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Keeping Current: Five Tips To Write About What’s Happening In Your Industry

I know we’re all looking for ways to keep our blog content updated regularly. Regularly updated information keeps readers coming back, shows the world that you still exist, increases search engine visibility, and of course, can provide content for books later on. But the ongoing question is always HOW do I create all that content?

A great way to keep your blog fresh is to post content that is relevant to your industry RIGHT NOW. Here are five ways where you can be sure that you’re “in the loop” for what’s big in your industry right now.

 

1. Google Alerts

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Set up a Google alert for a keyword in your industry and have it deliver the content once per day. My trick here is to tell Google to give me EVERYTHING from every source it can; not just what Google deems “important”. This gives me insight into what is happening globally, in local markets, and far beyond the blockbuster news stories.

A word of caution here: your alert will ONLY be as good as your keyword! My keyword of “publishing” returns me TONS of results every day but only a small portion of the results are relevant. After a few weeks of scanning the articles, I was able to narrow and refine my alert’s keyword.

2. Troll Facebook

Now, before you tell me “But Kim, all my people hang out on LinkedIn” (or Twitter or Google+ or WHATEVER) just trust me on this one! Because I can pretty much guarantee that your competition or the biggest player in your industry has a presence on Facebook. So scan that fanpage regularly for what are they posting about what is happening in your industry. Then, you can follow the news back to its source to get the full scoop or do some digging about contradictory positions.

It’s okay to let somebody else do some of the research for you! Plus, they’ll also be sorting for what’s important and letting the fluff go by. Just be careful that you’re not just copying somebody else’s media strategy or opinion about what is breaking news!

3. Subscribe To Industry Magazines

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Online or offline, your industry will have a few key magazines. The real gold here isn’t always in the current editions but in the archives. As a subscriber, often you can access older issues for free or low cost. What you’ll see after a while is a pattern to when they’re timing their articles. So when you start to see that pattern of “They always have an article about THISandTHAT in March” then you know that this is a seasonal topic that you can research ahead of time and be ready to jump on board.

By the way, any regularly published industry “publication” will work. In addition to subscribing to two writing magazines, I also get three email newsletters about writing and publishing. Authors aren’t super big into podcasts since we like written words but if we were, I’d listen to the podcasts as well.

4. Get On Press Release Lists

Specifically the press releases for the key players in your industry. For my outdoor recreation business, I’m on the press release list for the local National Forest. For publishing, I read the press releases from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Instead of waiting for the story to break in a huge publication and then cover it later, I get the information at nearly the same time the biggest news outlets do.

Here’s the ninja move though:
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Instead of JUST posting the press release to your blog (which can be okay) you can insert your expert opinion about what the update MEANS. For example, my article Why Traditional Publishing Isn’t Fair is based off an article I found but I didn’t just republish the article. I gave my expert opinion about what it means to us as independent authors.

5. Create The News

I know a ton of business owners who regularly submit press releases to their local papers or to distribution services but who NEVER post the content directly on their website! Or if they do, it’s buried under a Media tab. If you’re the one doing something newsworthy in your industry, toot your own horn and tell people about it.

Remember that the style and format for a press release is far different than a blog article! You can either post the press release directly into a blog article or you can take the same news and repackage it to fit the style and tone of your blog.

A word of caution about tips 1 – 4: be sure that you are fully vetting any source materials you use. You don’t want to perpetuate bad information or run the risk of looking like you didn’t do your due diligence to make sure that the facts are accurate.

It can take a lot of time to sort through the news. Even if you don’t end up using the information on your blog, it’s never wasted time because it helps you have a “big picture” look at your industry.

Using Stories to Engage the Readers

It’s the middle of February. Technically, we’ve only been in tax season for two weeks since we couldn’t even START until January 31. But I’m already planning my after-tax-season reward. (My family owns a tax practice, in case you’re wondering why I mention tax season!)

What does this have to do with writing, publishing, or blogging?

Because my after-tax-season reward is a five-day long backpacking trip along the Verde River. And I’m already starting to collect notes for the book I’ll write after the adventure!

Let me tell you about the trip so you have a frame of reference. Ben (and Pete-dog) and I are being dropped off at the bridge at Perkinsville Ranch the afternoon of April 16th (Wednesday). Our pull-out point is 23 miles upriver at the bridge at Old Highway 89. This happens to be the headwaters of the Verde River. Since it’s such a long trip, I’ve already started getting in shape to be hauling a 35 pound pack up hills and around bushes. Oh, by the way, there’s no trail! I’m calling it the bridge-to-bridge trip and have been boring the tax clients to death talking about it!

Bridge at Perkinsville Ranch along the Verde River.

Bridge at Perkinsville Ranch along the Verde River.

So what am I doing differently about this writing project than any other project? Well, first off, even though this is a non-fiction project, like most of what I write, it’s a very different type of project because I’m planning a memoir of sorts about the trip. It’ll be non-fiction insomuch as that the trip actually HAPPENED but I want to write it with all the tension and story arcs that usually accompany fiction.

  • There will be characters: me, my boyfriend Ben, his dog Pete.
  • There will be tension: hopefully just the type with weather, flora, fauna, and sore muscles.
  • There will be change or growth in the character: I’m a different person now than I’ll be at the end of the trip.

Staying true to my non-fiction, how-to loving roots, I’m also planning on incorporating a bunch of backpacking tricks and tips that I discover both in the planning stages and once the trip is underway. And I know what I DON’T want the book to be like: boring! I’ve read a few memoirs recently that were set during really fascinating periods in the authors’ lives. But the narrative reads more like a grocery list than an exciting adventure.

Keep Reading!

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Indexing Your Business Journals

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A few weeks ago I got asked just HOW I organize the thoughts in my business journals so they were accessible and easy to find later.

Here’s the sneaky answer: I don’t. I hate to admit it but I can honestly say I’ve never really thought about it before. Usually, they’re one-step up from just musings. Or like the project I’m working on now; I’m jotting down full sections of writing that will later be typed into Word. I probably won’t need to go back to the journal once it’s typed up.

But there are times when I look back at a journal and realize that what I’m struggling with NOW was something I had solved, or even just started thinking about, weeks ago. So while I don’t organize my journals, I will now!

I got these steps from a business mentor of mine, Rodney Rich, in just a quick conversation we had last weekend. So huge shout out to Rodney: THANKS!

(Here’s his website and his Facebook page.)

(But the caveat on this system, I haven’t tried it yet. I’ll give it a whirl and get back to you!)

Steps:

  1. Leave at least 5 pages at the front of the journal blank. If you’ve already filled them in, this will work at the back as well.
  2. Number all your pages. (I recommend a lower corner. At least make sure it’s the same spot on every page!)
  3. Grab a package of stickies and a blank sheet of paper. On the paper, write down letters A – G on the left hand side. These are going to be your categories. Assign a category to each letter. Examples are Marketing, Client Mindset, Project A, Project B, etc.
  4. Go through the journal and put the corresponding lettered sticky every time the theme comes up in the journal.
  5. In the first few pages, you’ll transfer over your letter codes and the category name. Then, using the stickies you put on the pages, you’ll write down the page numbers of where you can find notes about that topic.

Some topics will be common across ALL journals (like marketing) and others may be more project-central and then only appear in one or two journals.

After years of keeping business journals, I know from experience that there will be repeating themes in ALL your journals. Marketing for sure, but also internal topics that you deal with all the time. I’m recommending that you ALWAYS assign these topics to the same letter.

On your computer, you can create a master index where you’ll generally index things like:

Notebook 1:
Marketing (A)
Client Mindset (B)
Blog Ideas (C)
Book Ideas (D)
Website Updates (E)
Notes from XYZ Event (F)
Video Marketing Project (G)
Telesummit Plan (H)

Notebook 2:
Marketing (A)
Client Mindset (B)
Blog Ideas (C)
Book Ideas (D)
Website Updates (E)
Book Launch (F)

Now, you can completely take this to the next level and create the index file on your computer so you might have notes like:

Marketing
Notebook 1: 5-7; 12, 15, 26, 31
Notebook 2: 56-71, 83, 100-103

Client Mindset
Notebook 1: 7-12, 33, 47-49
Notebook 2: 1-13; 57

Then, you can run a search in the file for every time you reference marketing. You can also break it down farther into more specific TYPES of marketing like video launches vs Facebook promotion ideas.

Don’t get me wrong, this will be a pretty big undertaking. I would recommend starting with your current journal and then working backwards. There will (probably) come a point when the notes and thoughts you’ve jotted down are just too old to be relevant to your business now.

And I fully recommend that you DON’T try to index the journal as you go along. If I was worried about making my notes and thoughts fit into my main categories, I know it would severely limit my creativity and thought process.

For this business, I really only have only filled two dedicated journals so I’ll be going back and working through the indexing process. I’m also planning on cross-referencing this to the course books I’ve received at some awesome conferences lately.

I take all my notes AT the conference in their provided course book but then I find that the ideas I’m implementing I write about a lot in my journal. So I’ll be adding the cross reference from course book to journal into my system as well.

Now remember, I JUST learned about this system this past weekend. I’ll be implementing it over the next few weeks and I’ll get back to you. In the meantime:

How do you index or categorize your business journals?

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Writing Projects Outside of Your Niche

I do a lot of consultations with entrepreneurs who are looking to write a book in their niche. And this is a GREAT idea since it can help you really get your message out there, increase your reach, credibility and perceived expertise.

But sometimes these same entrepreneurs admit to me, rather sheepishly, that they have ANOTHER book project they’d just love to work on. Something that has NOTHING to do with their niche, business, or expertise. I really think they’re looking for permission to branch out and do something that really won’t forward their business at all.

Except that these “other” projects really DO help you forward your business!

Take for example, Pastarelli. I’ve written about him in a few articles. This book has NOTHING to do with writing and publishing blogs and books or with the other niche I write in, outdoor recreation. So why does this completely different project make me a better business owner?

Because Pastarelli is a passion of mine. And while I know that I need to keep the main thing the main thing, I’ve found that by doing something different has really increased my passion and creativity IN the main thing. But taking a break and writing something completely different is another way to re-charge your batteries and keep things fresh.

I’ve got two projects in the works that are completely out of my normal writing scope (and one is completely out of my comfort zone!)

Project #1:

I have sponsored events and had trade show booths a LOT throughout my professional career. And I’ve created a ton of tricks, tips, idea, and checklists that I really want to share. This book has nothing to do with anything in my current business. BUT the information keeps rattling around in my brain looking to get out.

I haven’t quite figured out how to turn this into a list-building exercise but I think the possibility is there. See, I have these GREAT checklists for trade show booth setup and I would like to offer this as a bonus to people who buy the book. What I’m not sure about is if THOSE people would be interested in a newsletter about writing…

(I’d LOVE your thoughts on that!)

This is a pretty small project. Like a rainy Saturday afternoon when it’s too nasty to hike and I’m too brain dead to really work.

Project #2:

A novel. Yep, I’ve been slowly outlining and planning a novel. I started in November, actually, collecting ideas and beginning my research. A novel is COMPLETELY out of my comfort zone and I’ll admit I’ve been a little freaked to even start writing. Jotting down ideas and doing research is WAY easier than actually beginning.

And I’ve been a little bit let off the hook because I refuse to start such a monumental project when I’m still in the middle of the LAST monumental project I’ve started: video.

But the video project should be launching in the next 10- to 14-days so I’m rapidly running out of excuses about the novel.

Now here’s the thing with BOTH of these other projects. I will be spending time, energy, creativity and effort on them. But I know that neither is really my MAIN THING. But both are side projects that will help with my overall creativity!

And, the novel is a goal of mine for 2014: Write Something That Scares You

So here’s the advice that I give to all those sheepish entrepreneurs who ask me about the “other” project they have brewing. Go for it! Enjoy the process but know when you need to come back to the main thing.

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