This document provides tips for creating effective content for blogs and websites. It discusses sources of content inspiration like Google Alerts, RSS feeds, forums, and StumbleUpon. It describes different categories of content like targeted, funny, how-to, and commentary posts. It also covers different content types like infographics, timelines, video, and photos. Throughout, it emphasizes creating content that is useful, relevant, consumable, and shares valuable information in an engaging way.

1. Think You Know Good Content?
Fuggedaboutit. Here's What
Really Counts
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2. Finding Your Subjects
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3. Where Inspiration Strikes
• Mention, Talkwalker - take what Google Alerts used to
do so well and do it 100 times better.
• RSS - whether through Flipboard, Feedly, Digg Reader,
or wherever else, RSS lives on.
• Forums - people still use 'em. And love 'em.
• StumbleUpon - the easiest way to get content to come
to you.
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4. Content Categories
Targeted Funny
How-to Commentary
Target photo by Ville Miettinen viaFlickr Creative Commons Owl photo by Doug Wheller via Flickr Creative Commons
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5. Targeted
Any piece of news that relates to
your niche/genre. They can be
quickly recapped and take little
effort.
 Industry happenings
 News releases
 Personnel changes and moves
Writing/Creation Time: LOW
Social Potential: LOW
Value: Helps share important news,
caters to your core audience, boosts SEO
and helps keep the blog filled.
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6. Funny
A play off the news or something topical, but with an
eye toward the absurd.
 Start from the topic, but focus on the funny
Writing/Creation Time: MEDIUM to HIGH
Social Potential: HIGH
Value: Shows a light-hearted side; brings in traffic, boosts
SEO and exposes you to new audiences.
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7. How-to
 Teach your readers
something they don’t know.
 Better yet, teach your readers
something they didn’t know
they needed to know.
 Can take many forms
Writing/Creation Time: LOW to HIGH
Social Potential: HIGH
Value: High shareability; establishes your
thought leadership; provides value to
reader (which makes them think better of
you); boosts SEO.
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8. Commentary
Covering popular news stories
or timely topics, but making it
your own by expressing opinion.
 Covers the news from a
specific angle.
 On a news release – is this a
departure from the norm?
 Has this worked in the past?
Writing Time: HIGH
Social Potential: MEDIUM
Value: Establishes your thought
leadership, boosts SEO.
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9. Content Types
Infographics Timelines
Video Photos
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10. Infographics
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 DON’T: just throw up a
bunch of stylized text
 DON’T: Change color
schemes for no apparent
reason
 DON’T: Mix and match fonts
just because you feel like it.

11. Infographics
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 DO: Share interesting
information in an engaging,
informative way
 DO: Have some
information that people
want to know and share
 DO: Visualize data and
make numbers tangible

12. Timelines
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 “Evolution” (of a logo, a singer, etc.)
 Design is important
 Memes are still good
 Yes, this is a type of infographic

13. What happens if you
Google “LEGO timeline”?
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14. Video
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 YouTube is the biggest by far, but it’s not the only game in town.
 Dailymotion is 2nd-largest in the world.
 Vimeo has reputation for quality video.
 Telly, Viddler – more players every day.
 Video is getting
bigger every day
 It doesn’t have to
be expensive
 When it goes viral,
it goes HUGE

15. Photos
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 Use large, high-res, attractive
photos
 Slideshows need to be short, or
very fast-moving (i.e., no
reloading the page every scroll)
 Encourage users to send in pics
 Then & Now
 “Separated at birth?”
This had 102K views on StumbleUpon

16. A few words about lists
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This had 166K views on Stumbleupon
 People love lists.
 They really do.
 They complain about them
being linkbait, but they read
them.
 And share them.
 If you’re going to do a list,
cover the subject. BE
COMPREHENSIVE.
 Why do top 10 if you can do
top 34?
 People like learning things
they didn’t know.
 Did I mention that people love
lists?

17. #smx #24A
(Just seeing if you’re paying attention!)
A COUPLE
MORE THINGS

18. Do these things
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 Be useful.
 Be relevant.
 Be consumable.
 Link out. People will notice, visit
and maybe even link back to
you.
 Illustrate whenever possible.
 K.I.S.S.: Keep it simple, stupid
(no offense).
 Emulate content you like.
 Look at your piece before you
post — would you read it if
you happened up on it?
Photo by Matt Brown via Flickr Creative Commons

19. Thanks and Keep in Touch
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amy@amyvernon.net
www.amyvernon.net
www.Facebook.com/AmyVernon
www.Twitter.com/AmyVernon
http://j.mp/AmyVGplus