Are you at a loss for how to create content? Has your Blog not been updated in a while? Do you sit and stare at Twitter and wonder silently, "what am I really doing?"
If you’re looking for one thing or one "trick" to figure out how to beat your digital version of "writer’s block", have you tried to publish your own take on something? It’s pretty simple. Over the course of the day, look at the information you are saving and/or sharing. If you’re using some of the same tools that I am (Google Reader, Delicious, Google Bookmarks, Twitter, etc…) , there has to be a small handful of pieces of content that have piqued your interest in the past little while.
As an example, here are a few of mine from the past day (or so):
Without even reading any of these articles (yet), here are some questions you can ask yourself and then you can answer these questions in your own publishing platform of choice (Blog, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed… your call):
- Is newspaper advertising still relevant?
- Do newspaper ads send people to stores? What would change that habit?
- Did we misread the whole, "newspapers are dying" chants from the new media people?
- Are websites irrelevant?
- In a world of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, aren’t websites more important than ever?
- What will it take to make corporate websites more relevant going forward?
- Why are people going online before grabbing breakfast?
- Has society changed forever because of the Internet?
- Are online newspapers going to kill the traditional print version at the morning table?
- What are the five best ways for David to beat Goliath in terms of business (or marketing)?
- What is it about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing that makes him so compelling?
Without blinking (or even reading those articles), there are eleven potential Blog posts or conversation starters for online social networks. It’s not hard and anybody (including you) can do this. If you’re stumped, but if you want to engage, simply look at some other pieces of content and create your own perspective.
What’s your one best tip to inspire content creation?
Mitch Joel Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.