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The Reformed Procrastinator’s Guide to Repurposing Content

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Fear hit me.

“I have a research paper due tomorrow morning,” I said aloud, startling everyone else in the movie theater who was watching Kevin Costner hit a golf ball.

How could I have forgotten? It was 8:00 on a Sunday evening and I had an 8-page paper due in twelve hours.

When I arrived home, I sat down in front of my computer and tried to think of a topic. My professor said our papers needed to be about technology in some way, shape, or form.

“How can I find, research, and write about a topic in one night? I have a few hours to do a few week’s worth of work!”

I was in trouble.

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Occam’s Razor

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occams-razor-portraitAre you familiar with Occam’s Razor?

In basic terms, it means the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

Have a flat tire? Unless you own a mogwai named “Gizmo” as a pet, Gremlins were unlikely to be involved – you probably just drove over a nail.

Found a hole in your yard? Your neighbor’s dog, not pirates looking for buried treasure, is the likely culprit.

And if your blog is failing to live up to your expectations, it’s probably not due to some nefarious plot to destroy you. No, the reason is likely far, far simpler.

It’s difficult to hear sometimes, but the reason we aren’t succeeding as we hoped isn’t because Google hates us. It isn’t because influential bloggers are spiteful people unwilling to let anyone else into their exclusive club. And it isn’t because “stuff just happens.”

Maybe you aren’t putting in enough time? Maybe you’ve gone as far as your current level of knowledge can take you? Maybe you need a new game plan?

One of our biggest jobs as bloggers is troubleshooting.

If a post isn’t flowing like it should, we figure out the reason why and correct it. If we wake up one day to discover our blog suddenly looks like a creation of Jackson Pollock, we figure out which of our too-too-many plugins is responsible for breaking it.

That’s troubleshooting. It’s how we fix something that isn’t working.

There’s a real, tangible reason your blog isn’t living up to your expectations.

It’s up to you to find the problem, troubleshoot it, and fix it.

Creative Commons Image via Emma Jane Hogbin Westby.

What a 4-Hour Meeting Can Teach Us About Blogging

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board-meeting-landscapeI recently had the “pleasure” of sitting through a 4-hour meeting for my job.

Thankfully, we took a 1-minute break half-way through. This was long enough for me to stand up and stretch my legs, but not long enough for me to escape from the building, run to my car, and drive home.

I loathe meetings. The only upside to them is they give me time to think.

Usually, I think about how much I hate meetings. Sometimes, I think about blogging.

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Zigging When Other Bloggers are Zagging

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zig-zag-landscapeEverywhere you turn, we bloggers see?articles?telling us how to stand out from the crowd.

“Write great comments.”

“Publish epic content.”

“Read and follow that handsome Kevin Duncan guy from Be A Better Blogger.”

It’s good, well-meaning advice.

With so many bloggers out there, you have to stand out if you want your blog to be noticed. Right?

So, that’s what we try?to do. We try to be unique. We try to be memorable. We try to go the extra mile.

There’s only one problem…

Everyone else is standing out from the crowd, too.

And when everyone else is standing out from the crowd, you find yourself right back where you started: in a crowd.

It’s a challenge isn’t it?

How can we stand out when conventional wisdom is telling all of us to do the same things?

Defying Conventional Wisdom

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking there is only one way to be successful. When it comes to blogging, believe these truths:

  1. There are no shortcuts to success.
  2. You need to know your purpose for blogging, otherwise you will fail.
  3. There is no one right way to do anything.

To that end, I’ve been doing something different here at Be A Better Blogger the past month. While conventional wisdom says I should publish infrequently, I’ve been publishing daily. While conventional wisdom says my posts should be epic and long, I’ve been publishing short, compact blog musings.

Since everyone else is doing their thing over there, I’m doing this other thing over here. If they are going to zig, I’m going to zag. 🙂

My challenge to you is to do something that goes against conventional blogging wisdom, too. Find a way to zig when everyone else is zagging. Find a way to mix things up.

Start using a social media platform your competitors are ignoring. Maybe sprinkle a little humor into your writing. Maybe do something others will think is crazy.

It doesn’t have to be big, and it shouldn’t be something you believe will be detrimental to your blog’s mission.

But if you hope to stand out from the crowd, you need to find something that goes against the crowd.

Originally published September 4, 2014. It has been updated. Creative Commons Image via Crystal.

Your Best Blogging Year Ever Starts Now

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fireworks
A new year is upon us, and with it is our annual tradition of making resolutions we abandon before Punxsutawney Phil has emerged from Gobbler’s Knob.

“Get out of debt” gives way to a 20% sale on shoes. “Get organized” is defeated as soon as you walk into your child’s bedroom. “Lose weight” is undone by an evil co-worker who brings doughnuts to the office.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. So why do we make resolutions year after year?

We make them because we need purpose and direction. We make them because we need reason to believe this year will be better than the last.

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Do You Make These 7 Blogging Mistakes?

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mistake

Mistakes.

I’ve made a few.

As a teenager, I failed my driving exam because I didn’t tell the instructor to buckle his seat belt.

In college, I once stayed awake 48 straight hours so I could study for finals. This was back before I discovered the magic elixir known as coffee.

As an adult, I paid good money to watch “The Glass House” starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.

And as a blogger I’ve made more mistakes than I can count.

I’m in good company, though. All bloggers have made their fair share of mistakes.

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Google Authorship is dead: What you should do now

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The rise and fall of Google Authorship has been discussed ad nausea. Practically everyone has talked about it.

Everyone except me, that is. I like to chime in on a topic after the hype has died down. (Speaking of which, can you believe “Shakespeare in Love” beat “Saving Private Ryan” for Best Picture?in 1998? That’s crazy.)

A detailed look at what Google Authorship was and why it went away can be better explained by greater minds. However, for most people, these details are overkill.

This post is going to keep things as simple as possible.

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