Run while you can.
The other day in yet another comment on yet another blog I referenced a blog post I never got around to publishing. Bad enough when I do it here and forget I haven’t published yet, but when I’m littering the Internet with them.. egads.
Training the Beast.
Chatting with much more prolific blog publisher Gini Dietrich, she shared lots of good ideas on making the time to capture good blog ideas. Capture is the easy part, as I’ve so discovered.
The TRICK is how to go from ‘idea in my head’ that I mumble and pace > to fingers on the keyboard > to published with links and clever graphic with SOME sort of tie-in to business usefulness. (Bonus: if it somehow promotes me as ‘must hire’ catch, sparks some feedback, a little social sharing.)
Erika Napoletano nailed it: it’s “digital purgatory.” OUAT it was Word docs, now it’s Evernote. I type and type – and then eventually move on, ideas trapped in a black hole of ‘someday.’
Enough. Tame the beast and train myself to stop when I’m ahead, pick a few links and just publish. NOT because I want to blog crap but because good ideas are never really done anyway. There’s always room for improvement, ideas grow and evolve. So with that monster pre-ramble .. a few blog posts that got away, Condensed Versions:
Customer Service FTW. Was having trouble with ABC’s iPad app, saw an email address. And an 800 number. Called. Low and behold, a non-scripted human person answered the call (!) and actually helped (!!). For a free service. It’s an example of so many things: good PR, good training, an approach that understands service is more than a useless placeholder social media profile.
Listen and Engage, not a band name. We’ve all seen them, poorly run brand SM accounts that are all about vanity metrics while pretending their ‘content’ isn’t ads. Their go-to move, the “Ask, then Ignore.” Examples I had: Macy’s running a thing on women’s shape wear, liking the positive comments and ignoring the metric ton of negative ones that called out the not bargain sale prices, the super thin young model who wouldn’t need them, etc. IHOP on their switch from Coke to Pepsi products, with – hat tip IHOP replying on FB – the standard corporate b.s. about it being ‘for the guests.’ If that were true, they’d offer that ‘wide array,’ i.e. both products and an actual choice.
And too many more from whence those came. Ahem.
Blogging. It’s work, it’s commitment. Ideas everywhere, yet somehow never hit published. What do you DO to get it DONE?
Hi Davina,
Blogging isn’t hard, but making it part of my routine at times has been. I find that when I blog regularly, it’s easier. But when I get off track, yikes. (A bit like working out!)
What finally worked from me was setting up an RSS newsletter that goes out once a week. If I don’t have at least one post, I don’t get that opportunity to “touch” colleagues, prospects, and clients. While I’m no longer blogging 2-3x a week, this forces me to have that one blog post every week.
Been there done that Daria – the strict schedule, lead to a few too many ‘it’s a post, it must be Tuesday’ kind of entries. Not terrible, but not terribly good either. Forced is the word for it.
The other REAL issue is ROI, lack thereof. I’m not getting the traction I could, I need a lot of back-end WP work, need to be more assertive, consistent. All that is a ton of work to do it well; I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and that there are more productive things to be doing. My website, my resume top that list… all need that regular workout. Thx!