I've Been Lazy!

Yes, I admit it! I’ve been extremely lazy in 2015.

Do you know that I now have 40+ guest bloggers who contribute to the Green Umbrella blog? It’s like a well-oiled machine. They produce the content along with the audio. We then “top and tail” that content and upload it to our website twice a week. That’s great news for me as I have other people doing the hard work of producing the much-needed content for my website. It’s also good news for the guest bloggers as they have exposure to a large network.

Downloads have decreased in the last two months.

76,000+ downloads on the Online Marketing Audio Blog podcast is nothing to be sniffed at. However, I have noticed a significant decreased in the number of downloads per episode in the last two months. Enough for me to sit back and look at my blogging strategy. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve just rested on my laurels and let other people do the hard work.

My audience is mainly interested in online marketing and social media. We are the experts in social media, however, I have only written a handful of social media related blog articles since January – why is that?

Struggling for time!

Like many business owners, I have struggled to find the time to sit down and write my articles. I have even struggled to produce the top and tail audios for the guest bloggers and on occasion I have missed my deadlines. I can make all the excuses in the world, but the bottom line is that the blog is important if I want our business to be successful. I can not turn a blind eye to the stats. I need to address this issue, sooner rather than later!

The solution for producing more relevant content.

I sat down with a pen and paper (yes, no geeky gadgets!) and started to brainstorm how I was going to achieve the results that I needed. These are some of the suggestions:-

1. Source guest bloggers who could provide social media related content.
2. I provide a video each week for the social media coaching club as an education slot, which could be uploaded as a blog (but no audio). (But that is fairly lazy and my audience can always find this content over on YouTube anyway)
3. I could block time in my diary each week to create this week’s blog. (But as it is only one blog then I will always find more important things to do!).
4. I could block one day a month to produce good quality social media related blogs for the forthcoming month.

Work Smarter, Not Harder!

In the end, I have opted for number 4. I have experimented with the number of actual blogs that I need to produce each week for optimum results, and two seems to be the sweet spot for Green Umbrella (It’s different for each business).

So I decided that I will produce a guest blog (off topic) once a week and a social media / online marketing related blog once a week. The “Tool of the Day” is very popular, so I will keep this going.

I have allocated a full day in my diary for the next three months where I will batch:-

a) Four x Social Media / Online Marketing blogs – with podcasts / Tool of the day
b) Four x guest blogs – and I will record the blogs and tools of the day on the same day.
c) I have also scheduled time in my diary to upload this content to the LinkedIn Publisher feature, which I am terrible at keeping updated!

d) This will also give me time for my colleague to proofread the articles before I click publish.

Moral of the story

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing, over and over again and expect different results.

One of the main keys to success is to keep an eye on your numbers!

If you see a decreased in any aspect of your business, whether that is traffic to your site, number of likes on your Facebook page or a decreased in your cashflow, then you need to change your process.

Please do not keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results! Don’t be afraid of change, or admit to yourself that something is not working!