We’ve all been baited into those lists of recycled tips where the author lists 10,000 excruciating content creation tips, all of which you’ve heard over and over again.

I’m pretty sick of it, so thought I’d compile something from my personal experience from a year of writing.

This is stuff I’ve had to learn pretty quick since I ‘fell into’ control of the Process Street blog. I think it’s time to give the marketing community something new that they can use and ditch the typical list post content we’ve all seen trotted out over and over.

Whichever part of the content creation process you’re at, there’s a nugget of wisdom for you here.

Let’s get started.

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This is a guest post by Nicole Cowart, an online marketing executive. She works at a cloud-based company that offers smart business solutions. She is currently studying for her Master’s degree in Web Development.

Digital marketing is the future of marketing and doing business. Most successful companies currently have their online websites and stores that generate more traffic.

Nevertheless, online marketing is also the right place for beginners who are taking their first steps in the business realm.

Even if you’re not a professional marketer, you can still design and execute a successful content strategy that helps you establish your status in the online world. All you need is a good process for it.

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When creating content, it’s easy to think you should just make it and publish it. Simple.

But your content will not be highly effective if that’s your outlook – even if the substance of your content is brilliant!

Creating content – blogs, infographics, videos, podcasts – creates an opportunity for you to connect with your audience and to engage with a new audience. There is significant value which can be unearthed through an effective content strategy.

One of the simplest ways to improve your approach is to implement a documented content creation workflow.

It may increase the time you spend on a single piece of content or decrease it depending on your current process, but it could also prove to boost the effectiveness of your content by huge margins.

A blog post which is optimized for Google can bring you hundreds or thousands of hits every month. A post which is not optimized may be read by 10% of your email list and then disappear into the void.

Beyond the very real benefit of a good workflow improving the content, a solid team workflow can boost your overall output and practically run your content team itself.

Since implementing our new content creation workflow we jumped from 20k weekly visits from Google to 75k. In the space of 1 year. The new workflow has given us the consistency to keep breaking those numbers.

In this Process Street post, I’m going to explain to you:

• What our content creation workflow looked like when we had a small team
• What our scaled up content creation workflow looks like now
• How you can build a content creation workflow like ours
• The Process Street templates you can use to structure your new workflows

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I meet so many people who love writing.

Whenever anyone asks me what I do and they find out I’m a writer, they almost always say some variant of the same thing:

“Oh, I would love to write more!”

“I wish I could do that – but I just don’t have time”

“I’ve been meaning to start blogging, but haven’t gotten round to it”

These responses are pretty consistent whether they come from a regular Joe or someone whose business and professional life would benefit from them writing more.

So many companies build a blog and intend to use it properly, only for it to fall into disrepair and get forgotten.

Why?

Because writing isn’t anyone’s core task and is then seen as less valuable.

So what if I told you that you could finish a blog post in 3 hours?

Would 3 hours a week, or even a month, be worth committing to give yourself or your company a functioning and marketable blog? Is that a small enough commitment to open up a new channel or boost your SEO?

It is. You know it. So let me show you how I do it.

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We’ve all had those days. No matter how hard you try, you can’t focus. Everything is harder than usual and heaven forbid anyone needs you to be creative.

It’s demoralizing, stressful, and makes you incredibly inefficient. That’s why it’s important to know how to get inspired.

A word of warning, however, as this post will give you techniques to help consistently find your inspiration. These tips won’t always work (everyone’s muse is different) and so it’s best to take these practices and experiment to see what works for you.

We’ll cover useful practices such as:

• How to keep a positive mindset and be more productive
• Actions to inspire you whether you’re alone or with others
• How to recapture that spark once it starts to fade
• Changing your routine (how, when, and why)

But enough blabbering – it’s time to get inspired!

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After I accidentally threw my Macbook out of a moving car and couldn’t afford another one, I’d suffered with a Windows machine for 2 years before getting a Mac again.

I made a solemn oath never to use Windows software again, but last week, I did something that really shocked me.

I enjoyed using a Microsoft product. I enjoyed using it even when there was a viable non-Microsoft alternative.

Then why, I ask myself, am I submitting myself to a Microsoft product when I don’t have to ever see Microsoft again?

Two reasons:

1. I have made a terrible mess of my Evernote.
2. OneNote is actually quite good.

In this post, I’m going to share my experiences with Evernote and OneNote, compare them, and give you an idea of how I get value out of them as a writer and note-hoarder spending all my waking hours on a laptop.

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One problem dominates the field when setting out to write a listicle.

They’ve been done to death, and a lot of us are sick of them.

From Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post to Bustle and beyond, thousands of lists are published every year, the majority of which are not exactly high-quality.

People see lists and have been trained to think “clickbait”. That’s what this post will help to avoid and prevent.

Read on to find out:

• What a “listicle” is
• Why they are so popular (to read and write)
• How to plan a listicle in 6 steps
• How to write a listicle in 5 steps

Enough talk – let’s get to it.

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Fake news is a hot button issue right now and one we’ve covered a couple of times at Process Street.

Normally, the discussion of fake news is a roundly negative affair.

How do we come back from consistently lowering journalistic standards? What does this mean for society?

In this article, I’m going to put a more positive face on and explain why there’s good reason to believe quality journalism is going to make a comeback – it may have already begun!

• We’ll look at broadly what fake news is, and why it isn’t a wholly new phenomena.
• We’ll look at the financial performance of different media outlets and try to understand what economic motivations there are in the industry, plus how that impacts on content.
• We’ll look at the new wave of journalistic opportunities and what you can do to help!

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Dictation software isn’t just something that can save you time by typing out your speech and performing commands. Talking instead of typing can and will help you prevent lasting damage to your hands.

You might think that sounds silly, and so did I.

I’m 23 – way too young to be worried about my joints or work-related injuries (my work isn’t exactly manual labor).

Then my hands seized up. Repetitive strain injury.

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The Guardian is a 195 year old British newspaper which expects to burn through £90m in 2017 after incurring damage of £200m the year before.

The Economist once described The Guardian as:

“[T]he most stylish paper in the hyper-competitive British quality pack, the wittiest and best-designed, the strongest for features, the one most likely to reflect modern life.”

At it’s peak it sold half a million papers per day. In June 2016, at peak Brexit-vote tension, The Guardian online claimed to have over 165m unique monthly browsers.

Yet, despite this history, reputation, and traffic, there are serious warnings that the money will run dry in as little as six or seven years.

If they can’t make it work, how can anyone? What future is there for journalism and traditional media?

In this article, we’ll explore a number of business models in use today on both a large and small scale, and begin to analyze their strengths and weaknesses.

We’ll break that down into 10 key recommendations for anyone looking to hop onboard the media startup bandwagon.

Then, for a bit of fun, we’ll delve into what could lie ahead for the future of print media.

Extra, extra! Read all about it!

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