This is a guest post by Jo Gifford.
There is no doubt about it, content is king.
Updates on our ever-increasing social media platforms, and producing original blog content is at the heart of a successful entrepreneurial strategy.
The key is in creating, sharing and writing super effective content and engaging on your platforms at regular intervals to maintain conversation. But heck, how many hours are there in a day, at the last count?!
For the small biz owners who don’t outsource the entire operation, there are lots of ways to reduce the time you spend on content. Help is at hand, I promise.
Regain your day with these 5 hacks for content creation.
1. Use Fancy Hands for research
For around $3 a task, outsource your blog research Fancy Hands. Ask them to send you a Google Doc of references and resources, and usually within the hour the task will be done. Crack out the dancing moves to celebrate!
Flesh out the post with your personal touch and brand voice, and the job time is halved. Boom.
2. Dictate straight to Evernote
If you find it easier to flow when you are speaking or you have lots of ideas when you are out and about, the Evernote mobile app is your new best friend.
Dictate a blog post straight into the mobile app of Evernote and your words will be transcribed immediately.
Make changes and amends via the synced version on your desktop, and get a blog done and dusted in no time at all.
Alternatively, dictate into Evernote directly to your desktop computer, save the audio file and send it to be transcribed over on Fiverr.
I know I know, genius, right?
3. Crowdsource a social discussion
Crowdsource opinions from your community via Twitter and Facebook. Pose a question, collect interesting responses and embed them in the post – yes, this could be called “making your audience write your post for you”, but let’s keep that a secret, ok? *wink*
This encourages engagement, discussion, and is also a super quick way to get the main bulk of a post collected and collated.
4. Use smart research
IFTTT has so many uses. Here, you can rig it up to send content from relevant sites or your social streams straight to your swipe files in Evernote or Google Docs.
Collate some key posts that you know your audience will love and use them in a bumper round-up information link pack post, adding your personal thoughts to tie them up and sound on-brand.
Tag the original content creators when you share to boost your engagement. Huzzah!
5. Speak Pipe Q&A
Install Speak Pipe and invite your readers to record their opinions and questions on a subject. Send the audio for transcription on Fiverr and add your magic on the blog post to showcase your expertise in between the quotes.
Alternatively, round up the audios as a podcast and publish on Soundcloud (which can also then be shared via your social platforms and embedded on your site.).
Let me know if you try any of my content creation hacks, and post your blog links in the comments below.
Happy hacking, and enjoy all that time you just saved…
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Jo Gifford helps people to work in smart, creative ways and to get their message out to the world via killer content. Blogger, mentor, podcaster and author, and is rather partial to loose leaf tea.
Website: www.dexterousdiva.co.uk
Twitter: www.twitter.com/dexdiva
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dexdiva