Work Better, Not Harder

Using a content template can shorten your writing time and also keep you more focused. The purpose of this particular template is to give people a useful tool to complete a task more efficiently. This type of article shows off your expertise . Because it is so useful, people will bookmark it and return. Part of its usefulness is its simplicity: no long paragraphs, no complex sentences. Grab The Checklist content template here (.pdf). Get More Templates If you like this template, grab the mini workbook Quick and Easy Content Creation with 14 more templates , plus some tips for using them to be more productive. Click to Tweet this Article

'The Creativity Movement' - this headline caught my eye in the paper recently. Included were several inspiring articles about idea generation and I noticed a common thread running throughout. It turns out that idea generation works better with more people than just yourself. No surprise there; doesn't this sound like brainstorming? Whatever you call it, more people make it merrier... and more creative. So, this creativity movement hinges on collaboration. And that's good news for small business! Most small business owners I know thrive on collaboration; having others to work with but having autonomy, too. It almost feels like we have an unfair advantage in this new age. Small business owners dream of getting that BIG IDEA. The one that will make them rich or popular or powerful, or give them the means to do good for others. But to get to that big idea, we have to practice with lots of little ones. No matter how overused, "practice makes perfect" is...

... is the one you don't have to learn yourself. You don't know what you don't know. Hire an expert and go do what you do best. Click to Tweet this Article

A photo can be a powerful marketing message , an expression of brand with more impact than a logo. It's worth a thousand words and expressed through many thousands of colours. We have feelings about the image itself and about the colours. You know how you feel when looking at a beautiful photo of sand, sun and surf? Aquamarine, white, pink, and deep blue. Even if you don't own a bathing suit, you want to be there. Summer colour schemes can be bright and vibrant, or cool and relaxed. What does your summer marketing campaign look and feel like? Here are some photos that inspired me. I've included html colour codes and links to the original photos on pixabay.com if you want to download for yourself. Can a fallen leaf be elegant? I think this one is - elegant and earthy. And, if I have time to contemplate this leaf, I must be feeling relaxed and at ease. Gazania are attention hogs in the garden with their warm colours and pinwheel designs. ...

Not everyone is a 'visual' person, by preference or physical circumstances. But many are, which is why you can't ignore graphics as an important piece of your content. Can I convince you? Today we are exposed to about five times more information daily than we were in the mid-1980s - around 34 gigabytes of information, roughly equivalent to 174 newspapers. Out of necessity, our attention spans have become shorter as we attempt to process information faster. Over 50% of the human brain is devoted to processing visual information, and 70% of our sensory receptors are contained in our eyes. This means people are good at processing and remembering pictures . In fact, it only takes the average person one-tenth of a second to understand the content in a picture. It would take that same person over 30 seconds to read a description about the content in that same picture… over 300 times longer. Since 2007, graphic content on the internet has increased by almost 10,000%! We h...

"If all you're sharing is other people's content, why do people need to follow you?" ~ Anita Kirkbride Recently I've sat with a couple of small business owners who have been "on social media" for a while but have not been doing much. In planning to ramp up their social game, one of the first things they both wanted to do was to get apps that help curate (bring them content based on keywords). This way they would have content to share. I couldn't understand why this was important to them. I'm never at a loss for something to share. Granted, we all have different strategies and goals. Here's where I find my content to share: Experts I Know - I'm really lucky to know a few of them and their information is very relevant for my target market. Clients and Friends - I follow all of my clients on all social media platforms. Their information is not always relevant to my target market but sometimes peripherally. I pick and choose to s...