I hear my clients say all the time, “I know I’m supposed to blog at least once a week, but I just don’t have the time.”
This is a reality that every small business faces, mine included.
There is work to be done, networking events to attend, phone calls and email, we all know how it is.
But with all the busyness, being active in blogging and social media is important. It reminds prospects and clients you are relevant in your area of expertise and that you are open for business!
If it’s not the pain but just the time, content curation can become your new best friend. Here is how it works.
Content curation takes information you identify on the Internet or through your Social Media feeds that your clients and prospects would find valuable. Then you either:
- Write a short introduction followed by a link to that post
- Digest the information and creating a post with your own slant based on their needs of your specific target audience
Either way, content curation saves you a lot of time.
Let me give you an example:
This post is curated content. In my LinkedIn Pulse feed I read a post called 5 Tips for More Efficient & Effective Content Curation by Christian Terry.
The original post has a lot of good information. However, I felt it wasn’t completely relevant to my audience. My audience is small business owners. We are slammed busy and need tips and tools that can help us achieve marketing goals in less time. While his tips are good, I felt they required a team of marketing professionals to accomplish.
But the concept is valid for all businesses. So, I followed the second path. I read the post, looked for tips I thought would be useful for my audience and then filled in the gaps with my own knowledge on what works for a small business.
Here are my content curation tips:
- Join groups on LinkedIn that relate to your subject or expertise. Look at the posts you receive. Often the subjects will interest your audience. Then share a link or create your own post.
- Create a Bookmark on your browser to store links to ideas that resonate with you. You won’t always have time to create that blog post immediately but you’ll know where to go to get an idea.
- Be Consistent in your Curation Efforts. This is Terry Christian’s Tip #5. I’ll add, be consistent in your blogging efforts. Using Content Curation makes it easier for you to find time to Blog every week. It sparks ideas and you’ll stay on top of the content most interesting to your audience.
Using these tips, I create one blog post each week. Email me at sally@stretch4success.com and let me know how they work for you.