It’s a common question and one that worries business owners when they start to realise they really don’t have enough time to keep their blog up to date but are worried about handing it over to someone external to their company. Hiring someone to blog for you is not as scary as people may think and is usually referred to as ghost blogging, i.e someone else blogs as you.
So how does ghost blogging work?
- Well for a start it helps take the stress out of coming up with regular content that is appropriate and interesting to your target audience. Your blogger can research and draft posts for you to review and publish or schedule them all in to be spread across a week/month.
- They can interview you about a topic which they write up for you, so your voice is the one that still comes across.
- They can also help you get your key words into your posts in a sensible way that still reads well.
And much more!!
It is important to remember that a ghost blogger will always be trying to write in your style, conveying your opinions and not in their own style or pushing their opinions. AND it keeps your blog regularly updated, encourages interaction with your clients, helps your SEO and is easily spread through social media, driving up your web traffic.
Your ghost blogger will also be able to coach you if you want to improve your own skills or you could do one of the Nikki Pilkington’s 30 Day Challenges if you prefer to work through on your own. Ghost blogging can be a short term arrangement to get the blog off the ground and build a foundation for the future, you may want to mix writing your own posts when you have time with using a ghost blogger (the service I like to encourage with my clients!) or rely solely on your ghost blogger for all the content. It’s up to you really. Because it’s your blog.
If you would like to find out more about the ghost blogging service I offer at RRVA then click here.
I said I would try and make the blog have a bit more of my personality so here is another video offering of mine. I’m thinking about ways we can be a bit happier this year and achieve what we want from life. Hope you like it! And apologies if I ramble a bit much – I’ll get better at these I’m sure 
We all make them in some way or another, either in an organised in December “I am all planning and organised for next year already” kind of way or a beginning of January “I’ve finally got round to thinking about what I want to do differently this year” kind of way. It’s New Year’s Resolutions for your business in 2012. I shared some of mine with you in my last post too. But then it’s all of a sudden the middle of January and we haven’t managed to stick to our guns for a couple of weeks let alone 12 months! Or is that just me??? I have, however, pulled myself together and got myself back on track, so here are my top tips to help you be likely to succeed in the first place and help sticking to them:
1. Keep your resolutions simple
Complicated makes it hard to achieve and frustrating if you don’t.
2. Keep them small
Grand overal goals are brilliant for motivating you but break your resolutions down into small, more achievable steps. You get to tick them off then when you’ve done them (something I completely LOVE doing, preferably in multi-coloured pens) and you can even allocate them out over the months so it’s only 1 thing to do each month to keep you on track.
3. Go with a theme
I find this helps me loads. Rather than a “I will turnover X amount and the business will be in the top 10 most influential in the Creative Industries in the UK by the end of the year”, it makes it more achievable to say “This year is about growth and getting RRVA recognised nationally”. It gives me something to hang my smaller steps on and to check against when opportunities come in – will it help me achieve my theme??
4. Tell People!
Accountablity is great for making you check back to see what you wanted to achieve. Blog it, share it will a group of like minded people at a networking event and arrange points in the year to get together and see how each of you are doing and support each other to go the next step. Start to work with and hire people who will help you make those changes and hold you to account each month, be it a business coach, a personal trainer or a mentor from within your field.
5. Write it down and stick it up!
Following on from the above, you need to have them somewhere you will see them all the time to remind you what you want out of the year. And also to see how many you’ve managed to cross off your steps already. Hold yourself to account.
This month I’m thinking a lot about resolutions, how to make and keep them effectively and how much better my business will be if I stick to them. These are my suggestions, I’d love to know how you go about making and keeping yours – or maybe you think resolutions are a waste of time! – so please share your thoughts below in the comments.
Posted in Tips | 2012 Resolutions, Business Planning, Goal Setting, New Year's Resolutions | Leave a comment
New horizons
This time last year I wrote down my goals for the year and stuck them to my wall to inspire me. I tried to be specific and measurable and make sure I had down personal aims as well as business ones. So why did I take it down and how did I do?
Well to answer my first question I took them down coz they were getting in the way and then I moved house to stay with my Mum whilst my purchase went through and they kinda got lost. I kept them digitally however so I can remind myself what I have achieved and base this year’s goals on what I learned last year.
The main thing I learned is that setting a turnover goal does not motivate me. No, not at all, in fact it has the opposite effective of making me worry stupidly about not reaching it. But I will be doing something similar again because it really is the best way to measure if my business is turning over more than I need it to – which is my goal. I have, at least, managed to get it up to what I need and learned that it is important to work with the right people to keep me on track and that they are worth paying for even if I think I can’t afford them.
I STILL have not revised my business plan so I do REALLY need to do that as things move in a slightly different direction. I actually need to write it down and face the thing I fear – the financial forecasting!
I did run my workshops and speak at an event and I will be running another workshop or 2 this year in my role as the Women in Rural Enterprise group leader for the Oswestry and Borders area. If you want me to come and talk about using social media effectively for your business or how to make your work flow more efficient then let me know!
My blogging has got more consistent which is brilliant but the personal blog idea never really took off. Ah well, there is always this year. I plan to be more disciplined and set aside a speicifc time each week for my own blogs updating.
And my Marketing plan was implemented with some success and lots to learn from. This year’s will be more focused and I have help to keep me on track and to assess what works and what doesn’t.
As for my personal goals I manged them all, yeah me!! BUT I have had to loose my cleaner in the move but that will be rectified very soon. Well, once the builders have finished anyway.
But this year is really all about balance. Yes I want to grow my income to the next stage and to be as consistent as I can get it but I want to do it in a way that I am comfortable with. A way that is much more me. I also have recognised that in order to be at my best for my clients I need to be happy as a person. I have not been doing anything creative for a good 6 to 8 months due to workload and the move etc and I have suffered and my work has suffered as a consequence. I will be taking time to draw and photograph regularly with the goal of a small, local exhibition in the summer to work towards. It will do me good to let my flow, well flow.
In case you are wondering here are a few of my goals;
- to add more of my personality back into my blog – it was getting a bit boring in my opinion
- to earn a bit more than I actually need every month
- to re-engage a cleaner once the building work is finished!
- to really focus on what I do and do it better – particularly with regards to Social Media (I need to get my head round Google+ better!) and to running WiRE
- To be stricter with myself about how I structure my working week and when I don’t work!
- To make time to create – its the best stress relief and centreing of myself I can do, which is good for everyone
So will I be sticking my goals up on my wall again in 2012?? Hell yeah! Let’s hope I keep them there for the whole year this time! I’d love to know one or two of your goals too, to help us be realistic and celebrate our successes. I want to let people know if I or you achieve them on here! So please share your goals in the comments below.
It’s something I have been looking into myself recently. Those repetitious tasks that I need to remember either every week or every month to do – how is it going to work best to remind myself? I am trialing a few different ways currently.
I have used my calendar with a reoccurring event programmed in, I have written it in my diary (yep, I still have a paper one which I use for my daily to do tasks and to not loose my coaching notes), the new reminders thingy on my iPhone/iOS5 and also a service that emails me when I have to do something.
I have to say that to date I haven’t got a preference. Back when I was a PA I was my bosses reminder service. A gentle email if he wasn’t in or I’d remind him at our beginning of the day catch up if he was and that worked great for him. I managed to hold most of his deadlines in my head but, for some reason, now they are my own I struggle a little! For myself I will keep trying the different systems until I find the one that works for me, which I suspect is a combination of my iCal and the reminders thingy, but would anyone else appreciate a personal reminder service? One that isn’t automatic and a bit impersonal AND you have to set up yourself? A nice email from your PA to say – Don’t forget to do your invoicing today – type thing?
It’s just a thought I wanted to share. And if I like any of the services I try and add a link to the blog but in the meantime what do you find helps or think would help? Please let me know in the comments below.
It really is my favorite season. I love the colours, the morning mist that makes the school run feel a bit magical and the need to start layering up to keep warm. It’s not too cold just yet but cold enough to need to get out my scarves and hats.
The evenings are darker now too and I like to close the curtains and create a nice cosy feeling inside the house, without it having winter’s chill. I make a little cocoon but it’s not cold enough to hibernate yet so I get things done! It is a great time to think about my business. I’m not into my full on planning for the new year, I haven’t finished this one yet, but I have started to think a little about what I would like to achieve. I am also looking at what I have achieved so far this year too. Keeping up with all those new connections I have made, which goals I have met that and which need a little tweaking! This year was meant to be a consolidating one for me, about minimising the changes and building on what I have created to a strong, recognisable brand and getting myself out there. Some of it has worked but definitely NOT the only small changes thing – I have relocated to the other side of the country and am taking on a renovation as well as growing the business a bit earlier than I had originally planned.
It’s a good time for reflection as there is still time left in the season and year to make a few more tweaks to systems, tweak a few plans, improve how I run things and how I promote myself as well as lay down the foundations for the changes I mean to make next year. The things I know aren’t my strengths I have taken on expert guidance for, the things I love but don’t spend enough time on I am making time for more regularly.
Autumn is a great season! What are you doing, and I mean doing not just thinking about, this season to improve your business?
As in physically where in your house/office/garden do you find it easiest to write? Or does location not play a factor for you to get your flow going? Here I share my best place to write and would encourage you to do the same in the comments … mostly so I don’t feel quite so silly!!!
This topic has come up several times in different discussions recently, both from a what is a ‘proper’ professional body and what a good one can provide to it’s members.
A good professional body or association generally has a set of professional requirements that you have to meet in order to be able to join, have a managing committee that meets at least once a year and comments on it’s industry. They also probably have publications and training available to its members and are available for advice. Some of the bigger ones, particularly for very regulated industries such as architecture, have inspectors that periodically check that it’s members are still meeting its published set of standards. Obviously this doesn’t necessarily mean they are a ‘good’ association or body but it does mean they are established and recognised within their own, but also importantly, outside of their industry.
When recently I was asked by a fledgling illustrator where they could find out about pricing their work, find ways of finding clients and also get some critical feedback on the portfolio they were building I was slightly aghast they had never heard of the Association of Illustrators (aoi). For a not very high yearly fee this start up illustrator could access all sorts of advice, publications that are widely read and distributed and portfolio advice along with a host of other services. But also I know of several associations that seem to provide little more than a directory and the occasional enewsletter.
There are lots of iterations in between and I think it is worth doing your research in your industry before you join anything. Ask both your peers and your client base which they have heard of, what they think of them or what they have heard about them. See what information is available on their websites, what are the benefits balanced against the cost of joining and if you are not sure don’t join. At least not straight away. You should be able to email someone through the website and ask any questions you may have.
Then there is the option of an international versus a national based association or body. This, in my opinion, depends on your client base and your industry. If you are mostly UK based for example and have no interest in trading internationally, perhaps an international body isn’t really relevant for you – unless of course they are the best body for your industry and it will benefit you by joining. In unregulated sectors, such as my own, it can be hard to work it all out.
Are they worth joining?? I think so but only after extensive research and waiting to be sure which you think will help. Does it matter if you are not in an association? Well, I’m not in one, yet anyway. But in the long run, and depending on your sector, then it can be a good investment for both support, promotion and being seen as being held to a high standard by your client base.
What do you think? Is it worth it in your sector or are there no associations or professional bodies worth joining for your business? Have you had a bad experience with a professional body? Please share your thoughts and experiences below.
A lot has happened here at RRVA over the summer so I want to remind you of a few of the posts that you may have missed.
If you are wondering what your Social Media activity is getting you or are just starting to take it seriously as a way to market your business then you need to read How to write a Social Media Strategy
If you are struggling with your admin and wondering why it takes up so much of your time you should download my Work Flow Tips to streamline your process and get some time back.
If you are looking to grow your client base then why not re read my Simple Marketing Ideas article and finally if you are really looking to maximise your business, get back time, drive your marketing and basically get some help then (apart from giving me a call for your free consultation obviously!) you should download my Free Guide to finding and hiring a VA.
So now it’s time to bring on the Autumn! My favourite season of all with it’s glowing colours, wrapping up warm and snuggling up of an evening with the family time of year.
A little help please
As many of you know I upped sticks and moved to North Shropshire at the end of August this year, all in a bit of an unexpected rush. Surffice it to say that despite the sale of our property in Leicestershire going really well, smoothly and not to mention QUICKLY, the purchasing a house side of things has been a lot slower. It’s been 9 weeks now. Staying at my mum’s.
Yeah.
So what I would really like your advice/stories/ideas on is; how to create a conducive to working well environment and space in a temporary location. Have any of you done something similar? Has it ended badly or made you more creative?
Please let me know your thoughts below. I really need some help with this one!