*whines* "I don't know!"
My sister and I have this conversation at least once per month while we're preparing to film our weekly YA Rebels video and it made me think about my own blog, where I should be posting more.
Maybe you're staring at your blog, knowing it should have more content, but you just can't bring yourself to be witty/charming/entertaining/informative that often.You still love blogging and have no interest in shutting your blog down - but we all get overworked sometimes and being creative is hard!
Here are some cheat codes for adding more content to your blog without it feeling like "filler." With these, there's no excuse for those "Hey guys, I don't have anything to say, but I just wanted to post something" posts.
1) Cover Reveals and Book Blasts
This one is a win-win for everyone involved. You get a post your readers will care about and an author gets a bit of exposure. Even if your blog only has a "few" followers, every little bit helps the author.
The best part: you can get these opportunities delivered straight to your inbox by signing up to be on a blog tour company's mailing list. I do this for my Aria Kane blog and I've seen a lot of traffic from these posts. I don't have a lot of followers, so I only sign up for cover reveals and blasts, where the author doesn't have to spend a lot of time on a guest post or interview that only a few people will read. Bonus: I'm building up goodwill for when I have a book come out.
Extra Bonus: you sometimes get to see covers before they go public!
(I subscribe to Inkslinger and Xpresso and keep an eye out on twitter for other opportunities)
2) On YouTube, these are called tags.
I'm not sure if there's a consistent name for them in blogging, but the concept is the same.
What is it?
Basically you answer a set of questions (usually themed) and then ask other people to do the same.
This is what Kayelee and I do when it's 10pm the night before we have to do our video and we haven't come up with a topic. I love these because we can still make them fun and entertaining.
3) Post a Recipe
Republicans, democrats, christians, muslims, atheists, engineers, writers, teachers, married people, single people - they all have one thing in common: Everybody eats.
Unless your blog is very hard-core business-only, a recipe is not out of place. Just remember, if it's not yours, give credit and pay attention to the creator's wishes re: sharing. I like to list the main ingredients in a narrative, share some of my own pictures, and then link back to the original recipe.
4) Share Something(s)
I love it when a blogger shares a TED talk they liked and posts a few comments about it. Did you recently discover a new musician you love? Or a blog or web series or pod cast you like to follow? It can be as simple as posting the cover/poster and blurb for the last five books/movies you enjoyed.
Peer-to-peer recommendations are the number one source of discovery for Generation X and younger, so let your readers know what you think is important & worthy!
I hope I've given you some ideas for adding worthy content to your blog without using a lot of creative energy. Do you have any blog topic suggestions for our readers?
Great ideas!! I've recently started doing links to articles/blog posts in various areas and it's starting to increase traffic again. There was a point where I didn't know what to talk about that I hadn't seen done elsewhere x number of times.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ideas! I like the recipe idea :) I've actually made several things from random recipes on non-food blogs.
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