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About midway through last winter term, I had a revelation about Wednesdays. I was bogged down by mounds of schoolwork and New Hampshire slush. The weekends seemed ages apart, and every Wednesday seemed like a dreaded wall in the middle of the week that I had to get over. I had pretty much resigned myself to gloomy hibernation. Then came the revelation. Instead of continuing to put spoons in the freezer and in vain hopes of a fairytale snowday, why couldn’t I just create my own fun in the middle of the week? I could make Wednesday the new (albeit mini) weekend. Why not bake cupcakes every Wednesday? Or go sledding for a half an hour? Nothing was stopping me; I just had to actually do it.
In the Wednesday-is-the-New-Weekend spirit, this Wednesday I decided to highlight posts about being proactive. When something isn’t going the way you want it to, you have to do something about it. These bloggers all give great insights on how to make sure you are always thinking about how to create your own success instead of just riding out week after week, hoping for miracles.
Be original. Joe Pulizzi’s tip for content marketers is to “Create Your Own Content Category.” Instead struggling to compete for the same keyword categories, why not just make a new one? Joe gives examples of new terms that successful content marketers have created.
Be popular. I actually really don’t like popularity contests. They infuriate me. If the world worked my way, everyone would get exactly what they deserved based solely on effort and competence. But Dean Rieck makes the very valid point that that’s not the way the world works – so we shouldn’t pretend it is. In “The 7 Secrets of Running a Wildly Popular Blog,” Dean argues that, as a blog writer, you have to make a conscious effort to make your readers like you, and gives insight into how to go about the wooing.
Be picky. If you don’t like cupcakes, then even though Wednesday cupcake-nights were great for me, they will fail miserably at improving your week. The same goes for marketing strategies. In his post “Getting to scale: direct marketing vs. mass market thinking,” and points out that while mass marketing may work fabulously for huge, well-known companies (and therefore seem like the way to go), direct marketing may actually be the much better solution for smaller business-to-business companies. You be selective and take the time to think about what strategy will actually work for your particular business.
Don’t be lazy. Laziness is what gets us into slumps in the first place. I’ve spent a lot of posts talking about how great social media is for marketing. And it is great – as long as you don’t get lazy about it. Kipp Bodnar’s post, “7 Reasons Social Media is Bad for Marketing,” reminds us that social media is a tool to be utilized, not a magic dust you can sprinkle on your marketing campaign. Kipp highlights some of the ways that social media could actually hurt your business if you get lazy and stop constantly assessing how you are using it.
Ask questions. The best way to be proactive about anything is to always be looking to find new solutions, new avenues for success. And the best way to find nuggets of wisdom? Ask for them! Chris Brogan says to “Carry Questions Around with You” and always be ready to ask potential mentors about how you can improve your business.
Marcella Vieraitis is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch, a full service content marketing agency serving hundreds of clients and thousands of writers since 2000.
Tags: content marketing
