Erika Heald is the host of the weekly #ContentChat LinkedIn Live video podcast for content marketers, held Mondays at noon Pacific. As a B2B marketing consultant, she helps organizations define and execute content marketing strategies that drive business and professional growth. As a creator, and gluten-free blogger helping people discover gut-friendly farm-to-table food. She frequently speaks at B2B marketing industry events on employee brand advocacy, content strategy, customer experience, AI readiness, and social media topics. You can find her on her blogs erikaheald.com and erikasglutenfreekitchen.com.
The #ContentChat Bulletin: Why You Should Write Every Day
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Over the weekend, we helped our 16-year-old cat cross the Rainbow Bridge, putting an end to his fight against kidney disease. I wanted to honor his memory and let the friends he'd met and loved know about his passing. But I was not at all up for writing anything. Luckily, I had a blog post I'd written about him and his brother when we'd adopted them. I'd remembered the adorable photos I'd included in the post. But I was surprised to rediscover so many little details about their kitten personalities that I wouldn't have been able to recall without the reminders in the post. That got me to thinking about how the post was from a time when I made it a point to start my day—every day— by sitting down at my desk and writing for 30 minutes. Sometimes it was a blog post. Other times it was a physical card or letter to a friend. I'd also do free writing in a notebook whenever a thought I wanted to capture would pop into my head. It was thanks to that practice that I'd had just the perfect piece to share to remember my sweet kitty by. When I moved from San Francisco—where my desk was in the middle of my living room—to Sacramento, I stopped writing over my morning coffee. My desk now had its own room. And going in there meant getting on with the work of the day. But, by not writing every day, I know I've failed to capture all sorts of seemingly mundane details of my everyday life that someday I will wish to have documented. I also worry that not making a point of writing something other than emails or client project work has made me less of a sharp writer. And worse yet, it has made getting started on writing things a little bit harder to do. When you write something every day, it's a little bit like stretching your legs. Maybe you aren't going to follow-up with a long hike, but you're reminding yourself that you can do it. That you're ready for it. As our content careers rogress, it's so easy to stop thinking of ourselves as writers. We're content strategists. We are architects of content experiences. But, as Ann Handley so rightly noted with her perfectly titled book, Everybody Writes. And the more you make writing a part of your daily practice, the better it gets. The more details you remember and pepper into your content. All of which makes your content more human and less able to be replaced by AI sludge. Coming Up on #ContentChatContent Chat is my weekly LinkedIn Live video chat focused on sharing expertise and ideas amongst the content marketing community. Join the conversation on Mondays at noon Pacific / 3 p.m. Eastern. RSVP for our upcoming conversations by clicking the chat date below to get a reminder and to access the chat.
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Send Us Your Content Jobs!If you have a content marketing contract position, full-time job, or freelancer opportunity, reply to this email and let us know. We are always happy to share jobs with the community at no cost. ICYMIThe Secret to B2B Event Success: The Virtual Sandwich Method Canva Sheets 101 for Teachers The Growth Hack Era is ending, according to Digiday's former Editor-in-Chief Take a peek into Wes Anderson’s personal archives From Posts To Profits: Why Creators Are The New Entrepreneurs Investors Can’t Ignore Until next time, stay safe and be well! Cheers, Erika |
The #ContentChat Bulletin
Erika Heald is the host of the weekly #ContentChat LinkedIn Live video podcast for content marketers, held Mondays at noon Pacific. As a B2B marketing consultant, she helps organizations define and execute content marketing strategies that drive business and professional growth. As a creator, and gluten-free blogger helping people discover gut-friendly farm-to-table food. She frequently speaks at B2B marketing industry events on employee brand advocacy, content strategy, customer experience, AI readiness, and social media topics. You can find her on her blogs erikaheald.com and erikasglutenfreekitchen.com.
I had a boss whose first quarterly goals for me were to publish 12 blog posts and acquire 30 demo signups. Somehow, we managed to publish a blog post every week and cranked out a whole slew of social content in pursuit of those "goals". Unfortunately, we could only prove that we were the source for 29 demo signups, so I didn't get my bonus. The lack of a bonus was definitely a bummer. But, more importantly, because we had to publish a blog post every week, and spend most of our time creating...
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