Writer's Block Cures for Content Marketing

A blog can really support the efforts of a brand – to the point that it’s almost become a necessity. Other than humanizing your business with personality and giving a greater voice to your message or product, a well optimized blog helps a lot with SEO, so it really accomplishes a lot in one fell swoop. “But I’m not a writer!” you gasp? No problemo, compadre. There are ways of working around that. Of course, there is always some writing involved – hence content marketing – but if you aren’t exactly a wordsmith, the ease and effectiveness of the following tactics will make you think you’re getting away with something. But not so fast, cowboy – these are totally legit. Leave rebelling to the pros.

Ferris Bueller: Professional Rebel

1. Content Curation

Curating content is an efficient way to add rich content to your blog – not to mention a quick fix for writer’s block. FSC curates content every week for our What We’re Reading series. All you have to do is search for valuable and relevant articles to elaborate on the goals of your brand; either site, link or reproduce them; and add your own original thoughts and opinions.

Many successful sites do this. Longreads curates full articles sourced from publishing giants like the New Yorker and Wired, with a simple sentence or two as an introduction. The Drudge Report is a curating extremist, taking it a step further with only links making up their entire site. It’s a bold strategy, but in their case it works as they are one of the most popular online news sources.

Ethics might come into question when curating content. If you are outsourcing your content, will your audience put their faith and trust in you as an industry authority? Yes, if you do it the right way. Only curate content that makes sense for your brand and enhances your existing platform, not just as filler flowers. In addition, respond to the content and give a reason why you’re posting it. Always remember to credit or link to the source.

2. Visual Posts

We’ve entered the age of image based interests – in a good way. Superficiality is no longer a bad thing – in the realm of online marketing, that is to say. Just look at the eye catching social channels of Instagram and Pinterest that are leaders in social media. An excellent way of creating aesthetically pleasing content that says a lot with few words is by using photos. You can create a post with pictures and captions alone if you want. Think of it as a photo essay. GoNOLA.com, an FSC client, does this every week with their weekend recap series.

With these kinds of posts, you can curate and visualize at the same time. As long as you credit the photographer and source, original photos aren’t necessary. A prime example of a site that exclusively uses both of these tactics at once is Pinterest, and look how great they’re doing.

3. Scanable Content

Above all, your content should be easy to understand and to read, both for the mind and the eyes. An easy way to achieve this is with lists. People LOVE lists. Top 10 lists, How-Tos, reader polls and editor’s picks are all great ways to incorporate lists. This is the type of content that is also highly sharable, which is what you should be shooting for, because if no one sees it – what’s the point? Lists are also great ways to focus and guide the theme of your post.