You just finished your tenth blog post about using Twitter for marketing your blog. You are in the middle of your fourth white paper about regulatory compliance for medical device companies. You have written about adjustable rate mortgages 6 times in the past 2 months.
Are you in a rut?
Not necessarily. If you are still exploring those topics or the content doesn’t read like the same piece over and over, you are probably OK. But it is easy to start spinning your wheels if you write about the same subject over and over. How can you keep it fresh and exciting?
Maybe one of these 5 tips will keep you moving forward.
1. Argue with Yourself
When we write repeatedly about the same subject we usually take a particular side in it as well. Most of what we do as freelance writers is to create persuasive pieces for our clients. It may help to take the other side now and again. It could actually turn up a point you have been missing. Try taking a persuasive piece from your archive and write about the other side of the story.
2. Change the Setting
There are other industries that need advice about your subject. Customer service isn’t only found in retail. SEO is needed for all websites, not just those for marketing agencies. Take the subject you know so well and an industry you don’t. See how that subject works within difference parameters. Using Six Sigma in software development is very different from using Six Sigma in a health care setting.
3. Re-Imagining
Picture how you could make a post into a video. The cliché is that a picture is worth a thousand words. But what pictures would best represent the ideas you write about? Can you take your postings and create a script of dialogue? Or turn it into a slide presentation that keeps people’s attention? This type of challenge allows us to see our ideas in motion.
4. Use a Visual Cue
Look out your window, look through an art book. Try to key off a visual as a different way to get into the subject matter. Similar to creating a video about your subject of interest, taking aim from a visual point of view or even as a type of creative writing exercise can help uncover more interesting ways of presenting the material.
5. SSDD - Same Subject, Different Domain
If you are searching for ways to “keep it fresh” you may feel that you know all there is to know about a topic. But do a little research anyway. Is there a part of the subject you haven’t devoted much time to? Or possibly that isn’t written about much? Change is the only constant. As writers we need to be riding the front of the wave.
These 5 tips are all different ways of looking at a topic or subject you have become familiar with, comfortable with. Maybe even complacent about. For your own sake as well as your audience, feed your writing new food at every opportunity. And in between meals, shake up how the food is prepared.
For more on creating engaging content visit the Content Marketing Institute, ProBlogger, and Copyblogger for more inspiration and advice.
