolution (my real one will be covered in an upcoming BNI blog...stay tuned!). All of us know what our overall marketing strategy is. (If you don't, you have bigger troubles than creating content for your site, but anyway...). Keep a list of ongoing topics for blogs. Use a notebook! I promise that it's not that draconian to write things down on paper anymore; I have it on good authority that the staffers at Google and Apple still use pen and paper sometimes. Schedule time during the week for an hour or two where you write up a blog on one of those topics. Make sure to set this time when you'll be fresh, but otherwise not distracted with other time sensitive obligations. Maybe make this relaxing time! Go sit at your favorite coffee house on a weekly basis, get a mocha-frappa-whatever and get your blogging done!

3. Delegate/Ask for Help

Are there people that you know that are better writers than you are? Do they work for you? Are they people who don't mind doing you a favor every now and again in exchange for lunch or a cup of coffee?

We are now two years into the second decade of the 21st century and people expect to see fresh content on websites. They just do. They expect to be able to analyze your relative level of expertise on your industry based on what content they can find on your website. If you're simply ignoring the necessity of blog content, than you're probably not being realistic about what kind of traffic you want to attract to your site and, ultimately, your business.

So, find the writers and marketers around you and ask for help. This can be done cheaply (if you can afford to hire someone) or maybe there's some bartering that can be done. (For example, I like to write AND also eat. Just thought I'd put that out there.)

4. Set reasonable goals

So, if I were to approach Chris Morrissey the personal trainer in High Trust, and tell him that I wanted to start running, I'm reasonably certain that he'd set a goal based on what challenges me to a certain degree, but also what I could attain without having a heart attack (currently, btw, that would entail either running late or running for the bus). The same goes for content creation. Although I'm comfortable with writing, and although I'd love to write blogs for my company every single day, I just know that I can't take time away from my actual sales efforts on a daily basis to commit to that. BUT, I know that once a week is reasonable, will help my overall SEO efforts, will help our company's position in our industry, and so on. I know how much time this will take me and if all goes well with this initial goal, I'll add more and more time during the week as my schedule permits.

It's frustrating to make a goal and then miss it. So, start small, maintain and build from there.

5. Bird by Bird

A VERY famous writer by the name of Anne LaMott wrote an even more famous book about the craft of writing called "Bird by Bird." The title is taken from an incident from her childhood, where her frustrated younger brother was struggling with a deadline to write a book report about birds done on time. Her father (himself a famous and successful writer) comforted his frustrated son by saying "just take it bird by bird."

The best way to write anything is to start. Most of us have content management systems that allow us to go back in and edit typos, misquotes, or allows you to add or update any content that you put on your site. Write a draft or two in Microsoft Word, share it with people you trust, get comments before you post it. Get inspiration from other bloggers, creative professionals or people that you know. Ask your friends and colleagues the most common questions that they have about your industry and use that question as a basis for your content. What other ways would inspire you? Think about it and then deploy these strategies as often and consistently as you can.

I once had a writing teacher in college that said that writing was a lot like eating: eating creates appetite and nothing cures the blank page like words. Once you start, typically you'll keep going. It may be slow going and awkward at first, but you're not writing the Constitution and no one expects you to be Milton. This is not epic poetry that you're writing.

Remember, YOU are the expert and your customers NEED this information. Keep them in mind, and you can never go wrong.