For our second live chat at Made in Blog, we asked the question: “How do you find your inspiration for your blog posts? “
As a blogger, we often use our own questioning as an inspiration. This questioning may come from multiple sources, but the important thing is to keep an eye on what might interest your audience.
Whether it’s everyday life, social networks or questions from your readers, the important thing, when you want to share your findings, is to have a content that relates to your blog.
The difficult thing is not necessarily renewing one’s content, but rather ensuring that you have the time to write a post with a certain level of quality. We could all start writing several articles without any form of “quality control” but that would be throwing away your time and that of the readers. The biggest challenge is then to find an interesting topic and be able to tell the story your own way.
Nobody likes to read a generic press release. That’s where bloggers come into play. By personalizing the content and not taking yourself too seriously, something that traditional media can’t always do, it allows you to differentiate yourself and develop your own voice.
Everyone agrees that it’s a good thing to post regularly, but the “regular” may vary from person to person. It is therefore essential for a blogger to determine how often he wants to be posting. You should set a minimum, but as mentioned Marie Heroux from theblog P’tite Madame, you can even set a maximum. Considering that most bloggers do not do this full time, it is not always realistic to be able to post every day. Setting a limit therefore allows you to achieve your objectives, which in return can be very encouraging.
Having a structure or a theme, or even a calendar of content is another good way to ensure that you’re regularly posting. It allows you to stay up to date more easily and it ensures that you’re not repeating yourself.
It’s true that even with the best intentions, it’s always easy to run out of time. In this case, social networking can be your best tool, because it’s always possible to post content on social networks even if it doesn’t serve as an article on your blog. This is another way of reminding your readers that you can inform them on the latest news and keep them up to date. You can put aside a mere 5 minutes, which is enough time to tweet an article you liked or post an instagram photo of your new summer dress. It’s quick and easy and your readers will appreciate.
In short, inspiration can come from everyday life, but is definitely facilitated when there’s a good structure in place. Whether you prefer the written blog post with multiple photos, or vlogging, the key is to find a way to post with which you feel at ease and that your readers enjoy.
If you want to participate in our next MIB chat, just follow us on Facebook and we’ll let you know!