Use social media content for your posts

Most social networks today allow you to embed content, a feature you can put to good use on your blog. The times when blog posts consisted only of text and a few pictures are ancient history, anyhow. Depending on topic and context, you can embed a relevant YouTube video into your article, a statement of an influential Twitter user or an interesting post from a Facebook page of a brand. Your readers will get a wider picture of the topic you are covering while the post will be visually more attractive. The trick is, of course, not to over do it.

“Brag” with your most read content

If you an experienced blogger, you must be monitoring and analyzing the number of visits to your page. Here’s a practical idea: make a top 5 or 10 list of your own posts (with links, of course!) which have drawn most readers during a certain period. Doing this will remind your audience of the content that drew most of their attention. It will also prompt some of your readers to discover older pieces they may have missed. Do set a pace for publishing these kinds of lists! Depending on the amount of content you produce, you can publish these kinds of lists once a month or every few months. It is definitely a good idea to put one such list together at the end of the year.

Mine your projects for content

You’ve finished a white paper, an e-book or a research project? You held a workshop or a lecture? All of these are excellent topics for a blog post. You can use quotes, excerpts or conclusions from your own publications and/or projects. This is a win-win situation for you: in addition to extra content for your blog, you are also successfully promoting your work.

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Animate your audience

Do you have a large audience? Every so often, create posts in which you will ask directly for your readers’ opinions by inviting them to comment on a current event or issue. It is advisable for both the question and the call to action to be visible in the post title, but the most important thing is for you to be part of the discussion! This type of post is good because it does not demand too much writing time (in addition to the question itself, all you need is a short introduction) while it can result with a potentially large reader engagement. The extra advantage lies in the fact that interaction with users can also result in some new blog post ideas.

Old topics, new angles

Search through your archive, “pull out” an older post in which you wrote about a trend in the industry or sector prognoses and review the topic from today’s perspective. In other words, use old content as the starting point for something new and fresh. Of course, this only makes sense when you have good reason for focusing on the topic.

Be a “reviewer”

Have you attended a conference related to your field? Read an interesting book? Tried out a new app or program that you found useful for work? Write a review, an opinion piece – share your experience with your readers. Do take into consideration that your “reviews” need to work within the larger context of your blog and the industry you are in. If your blog is about finance, you readers will want to know your take on that very popular app for personal expenses management. On the other hand, they will be a bit confused should you, for some strange reason, start sharing why you love or hate the new version of Angry Birds so much.

Publish a case study

In your professional capacity, you have undoubtedly taken part in a number of projects, worked with many clients, faced quite a few challenges and gone through all the usual situations that come up at work in a corporate environment. Your rich experience is a gold mine of interesting stories – there must be some that you can share with your audience. How did you sign your first client? How did you organize an important event? What did you do in case of crises? And, most importantly, what did you learn from it all? Write a case study as a series of posts in which you will describe, in detail, the relevant challenges you faced in your career, with concrete examples of the way you fulfilled tasks and handled problems. There is no doubt readers will appreciate it very much if they can learn from your experience.

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