Nicola Balkind

Freelance Writer & Content Specialist

Getting Started

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Getting Started

Everyone has an Achilles’ heel when it comes to work.

Some of us are great planners and terrible at following through. Others of us love jumping in and setting to work, but run into hurdles two-thirds of the way through a project.

Me? I’m a terrible starter.

To give you an example, I’ve been sitting here for 2 hours staring at the prompts and topics I had planned for the month, feeling utterly uninspired by the lot of them.

It’s not a procrastination problem, you understand. There’s no staying up overnight til an hour before the deadline. That stress is not for me. I just have a tough time getting started. It’s the way I work, and it’s partly motivated by fear. It’s also motivated by a fact of writing: sometimes you don’t know what you have to say until you actually start saying it.

Once I get going, once the momentum builds, I’m set. It’s revving the motor I have trouble with.

So how do I deal with it? When I was on the Cultural Enterprise Office’s Flourish programme earlier this year, I had a mentor, Sophie Kyle (hire her here). She told me to find a starter, and it has worked beautifully.

Sometimes it’s been intentional, like kickstarting a podcast called Bookish Blether with my brilliant friend Holly. Other times it’s been pure luck, like being invited by the folks at Skriva to run a Finding Your Voice Online Workshop.

Having a starter isn’t always possible. Here, today, writing the September blog posts for this website, the only starter I have is myself. Sometimes I have to call upon others to hold me accountable, and other times I seek them out.

Here’s someone who’s been (unironically, promise) helping me out lately:

So… where do you get stuck in work? How do you get out of it?

 

How to Sell in the Off-Season

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seasonalcontent

 

How to Sell in the Off-Season, or

Off-Season Content: Why it’s important

We’ve talked about Evergreen Content in the past, but Off-Season Content is a little bit different.

Let’s be clear: selling in the off-season isn’t all about sales. It’s about raising brand awareness, building your community, and getting involved in the conversation. The pay-off? It comes in the next on-season.

Seasonal businesses have a natural on-season where most activity takes place and the majority is revenue is made, offset by an off-season where things get a little quieter. This could apply to events, for example a festival that runs once per year. It could be a store that specialises in seasonal goods like summer clothing, or it could be a ski resort that is only open during winter.

On social media, there are ways to keep the rally going all the way through the off-season. While many of my collaborators can’t always afford to keep me on during the off-season, I always advise keeping an active profile throughout the year.

I hope this seems intuitive – though you or your business may be taking a public break, chances are there’s still loads going on behind the scenes. Things move quickly online, so don’t let your presence get stale and allow people to forget about who you are and the value you offer them.

 

How to Stay ‘On’ During the Off-season

Know your purpose

SEO – Google’s search algorithm favours recent, relevant content. Honing your off-season content strategy will improve your search engine performance and engage and convert one-time visitors into regular visitors. In this way you can build our existing audience into a community that is connected and engaged year-round and is more likely to participate during high season.

Social Media Engagement – Staying front-of-mind is important. Twitter followers might have an unfollow spree, or simply tune out when they stop seeing your logo daily. The Facebook algorithm favours consistency, making frequent, value-driven posts more important than ever. Keeping visual accounts like Pinterest and Instagram up-to-date are a great way to show behind the scenes and keep you on your customers’ radar.

Goals – There are several goals you could be reaching for with your off-season content strategy. You could be cementing your position as a thought-leader in your field, building buzz for next year, becoming an invaluable resource for your customers – or all of the above! If you want to increase your following and engagement, these are all great goals that will help you to that end.

 

Plan your content themes

This is where your content calendar will come in handy (and if you don’t have one, it’s time to create one)! I’ve talked about how to approach content planning here. We also talked about the content mix and media mix in our spring cleaning posts, which should give you a leg-up.

Start with a calendar in a spreadsheet and start filling in key dates. Think about some of the following:

1. Events – related events in your field
2. Sponsors/Partners/Ambassadors – are there people or companies in your network who run related events? Or who post really useful content? Make a note to share these in your plan
3. National days of interest – there are loads of days that could apply to you. Cinemas, there’s a national popcorn day. Charitable causes, there are tons of human rights days relevant to you. Find ways to connect with your existing relevant content and join the conversation.
4. #OnThisDay and Famous Birthdays – a celebration, a memory and a quote always do well on these days, and add a little trivia to your offering.

 

All of these key dates, and any others that come to mind, are relevant and should be interesting to your audience. Make them fun – put in a little time and effort, even if you’re scheduling ahead. Always keep an eye out for trending topics and other interests, too – anything to stay in touch.

 

Become a member of your own community

There are lots of ways to stay involved in the conversation, so instead of trying to make the conversation revolve around you and your brand, try chipping in where you can add value until it’s time to self-promote again. Do it well, and your community will love your input.

 

Your Turn

How have you stayed involved in the conversation during the off-season? Share your thoughts in the comments or tweet me @robotnic.

 

Got a topic you want me to cover in an upcoming blog? Or need a hand with your content strategy? I’m happy to help. Get in touch.

Podcatching: How to Listen to Your Favourite Podcasts

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Podcatching may sound like some sort of faddish adventure sport, like Geocaching. Worry not – it just describes how you choose to download and listen to podcasts.

Some of you may play podcasts directly on the web page where they are posted, you might find them on iTunes and listen on the Apple Podcasts app, or you might use the platform where they are published, for example on SoundCloud.

Or, of course, I might be talking gibberish to you.

Basically, there are an array of apps out there that you can use to listen to podcasts. Since podcasts were born on a mobile platform – the iPod – it’s appropriate that the best way to listen is still on a mobile device. There are a range of available apps, from the default Apple Podcasts app (formerly rolled into iTunes), to app-cum-discovery platform Stitcher, to proprietary apps like This American Life’s that play only one or a collection of specific podcasts.

If you’ve grown sick of your current podcatcher, or just want to start with a cleaner, easier experience, I have a recommendation for you. It’s called Overcast.

 

Overcast

overcast-logo

Overcast is a minimalist podcast listening app. It’s really simple and easy to use, with all the features you could need on a clean interface.

Let’s take a look at a few key items:

 

Subscribing to podcasts

If you’re new to podcasts, it’s likely that you won’t know where to start, or where to go after you’ve found one or two that you like. Overcast uses the iTunes database, so searching is easy.

Overcast also organises popular podcasts into categories which you can browse and select from.

You can also link it up with your Twitter account and it’ll find podcasts that your friends have shared and recommended.

The interface on Overcast lists all your subscriptions in a list with the icon and the podcast name. If you have current episodes, they’ll appear at the top; if you’ve listened to everything you’ve downloaded, they drop to the bottom of the list.

 

Listening

The app also has some great listening features (which you can unlock with a premium account for only ~$5/£3). On quiet podcasts, you can boost the volume, and you can also manipulate the speed.

My favourite feature on the app is smart speed, which cuts down silences to speed up the podcast, but only in dead space. The speed will depend on the presenter, but it keeps things moving a little faster without making it difficult to listen to.

If a specific podcast tends to be quiet, or slow, you can select these effects for every episode of that podcast without having to fiddle with your settings every time.

You can also choose from a few playback options, like setting a sleep timer or choosing to play the next episode when the one you’re hearing ends. The back and forward buttons are also customisable so you can skip forward or back in increments of anything from 7 to 30 seconds at a time.

 

Sharing

As well as taking recommendations from your Twitter account, there are a few easy ways to share on Overcast.

You can recommend an episode to your audience, or use the share settings to post it to your social media accounts. If there’s something you particularly want to share mid-episode, you can also share from a particular moment.

 

Speaking of sharing: for more ways to use Overcast, and some similar options for advanced podcast users – check out CGP Grey’s Recommended Podcast Apps.

 

Looking for some podcasts to listen to now? Don’t forget to check out my other recommendations – Top 5 Business Podcasts, and 2 New Podcasts for Microbusinesses.

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