Content

Repeat Value

Garth Beyer

When you’ve got wisdom, share it again and again.

Think of your wisdom, content, and information like a live music concert: the crowd is often more excited when a song comes on that they know. (That’s why I steadily remind readers that people die standing still.)

When you’ve got what you think is wisdom, but is really information that doesn’t resonate, cut the energy to it. If there are ideas (music, art, campaigns) you have to force the crowd to feel, you’re not fulfilling your potential.

Repeat the value and let go of the content that people aren’t cheering for.

 

Stay Positive & Earn An Encore

Creating Chief Content For Your Landing Pad

Garth Beyer

Your blog is your landing pad. All properties and social media outlets change without your control, but not your blog.

Recently I’ve blogged about independent PR blogs and how to face Goliath, the mass content producing sites like Pursuitist. I was privileged recently to sit in on a talk by Christopher Parr, founder of Pursuitist. I heard the story of how he made Pursuitist what it is now, a success.

Worth noting, not once did he say he couldn’t have done it without the help of all his contributing writers (group blog model). Perhaps he may think it, but I would still respond with disagreement. He could have done it by himself too. Why do I believe that?

Below you will find a list of ways he swears by to create blogging success. Bare with me 10 seconds before you scroll down to read them. As you do read them, ask yourself if you could do the action by yourself. Matters of speed and time aside, it is purely a matter of what you think you can and can’t do. You can take on the content machines. You can.

 

 

 

 

Chief Content Officer Takeaways:

  • Engage your community with questions.
  • Share amazing photos.
  • Create content that can be easily consumed on mobile devices.
  • Keep it “human.” Don’t be a bland corporation.
  • The best posts or videos come from the frequently asked questions people have.
  • Interviews make great content.
  • Share original, behind-the-scenes photos of you and your team.
  • Create interesting, brief product and service demos with videos.
  • Testimonials are great, especially if you can highlight the hero, your customer, and not your product.
  • Point out the great people in your community with videos and interviews.
  • Deliver instruction and teach someone how to do something. Create a “how to” series.
  • Keep publishing, keep creating great content. Don’t give up.

 

What do you think? Think you’re up for it. I do.

And again. You don’t need to neglect the benefits of them, by all means participate, but also withhold your own landing pad.

 

Stay Positive & Imagine David And Goliath As Friends

Should Journalists Have A Blog

Garth Beyer

Simple answer: yes.

An analogy I came up with the other night while at a panel discussion on the subject was that if you were to hire a photographer, you would expect them to have a website where you can see what makes them a good photographer. It doesn’t need to just be photos they’ve taken, but what photos they like, what they think about the industry, what their persona is.

The same goes for journalists. If you want to be hired, the first thing employers will do is Google you. They expect to find a website that has content you’ve created as well as more of what you are interested in, enough content that they can tell what kind of person you are.

IMO, it’s not should you. It’s why don’t you already?

Get on that.

What Makes A Successful Blog

Garth Beyer

Those who have said that content is everything, to focus on content first, that content matters most were partially wrong. Wrong, mainly because information is already infinite. Content is already there and all blogging is about is presenting information in an original way.*

What makes a successful blog is not so much the information you provide as how you provide it. Yes, of course it needs to be valuable information, but do you present it in a blunt, matter-of-fact way? Or, how about presenting it in a comedic, captain obvious way? Or, be extremely passionate. Or, express your message in 10 words or less.

Anyone can deliver, but how you deliver means everything.

*The restructuring of information is often misinterpreted as content creation. No. Content is already there. Restructuring is about show, not tell.

 

Stay Positive & Not What, But How

Garth E. Beyer

Get A Room (A Chat Room)

Garth Beyer

If Twitter isn’t getting filled with noise like spamming quotes, dumb links and self-promotion then it is getting just as filled with the noise of everyone’s conversations.

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If you have been looking forward to my next installment of social media riffing, then you remember when

I first went off on a  riff on follow back courtesy.

After that, there was the need to write about Social Media’s noise and the need for white space.

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Now it’s time to make the “Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver” apply to social media. My view is that it doesn’t matter whether it’s gold, silver, bronze or pink, shut it or get a chat room. There are two parts to this.

Content, Not Compliment: Tweeters feel they are playing their part and promoting those who sent a compliment tweet to them by sending a tweet back saying thanks or wishing them a great day. Lovely. Sincerity and manners is wonderful, but it’s not a promotion, nor is it  meant to be read by all the other people following them. It’s supposed to be personal. Send it in a private message or get a chat room to talk more about how thankful you are. It can stay out of everyone’s Twitter feed.

@@@@@@@@@@@: Responding to a compliment often leads to this: the entire twitter feed is filled with @’s. It doesn’t need to start with a compliment though, it can be catching up with a friend, it can be responding to someones tweet and finally connecting with a tweeter. As I mentioned in riff on follow back courtesy, interaction is the goal, it’s essential. That doesn’t mean you should be constantly tweeting your interactions. You destroy your credibility of providing rich content that way. “@you Thanks for rubbing it in my face that I am not involved in your discussion” If you want a conversation with a potential client, partner, old friend or a new friend – if you are just there to talk, get a chat room will you?

 

Stay Positive & Interaction Is Personal, Content Is Public

Garth E. Beyer

If you are going to tweet someone “thank you”, send it to someone who knows how to use Twitter to provide content and use a chat room to talk about it

 

What It Means to Be A Minimalist

Garth Beyer

Being a minimalist isn’t entirely about throwing out all you have and settling for less. Ask any minimalist, there is no settling and very few things get thrown out (apart from when you transition from being a stereotypical consumer *see end).

Being a minimalist is about being satisfied with what you have. It’s about living in Zen, not trying to live in it.  After all, you know what they say about Zen. The only Zen you find on the top of the mountain, is the Zen you bring up there.

Being a minimalist does not mean you can’t have wants, it just means that your wants are the same as your needs. The reason so few can become minimalistic is that it takes a powerful mind and an even more powerful understanding of what you need to live, to be content, to be happy or whatever word you want to use for a quality of life.

Being a minimalist isn’t completely about having money, saving money or spending money. A minimalist can save all the money they make but it doesn’t bring them happiness or excitement in having a lot of money. What it does bring is freedom and peace. Minimalist’s think neither of having money saved or spending the saved money.

Being a minimalist is a mental state. A state in which is content  and happy with the avoidance of negativity, arguments and emotional attachments.

Being a minimalist does not mean that they can carry all of their possessions in a backpack or suitcase. It means that whatever the size of case it takes to contain their items, it bears no weight.

Lastly, being  minimalist is about minimizing to a degree you’re comfortable with, a phase in which you are free.

 

Stay Positive & Try Freedom, Not Torture

Garth E. Beyer