How to Create Brand-Boosting Content When You’re Not Feeling Inspired
While you have lots of great ideas to share in daily life, you feel stuck when it comes to sitting down and creating posts. Maybe it's a common struggle, or maybe you've just hit a rut. Either way, these strategies can help:
1. Shift From Creating to Curating
In an ideal world, you'd be creating original content to share your thoughts and perspective.
After all, the term "thought leader" suggests leading the discussion.
But if you're staring down a mean case of writer's block, that might not be realistic. Until you get your swing back, consider curating expert articles and sharing them with your base. There's an enormous amount of content on the internet, and serving as a guide for your audience--pointing them to what's particularly worthwhile--adds value.
This strategy will boost your brand. When you share a great article (especially if you share it first, or with an insightful comment), you're saying: "I'm tapped in and I'm aware of the discussion around [trend].}
Moreover, this strategy can have unexpected benefits. You may find these kinds of posts have even more traction, because a broader audience may be familiar with the author or concepts. Better yet: Tag (along with crediting, of course) the content creator and your post may see increased engagement.
2. Outline Any Idea
I'm a massive proponent of writing out any idea when it comes to you. That's because it's a lot easier to rewrite a piece than to start from scratch.
For example, this was originally a post with four tactics for sharing content when you're busy. I wrote it; I saved it in drafts; and then today, I was starting at 80% rather than zero.
It could be that the draft never goes anywhere, and it's a truly terrible idea. Remember, that's OK. That's why they're called drafts. I've even found that writing an article out and seeing how bad it is allows you to let that concept go (instead of kneading it over and over in your mind), so you can move onto the next idea.
If you write down every possible topic that comes to mind, you'll never be sitting down and starting from scratch.
3. Stop Being a Perfectionist
It's a little unfair that this could be the concluding idea in so many articles (except maybe those about brain surgery, or space flight, or proofreading). With that said, I'd imagine unrealistic standards kill more articles than a true "lack of inspiration."
One thing I learned when I started writing several times a week (i.e., with tighter deadlines and more pressure to send something in rather than edit it a hundredth time), was that my idea of "inspired" and "valuable" wasn't always aligned with our reader...or even my editor. Articles that I felt could be stronger would be my boss' favorite or garner the highest engagement--and those I thought were brilliant would have room for improvement.
Which is to say, when you're self-publishing, your own barometer of good vs. good enough is just that--your opinion. It's better to publish something you think is 90% of the way there than hold it back with the goal of 100% and publish nothing.
Just like writing is a skill you can build, so is writing uninspired. The more you do it, the better you'll get at it.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
