In order to succeed in attracting attention for your business these days, you have to be producing some sort of interesting or valuable content on a regular basis. Most business owners & marketers I meet think this is a great idea in theory, but have a hard time following through with consistent content generation in practice.

If you want to succeed at promoting your business, you have to schedule content generation. Schedule it on your calendar & don’t let anything move that time around. Be consistent.

You’ll notice that here at Heligonix, you’ll see a new post from me every Monday (last week was “2 Step for Promoting Your Business by Writing in Storms” & the week before was “Know What Your Business’s Customers are Thinking“). That’s because every Monday I have it on my calendar to write for the company blog. And every Monday I write at least one new article (but often I’ll do more than one: read last week’s post to see why).

Here’s four reasons you have to schedule content creation:

1. If you don’t schedule it, it won’t happen.
2. Scheduling forces you to come up with more ideas than if you just write when you feel like it.
3. You can coordinate writing schedules with your colleagues. Who wants to see a site with eight updates on one day & none for the next two weeks?
4. Your audience will know when to look for your new work if it comes out on a regular basis

So pull out your calendar (digital or paper are both fine) & schedule your content creation now. Your customers will thank you for giving them more information & it will eventually show in your profit margins as well.

So put blogging, writing, video production or some other content production on your schedule now. Not just for once or twice, but for an on-going basis. Then leave a comment letting us know how often you’ve scheduled for & where we can find your work online. We’ll come check it out & congratulate you on your good work!

For more interesting articles from the Heligonix team visit http://blog.heligonix.com/heligonix-blog.

4 Reasons to Schedule Your Writing is a post from: MatthewPBlock.com Matthew P. Block Enterprises

Last week, I wrote a guest post at Don Harkey’s Galt Consulting blog in a series on Failures to Communicate sharing 6 Tips for Avoiding Miscommunication. These tips focused on creating shared meaning in the workplace, but there’s another place you need to be sure you have a shared meaning with your audience: Your communication with customers!

Advertising
When you publish any sort of advertising, you’re trying to send a message to your customers & potential customers. Are they receiving the message you’re trying to send? Or is there a failure to communicate? The only way to really find out is to ask. That’s why the research field (polls, surveys, focus groups, etc.) is so important to any broadcast advertising campaign. If you’re going to spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on an advertising campaign through a medium that doesn’t provide for any feedback, you’d better test & be sure the message you want to send is getting through. Of course there are methods of testing that feedback that are more reliable than others (that can be an article on its own). If you want to avoid a failure to communicate with your audience, you had better be soliciting & listening to their feedback.

Lost Customers
Another place a failure to communicate can be costly is in lost customers. All businesses lose customers at some time & it’s rare that those people come back to you let you know why they left. Perhaps they needed a service you didn’t offer? Or perhaps you do offer it & they just didn’t know? Perhaps they were looking for a quicker turnaround?

Unless you ask, you’ll never know why they left or how you can improve to better serve your clients. This is some of the most valuable information you can have as a business owner or marketer! As Heligonix owner Steve Visio likes to say, “Pearls come from irritated oysters.” Customers or former customers who are irritated are your best source of information to improve your business. They’re also the least likely to share that information with you if you don’t ask. So ask your past customers what they’re thinking & avoid a failure to communicate some of the most helpful information you can find.

Seeking Feedback
Advertising & Lost Customers are just a couple examples of areas where you need to be seeking feedback in your marketing & communication. You should subject every part of your business to a similar Discovery Process periodically. Because if information is only flowing one way through a channel, failures to communicate are pretty likely. And that’s not something you want for your business.

For more interesting articles from the Heligonix team visit http://blog.heligonix.com/heligonix-blog.

Know What Your Business’s Customers Are Thinking is a post from: MatthewPBlock.com Matthew P. Block Enterprises

Do you come up with great ideas for promoting your business but have problems remembering them or following through with them later? Don’t let those ideas slip away!

I recently ran across an article by Daniel Coyle about Innovation Velocity. Basically, he theorizes that people’s best work is often done in bursts of innovation & creativity. The question for you is “How do I take advantage of this to get great articles, videos, & other content on my website that will draw in new clients & customers??”

The first step to boosting your own innovation velocity is to schedule time for content creation. This is important because you never know when your personal storm of creativity might hit. The more often you force yourself to take up your oracle & write a blog post, shoot a video, snap a picture, or tweet something insightful the better chance you’ll have of winding up in a storm of creativity. This means setting aside a set time each day, each week, or every few hours even, to work on content creation for self-publishing & building up your web presence.

The second step is to recognize when you’re in a creative storm & keep creating!! When you find yourself with a wealth of ideas, don’t put them off until later. Use those ideas now!!! Keep generating posts, videos, etc. based on those ideas until you run out of ideas. You don’t have to publish these ideas yet, but you do need to record them!

If you have something immovable scheduled & can’t keep going, at least make sure you get your ideas & concepts written down before they slip away from you so you can come back to them as soon as possible, hopefully even before your next scheduled creative time.

If your best work & ideas come in storms & burst of creativity (and all of ours does), then you’d better be ready to take advantage of those storms & get great content to promote your business!

Leave a comment & share some ideas with others: What are some other ways you can boost your innovation velocity to promote your business??

For more interesting articles from the Heligonix team visit http://blog.heligonix.com/heligonix-blog.

2 Steps for Promoting Your Business by Writing in Storms is a post from: MatthewPBlock.com Matthew P. Block Enterprises

The first event I’ll be a part of is a seminar on using social media & other no-cost-or-low-cost marketing techniques for small (and medium & large) businesses scheduled for February 10 March 17 at the Doubletree Hotel in Springfield, MO.

I’ll be posting more details throughout January about exactly what you can expect to learn & accomplish at this seminar, but I wanted to go ahead & give you the link where you can register & book your seat. There are only 70 seats available, so don’t be slow to register if you’re wanting to attend!

You can book your seat at http://galtsocialmedia.eventbrite.com.
But read this first!:

In addition, I also want to offer a $50 discount on registration to everyone following my blog here (and everyone you want to share it with, as well)!  Just enter the code BlockPure when registering & your registration price will be reduced from $199 to $149.

So if your new year’s resolution is to be active about growing your business, this is an event I don’t think you’ll want to miss.
You can sign up now by heading over to http://galtsocialmedia.eventbrite.com.

I’m really looking forward to seeing you there! If you haven any suggestions of questions you’d like to see answered in the seminar, leave a comment here. After all, my ambition is to help make you more successful!

Social Media Seminar – March 17 is a post from: MatthewPBlock.com Matthew P. Block Enterprises

I picked up the idea of setting a three-word resolution for each year from Chris Brogan last year. By choosing three general terms, you're able to set values & a tone that can be a driving force in your success all through the year, no matter what obstacles my come along.

Last year's resolution: Leadership, Community, Expertise.

I worked hard to promote those things in my life & those around me last year. 2009 was a trying year for a lot of people & even the country as a whole. 2010, I believe, will be a year based on actions taken to rise above where we all were in 2009. That's why I've chosen three verbs this year:

Work.
Working hard & smart isn't the only ingredient necessary for shining in tough times, but it is the most critical. Working hard & smart will be a constant & primary focus in my strategy for success for the coming year.

Lead.
There isn't time to wait for easier situations or hope others lead the way to success & ride their wake. Wherever I see an opportunity for advancement & achievement, I'll be focusing on leading the way to those things I have a vision for & bringing others along with me.

Innovate.
While there are plenty of old tried & true methods that can be useful in helping achieve success. The only way to truly rise above the crowd is to innovate.  I'll be focusing on bringing new ideas, strategies, & passion to all of my endeavors, then finding the ones that work in order to rise to the top.

These three little words serve as a resolution setting values that will guide all of my decisions in the coming year. I'll constantly be asking myself "How does this action line up with my goals of working, leading, & innovating?"

What values will guide your decisions in 2010? Leave your resolutions in the comments below; I'd love to hear what you see as your most important driving forces this year!

2010 Resolution is a post from: MatthewPBlock.com Matthew P. Block Enterprises

Don't make any updates.
Just like being a social person requires constant interaction with others, a social media strategy is only truly social if you make an effort to put yourself out there & interact with those around you. This requires time & dedication to the task. Blocking a portion of your schedule specifically for updating your friends & followers on anything new can help you avoid this pitfall (or delegating this responsibility to someone authorized to personably interact on your behalf & making sure they do).

Don't respond to user/customer feedback.
Social media tools by nature give your following the ability to easily talk back to you. You wouldn't ignore someone's questions, praise, or concern if you were face-to-face with them, why would you do that online?
You wouldn't, at least not if you want your plan to be successful. Which brings us to the next point…..

Think of social media in mass media terms.
While new social tools give you the ability to reach a wider mass of your audience at once, your messaging through these tools need to be inherently different than mass media approaches through TV, radio, or print advertising. The goal here is not just to sell your product or service, but to build familiarity among you & your customers.

Expect your stuff to "go viral".
Many companies spend millions of dollars on failing campaigns because they expect them to magically "go viral" & have users who had previously never heard of their product or service give them free word-of mouth advertising to all of their friends, family, & co-workers.  Good luck making that happen!
Even if you seem to strike gold & people to spread your video or other content all over the web, this doesn't guarantee you'll benefit at all. Put your focus on building relationships & your chances of being successful will greatly increase! Nobody likes a virus anyhow.

4 Ways To Ensure Your Social Media Strategy Fails is a post from: MatthewPBlock.com Matthew P. Block Enterprises

You can only effectively interact with those around you if you understand what makes them tick, & most importantly, understand that their thoughts, motivations, & passions are entirely different than your own.

When you understand the passions of those around you, you can turn the dog-eat-dog business world of winners & losers into a zero-sum game of winners & winners. You do this by figuring out ways to help others achieve their goals in ways that also help you achieve yours.

I once had a friend share with me that he really wanted to teach art classes someday, specifically painting & sculpture classes. This friend created some pretty impressive sculpture work in his garage during his spare time. I suggested that a great way to pursue that desire would be to find a local student with an interest in sculpture & offer to take them as a protégé & teach them either for free or for a nominal fee. That's what I call a win-win-win proposition:

Win #1: My friend would gain valuable teaching experience & add extra credibility to his resume when he went looking for a place that would pay him to teach, fulfilling that passion.

Win #2: The student/protégé would gain valuable experience in the craft theat they're passionate about & learn from his guidance.

Win #3: The student's parents would appreciate his helping their child, who they're passionate about seeing succeed. (Helping someone's child succeed taps into most people's deepest passion!)

By finding a way to tie your passions into others', you can get other people excited about helping you advance your life or career!

Compassion Is Productive is a post from: MatthewPBlock.com Matthew P. Block Enterprises

In the meantime, I wanted to give you access to some of the work I did in the past year in the communication & social media field.

So feel free to browse the old stuff to whet your appetite for the exciting new stuff coming for 2010!

New Posts Coming Soon is a post from: MatthewPBlock.com Matthew P. Block Enterprises

RSS Explanation by Common Craft

*Under the old style of internet (web 1.0) information usually only traveled from a site to you, much like a digital brochure (you probably still see some sites like this while surfing the web).  With the new style (web 2.0) information easily flow from the site publisher to the user, back from the user to the publisher, and even from one user to another.  As you can imagine, this allows for a lot more information to be transmitted around a website.  Which model is your website based on?

Using an RSS Reader is a post from: MatthewPBlock.com Matthew P. Block Enterprises