Category: social media

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Want to create engaging content? Look at your numbers

Engaging content is about more than words - you need to look at your numbers too.

You might not think words and numbers have much in common, apart from co-existing on a school curriculum. However, your analytics can tell you a lot about what content is striking a chord with your audience and helping you achieve your business goals. Here’s my guide to help you look at your numbers and write engaging content.

Plan your business goals

I’m not going to tell you how to set business goals. For one thing, it’s not my department. For another, your version of success might look very different from mine. However, when you’ve decided what targets you want to hit next year, think about what your marketing needs to do to achieve that. Do you need to reach more people, improve your social media engagement or increase your email subscribers? Knowing where you want people to go helps you focus on the right platforms.

Look at your numbers

You can use your marketing analytics to work out what’s working in terms of the marketing platforms you use and the type of content you create. Reviewing your numbers helps you see what’s working so you can do more of it or tweak things to test a different approach. When you talk about your business, some posts get a better response than others, often due to the language you use.

Remember that what your audience responds to can change over time; regular reviews help you stay up to date.

Think about keywords

I’m hearing more marketing professionals say that SEO is getting less effective. While that’s probably true, there’s still a place for it. Google is the first place many of us ask questions, and if you offer a service in your local area, there are still plenty of people searching ‘service + town’.

So, look at your website analytics. What keywords attracted the most visitors? Where did they go next? Did they leave or visit another page? Look at keywords, but think about the customer journey, too. When people land on your website, what do you want them to do next?

Are your sales pages working?

As the name suggests, sales pages focus on selling one product. Everything on there should be targeted towards persuading someone to decide to buy. If you’re getting lots of visitors but not many sales, look at your language. Does it help your customers understand how buying from you will help them? Does it focus on their needs or your product? If you have some sales pages that work while others don’t, compare the words. Spotting the differences can help you update existing pages to improve their performance.

Social media engagement

If reaching your goals means getting more eyes on your content, look at your social media reach and engagement. Reach is good as it means the algorithm shows your stuff to more people. When your followers engage with a post, it’ll also start showing your posts to more of their friends.

Check your analytics to see which posts got lots of reactions and comments. It shows that the post struck a chord and that you used engaging language. You can create more posts with similar subjects and analyse your tone of voice. Are you using a different style on different posts, and how does that affect the response?

If you want to write engaging content that lets your customers get to know you, I can help.  I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience and encourage them to get in touch. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here.

Or, for regular writing tips straight to your inbox, sign up using the form below. I’m a vegetarian so I hate spam and I’ll never share your details with anyone else.

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6 tips to make planning your Christmas marketing a breeze

Christmas marketing - the adventure begins!
Photo by Simon Migaj from Pexels

Your Christmas marketing could be all about gifts, but it can also give you the chance to show your customers what you’re about and to have some fun. You can find some ideas for things to talk about in your Christmas marketing here. When it comes to sharing them there’s more to it than social media…

Email your Christmas marketing

You might think that email marketing went out with the dinosaurs, but it’s alive and well, with 99% of email users checking their inbox every day and businesses in the UK reporting an income of £42 for every pound they spend on email marketing. The key is to be helpful, entertaining, or both. Give your subscribers easy-to-buy gift options, helpful tips, discounts or something that will cheer them up.

Gift guides

Gift guides are a brilliant marketing tool because you can use them as a lead magnet to encourage new sign-ups to your email list and send them out to your subscribers.

When you use them in your Christmas marketing you can split your products into different categories and highlight the best gift ideas. Write a short and catchy description of each product, put them into a PDF with a gorgeous image and you’re ready to go.

Put a gift page on your website

Adding a new page on your website might sound like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. It’s just another way of sharing the information you put into your gift guide. That way, if someone doesn’t follow you on social media but finds your website on Google, they can still buy from you. Just make it easy for them to search by category or price so visitors can find exactly what they want.

Social media posts that show behind the scenes

You can help your customers get to know you by showing them what’s happening behind the scenes. If you’re celebrating Christmas jumper day or are supporting a charity, let your audience know. Talk about what Christmas means to you or share a festive joke. You can build engagement by asking your customers to share a picture of their tree or what their favourite Christmas film is. You can get more ideas from this book.

Run a competition

I don’t mean something that everyone and their dog would enter, like ‘win a bottle of fizz’ (unless you’re a wine merchant, then it’s ideal). Offer something that your ideal customer would value. You can use it to attract new email subscribers or social media followers and it’ll help you to create lots of posts as you can talk about the prize itself, the build-up to the prize draw then go live to choose the winner.

Don’t forget about print

When you were a kid, did you ever go through the Argos catalogue circling the stuff you’d love to find in your Christmas stocking? Print works because it cuts through the social media noise. Your customers can keep a gift guide on the kitchen table or pin a leaflet to their noticeboard. You can hand them out at Christmas fairs or put them in the post.

Send your customers a Christmas card and you’ll give them warm and fuzzy feelings and remind them that you’re here when they need you.

Do you need some new ideas for your Christmas marketing? Would you rather just hand it over and get on with running your business? I can help with that. Book a call here and let’s have a chat. You can also get ideas for Christmas posts from 1st December to Christmas Eve by snaffling a copy of my book here.

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Need some new ways to repurpose your blog?

Repurpose your blog for fresh new content
Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

When you repurpose your blog, you take it from being a series of lovely informative posts on your website to a content generating machine. No, I’m not exaggerating. When you’ve gone to the effort of writing a blog post (or getting someone like me to write it for you – https://www.kirstyfrancewrites.co.uk/packages/) why not make it go as far as you can? I’ve written about this before but, as with all things in marketing land, there are other methods that you might not have considered yet. Here are my top 5 favourites.

Create Reels

You don’t have to dance or point to create a good Reel. They can just be good fun. Using your blog as a starting point makes it easier to come up with content ideas. I’ve done a few myself and follow Virginia Kerr for inspiration. You can do tips to camera but if you absolutely don’t want to show your face you can use images too. They’re being rolled out on Facebook as we speak so it could be a good time to give it a go.

Inspire your podcast

If you’re pushed for time the idea of starting a podcast can feel a bit overwhelming. On the other hand, if you’ve already started one you can repurpose your blog and use it for topic ideas. A lot of people who don’t have much time to sit and read will listen to podcasts or audiobooks while they’re out walking or folding laundry. (That’s me if you couldn’t tell.) Do a solo chat about your subject or invite a guest to offer their perspective.

Write a new blog

If your audience really loves reading blogs or you just need new ideas, look to your old blogs for inspiration. If you’ve written a post with 5 tips, choose one and go more in-depth. For example, if you’re a florist with a blog post about choosing flowers for your wedding, one of the tips might be about seasonality. That could be a whole post by itself. I’ve mentioned headline writing in loads of blogs but I’ve never written one that’s just about headlines. I’ll get round to it eventually…

Repurpose your blog into a presentation

A blog post is designed to educate and entertain your audience, as well as building your authority. If you wanted you could turn it into a training session. I’ve written a series of blog posts about how to start writing a blog and delivered training on it too. If you’d rather hide under a rock than deliver training, you can still repurpose your blog into a shareable presentation. I’ve just started investigating using SlideShare for LinkedIn – if you have any tips, please let me know!

Create an infographic

This is one of my favourites because it appeals to the visual learners. It means that you could attract a whole new audience who love graphics and won’t necessarily read a blog post. Take the main points from your blog post and use them as headings. You can add a bit of extra information too. The best part is that you can use it as an image within the blog post itself as well as sharing it on social media.

Would you love to use some of these tips to repurpose your blog but don’t have a blog to do it with? I can help with that. Take a look at my blog writing packages or book a call here and let’s have a chat about how I can help you.

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How you can use product descriptions in your marketing

Using product descriptions in your marketing helps you to make more sales.
Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

If you already write brilliant product descriptions (and if you’re not sure where to start, read this.) you might think that they’ll just sit on your website until your customers find them. Not necessarily. They can be incredibly time consuming to create, so why not share them further afield? Here are 5 easy ways to use your product descriptions in your marketing.

Create social media posts

If you’ve written engaging product descriptions that go beyond the technical details, you can share them as a post. Just read them through to make sure they’ll make sense on a different platform. This is really useful at Christmas or during other festivals, as you can make gift buying easier for your customers. Just add a sentence like ‘these are vegan and gluten free as well as being easy to wrap’ (or whatever fits your product). Add an image and it’s ready to go.

Use product descriptions in your blog

You could probably write a whole handful of blog posts talking about gifts for different occasions. Valentine’s Day, Mothering Sunday, Easter, Halloween, Diwali, Christmas… you get the idea. A blog post that’s tailored to gifts for different people will help you to turn up in Google searches, particularly if you serve a niche audience. Just write a preamble introducing your topic and use your product descriptions in each section. You don’t have to limit yourself to gifts either – you can use this method to introduce new products that solve a particular problem.

Create a gift guide

This is one of my favourite time saving tricks for product-based businesses. Put your product descriptions into a gift guide so your customers don’t have to search your website. Organise them by section and create a PDF that you can email to your subscribers and share on your website. If you have the budget you can also create a print version. More and more local shops are supporting other businesses by sharing leaflets and brochures, so it’s worth investigating.

Make a video

You already know how much Facebook and Instagram love video. You could do a live talking about one or two products using your product description as the basis for your script. If you can condense your descriptions down to bullet points you can use them in a reel. You probably don’t want to use a full product description in your stories, but you can share part of your description to highlight an interesting feature.

Share the little details

Your customers are surprisingly good at finding reasons not to buy from you. You can start handling those objections in your product descriptions and social media posts. Say, for example, you send out every order in gorgeous handmade packaging. That’s the kind of detail that will sell your products to customers who care about quality or who hate wrapping presents. If you talk about sustainability in your product descriptions, share those sections in your posts too. If it’s important to your customers, you can use those tiny snippets of your product descriptions in your marketing.

If you’d rather save your time and energy for everything else you need to do in your business, I can write (or update) your product descriptions for you. Just click here to book your no obligation chat.

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Your marketing: do you know who’s watching?

Someone who's watching your marketing without you noticing.
Image by Daria Shevtsova via Pexels

That sounds a bit creepy, doesn’t it? Like you might have a stalker. In a sense, you probably have, just in a good way. I’ve been in business for over 5 years now* and it’s taught me a lot about the way people respond to marketing. Here are 5 types of people that are watching your marketing – whether you know it or not…

*I celebrated the anniversary in January, with home school and weeping.

The ones that make a lot of noise

There are two kinds of noisy person on social media. There are the ones that comment on your posts without really saying anything useful.  Then there are the ones who share your posts, offer insightful comments, or say thanks for a helpful tip. Both will potentially increase your reach, but I prefer the latter. They don’t just help me; they often add something for my other followers (or their own). Some of them even turn into customers.

The ones that act on your marketing

I’ve got to admit, this is a relatively rare experience. Everyone has followers who never really engage with anything. Then suddenly, something hits the mark and they become a customer. Even more rarely, you might get someone that hasn’t even followed you, but they respond to a post and turn into an instant customer. I have no idea how this works unless they’ve been lurking so stealthily that you haven’t noticed them at all.

The ones you meet networking

I love networking and it has helped my business to survive lockdown. I’m not exaggerating – every customer I’ve had over the past 15 months has been someone I met networking. That doesn’t mean I stop marketing online. When I meet someone networking, I still go and check them out online. It helps me to learn more about their business and whether my first impression was the right one. The same is almost certainly true of your networking contacts too.

The lurkers

Lurkers are the people you get rid of when you have a follower cull. They don’t leave a like or comment. Maybe they don’t even see your posts. Yet I’ve heard tales of people who lurk on other business owners’ pages because they want to know what they’re doing without supporting them. That bothers me. None of us are a good fit for every customer and if I can send someone to a writer that will do a better job for them, I’ll do it.

The quiet ones

I love the quiet ones. I still see you, reacting to my posts (but hardly ever commenting) and I’m so glad you’re there. Sometimes you’re the ones who tell me face to face that you enjoy my blog.  My favourite thing about you is that you’re the people who turn up just when I need you. I’ve had plenty of those moments where I wonder why I bother marketing because everything’s gone quiet. Then one of you appears out of the woodwork because you’re ready to work with me. It’s like a little bit of magic.

If you’re worried your marketing isn’t working, keep going. Get help if you need to, but don’t give up. If you’re one of my quiet ones, thank you. I hope I’m helping you. If you’d like to stick your head above the parapet and let me have your email address, I send helpful hints and tips out once a month. If you’ve been biding your time and are ready for a chat, here’s the link to book a Zoom chat. I’d love to see your face!

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Want more website visitors? You need to speak your customers’ language

Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA from Pexels

You’ve probably gone to a lot of time and effort creating a great looking website for your business. There’s a lot of technical work you can do if you want more website visitors but one of the most important bits is the one that’s overlooked most often. The words. If your website copy (the technical term for the words) doesn’t tell your visitors that they’re in the right place within a few seconds they’ll bounce off to another site and you might have lost them forever. Then you have to work on attracting more website visitors rather than deepening the relationship with the ones you already have. The great news is that the words you use can help you to attract more visitors and impress them when they get there. How do you do it? I’m glad you asked…

Know your customer

When someone lands on your website, it’s because they were looking for something. You need to show them that they’ve found it. Say they’ve found your shop by typing ‘gifts for Mother’s Day’ into Google. The page they land on should tell them what gifts you’re offering, whether it’s jewellery, chocolates, or something else. If you offer a service, sum it up in a couple of sentences, or with a question they’ll answer yes to if they’re in the right place.

Apply the ‘so what’ test

It’s important to remember that your visitors don’t really care about you. Your credentials are important in that they help you to build trust, but your customer is only really interested in what you can do for them. If you’re an accountant helping small businesses with their tax returns, make it obvious. This can just be something like ‘Want to make your next tax return quick and easy? We can help.’ Yes, it’s really that simple.

What if your visitor isn’t ready to buy?

Sometimes you’ll get a new visitor, but they’re not ready to make a decision yet. They might just be doing some research or perhaps they need to talk to someone else before they decide. Inviting them to sign up to your mailing list or follow you on social media gives you the chance to stay in touch and remind them why they were looking for you in the first place. Then when they’re ready to buy, they’ll remember you.

Are you making it easy to buy?

If you’ve got a website visitor who’s ready to give you their money, make it easy for them. If you sell products online, you know that good photos and clear pricing are both essential, along with a quick and easy checkout. If you offer a service and need to talk to the customer before they buy, show people how to make an enquiry or book a call. Give them a button to click or a form to fill in so they don’t have to go searching.

What do you want to be found for?

If you’ve done any work on your SEO, you’ll know how important key words are. Yours might be easy to identify, particularly if you offer a service in a particular location. It’s worth thinking about the kind of terms your customers will understand. Most people know what a hairdresser does, but a copywriter like me? Not so much. My customers are more likely to look for advice on how to write a blog so I talk about that.

If you want to attract more website visitors and you think your website copy needs an update, let’s have a chat. Email me or book your free discovery call here.

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Is it ever OK to use jargon in your marketing?

Frustrated by too much jargon.
Photo by Yan from Pexels

When it comes to marketing, I’m a big fan of keeping things simple. Let people know that you understand the problem they’re experiencing and show them how you can help. Of course, there are loads of different ways to do that. That doesn’t just apply to the hundreds of platforms you could choose to share your message. It also applies to the language you use. Every business has its own jargon, no matter what industry you’re in. The real question is, how much of that jargon should you share with your customers? When you use insider language you run the risk of driving potential buyers away, simply because they don’t understand what you’re on about. Here are just a few things to think about when it comes to using jargon in your marketing.

Is it really jargon?

Firstly, let me be clear about what I mean by jargon. For me, it can be two different things. Firstly, there are technical terms that a specialist in your field would use. It could refer to a stitch you use when you’re creating something out of fabric or a silversmithing tool that’s designed to complete a gorgeous piece of jewellery. It could also be shorthand for a legal or accounting rule.

The second kind of jargon is the type that we all hear more often. They’re the kind of buzzwords that we feel we should probably understand but don’t. We might have a vague idea but not a detailed one. Some people love them, others find them annoying. If you follow me on social media, I share one of these every month to see what people think of it – I’d love you to join in if you’d like to.

Who are your audience?

There is one kind of audience where using jargon is not only fine but downright useful. That’s when the people you’re talking to are in exactly the same business as you. This can also extend to well-informed amateurs too, particularly if you’re talking about cake making or selling craft supplies. When I was a lawyer, having a shared language meant that you could get straight to the issues in a case because you both understood the rules. I didn’t fully appreciate how useful this was until I encountered lay people who were representing themselves. Everything took three times longer.

If that doesn’t apply, consider whether your audience will understand the terms you’re using. Get too technical and they may feel you’re blinding them with science. That only serves to make you less relatable. Use too many irritating buzzwords and they might feel you’re downright untrustworthy.

We’ve all had enough of buzzwords

Buzzword bingo can be an entertaining way to get through a dull meeting, but I generally feel as if we’ve all had a bellyful of them this year. There seems to be a new one every week. I shared my least favourite Coronavirus buzzword a while back (unprecedented, in case you’re interested) and asked people to share theirs. There were loads and every share made me groan. There weren’t just buzzwords but whole phrases that would once have seemed caring but now just make people want to vomit.

It’s made me question every single ‘I hope you’re well’ and come up with new alternatives to ‘in these strange times’. If I’m honest, I haven’t found one I’m completely happy with. It’s become even more important to use straightforward language that helps us to be understood.

If you need no-nonsense marketing copy that speaks your customers’ language, get in touch! Or sign up to my mailing list for handy hints and tips straight to your inbox every month.

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Are you speaking your customers’ language?

Speaking your customers' language helps you have really interesting conversations.
Photo by Anastasiya Gepp from Pexels

Have you ever read something that was so far above your head it might as well have been an aeroplane? Did you look at the opening sentences and realise that it meant absolutely nothing to you? Believe it or not, this can be a good thing. I know a lot of small business owners get worried about using language that will exclude potential customers. The truth is, if you’re specific about who is most likely to buy you can talk to them in a way that will resonate. They’ll read your stuff and think ‘this person really understands me’. That’s when they become a customer. If you read something that really isn’t for you, you can move on. Hopefully that’s what it was designed to do. But if you’re not speaking your customers’ language it means you’re not reaching them in your marketing. Here’s how to put that right.

Is your customers’ language formal or informal?

The first thing to work out is how you want to talk to your audience. Your brand identity will be a big part of this. Do you need to be taken seriously or can you have a bit of a laugh? Of course, there are no absolutes. Even professionals like accountants or lawyers are allowed a sense of humour. You might be an expert who’s trusted because you use straightforward language and don’t try to bamboozle clients with loads of jargon.

Think about how you’d talk to a customer if you met them face to face and take it from there.

Are your customers experts?

I ask this because speaking your customers’ language means meeting them where they are. If you’re a physiotherapist writing something for other medical professionals you can assume they’ve got a fair bit of pre-existing knowledge. A beginner’s guide to human anatomy would just come off as condescending. If, on the other hand, you’re talking to people who don’t know anything about what you do, using industry jargon will just lose them.

It’s all about finding the right level for the audience you want to attract.

Which platform are you using?

The language you use should stay consistent across all of your platforms – up to a point. If the way you come across on your website is totally different from how you are on social media or in person, you’re only going to create a massive disconnect. Doing that means that your customers don’t know which version of you to expect. You end up losing the trust you’ve taken time building.

However, there are different ways to express your personality. Your website should be professional but you can still show the same sense of humour that you have on social media. It’s just more relaxed on social.

What are you trying to achieve?

This is the really important bit. When you talk to your audience, what are you trying to achieve? How do you want them to see you? Professional but approachable, friendly, fun, trustworthy? Do you want them to respect your expertise but still feel they can talk to you as a friend? I suppose the real key is to think about what your audience needs from you. What do they need to know about you to take the step from social media follower to customer?

When you learn to speak your customers’ language that’s really what you’re doing.

Do you need help speaking your customers’ language? Whether you’re looking for sparkling web copy, product descriptions and blogs to promote your business this Christmas, or new marketing for the New Year, I’m here to help. Book your discovery call to find out how refreshing your copy can help you communicate with your audience. Or just sign up using the form below to receive copywriting tips and advice straight to your inbox every month.

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Networking: The business resource that keeps on giving

Networking - you are not alone

I’ve been thinking about the resources I use in my business a lot recently, trying to work out what’s working and what isn’t. I keep coming back to networking, mainly because business is often about who you know and partly because there are so many options. As I mentioned in this blog I’ve found that paid networking events have given me more solid relationships than free ones. But then I talk to other business owners and realise that not all networking is created equal. It got me wondering about the kind of networking I do and why it works for me.

Timing

There are so many networking event that you could feasibly spend all your time going to them, but you wouldn’t get much work done. The demands of family life rule out both breakfast and evening networking events for me which helps me narrow them down.

It means that I only go to daytime events, which has a massive impact on the kind of people I meet. They’re often senior employees of larger businesses, which usually means they have money to spend. (Yes, I’m totally capable of being mercenary.) I’ve also met people who’ve built up their side hustle or who threw themselves in at the deep end like me.

Connecting with people

Building a business is about creating relationships. Some of the people I’ve met networking have become customers, but others have become my unofficial ambassadors in their own networks.

My main networking group is women only and hugely supportive in lots of different ways. There’s always a listening ear and great advice. While approaches differ between business owners and employees, there’s still one common thread. We all promote each other, even though that’s not a requirement of membership. My network has widened because we mention each other on social media and attend each other’s events.

Follow up

My favourite networking groups have become my favourites because they make it easy to build relationships. I’ve no problem with making the time to follow up with new contacts individually, but it’s easy for your email (or theirs) to get lost in the midst of a heaving inbox.

While social media can be equally busy, the memberships with Facebook groups have brought more lasting relationships. Other members ask questions or share their content and the hive mind gets to work. People don’t just learn what you’re about in a chat over lunch, they see reminders all the time.

Other networking groups

I often turn down events because they don’t fit with my schedule or my budget. But I’ve also said no without really understanding why. I look at some of the people I’ve met over the years and marvel at the connections they have and the events they’re invited to. Often the only difference between us is that they’ve been in business for longer and have more contacts.

Yet sometimes I think I hold myself back through fear. What if they’re just better than me? Maybe they’re ‘proper’ business owners and I’m just someone who’s going to be found out one day? I think it’s something I need to address.

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this, it’s to look at the events you’re going to (or not going to). Are they the right ones for you? Is avoiding some holding you back? The reason I tell you this story is not because I have a networking event to sell (I don’t), but because I hope it’ll help. It’s also because being honest and sharing my story has helped me to build my business and meet some amazing people along the way.

If you want some help sharing your story in the right way, just get in touch.

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Content marketing: what are you posting?

Content marketing

Content marketing can get overwhelming at the best of times. Even when you’ve got a clear idea of who your customer is and what kind of content they’ll like, there are still lots of decisions to be made. Your marketing could be a full time job, but you haven’t got time for that (even I haven’t). I’m a big believer in repurposing the content you’ve already created. It’s a bit like recycling except it won’t have any significant impact on climate change. Here’s how I approach getting as much use out of my content as I can.

Write a blog

Writing a blog can seem like a massive effort, particularly when you’re struggling with it. If you’ve ever sat down and tried to write a blog only to end up with something you’re not happy with, you’re not alone. However, it is worth persevering. (Or getting someone like me to write one for you.)

A blog is a big, chunky piece of content in comparison to virtually anything else you’ll create. You can take the topics you’ve chosen and use them to inspire other posts. You can even lift phrases straight out of your blog and use them on social media.

Sharing tips

One of the best things you can do in your blog is to share tips and advice with your audience. These will vary depending on what you’re talking about. For example, I write about reasons why you might want to blog and what the benefits are. I’ll also talk about ways to get started or come up with topics.

If you’ve written a blog with multiple tips, separate them and create images with one tip on each. You can share these on multiple platforms so they go further. You can also create videos – and no, you don’t have to be in them if you don’t want to! Facebook lives tend to get better reach than other types of video so I’d recommend doing some if you can. However, you don’t have to go face to face with the camera. You could just show your hands demonstrating a tip or use computer screen capture. I also create tip videos using images with overlaid text.

Motivational content

Unless you’re in the habit of writing motivational quotes or meme-worthy copy in your blog, this one will involve going off on a bit of a tangent. Take your blog topic and use it to search for related quotes. You don’t necessarily have to stick exactly to the topic if you find something that will resonate with your audience. For instance, I wrote a blog about finding time to blog and one of the quotes I found was this:

Not directly relevant to the topic, but certainly something that would get lots of us nodding our heads. You can use the same approach with memes, particularly if you search on Pinterest. I post a fair bit of stuff that isn’t directly related to writing but which I know my audience will enjoy. However, I often find this type of content when I’m just doing my own social media scrolling so don’t worry if the repurposing/search approach doesn’t work well for you here.

There’s also a different kind of motivation you can offer. Helping your audience to gain expertise (or realise that they know more than they thought) is really worthwhile. You can do this by sharing useful resources or by asking questions about their experiences. This helps them to share their knowledge and also helps you get to know them better.

Further resources

If you’d like some hints and tips on writing your blog, start here.

My favourite video capture tools:

Screencast-o-matic for screen capture videos.

Ripl to animate your images with overlaid text.