For those of you who have been online for a while now, you have seen a lot of changes. If you are like me, you started blogging, tweeting and facebooking and got excited about everything you were learning and started sharing that with everyone you could. You also got super-excited about opportunities to do affiliate marketing for some of the new social media products/services. And most of all, you became enamored with how easy it is to share content online, and in so many different ways, too. Then everything seemed to change. Some of those changes came very fast, and others have been more progressive over time.

FIRST, LET’S TAKE A LOOK BACK…

SEARCH

Google search completely changed the way SEO is done to make it harder for copycats and skimmers to rank high for non-original content. Yahoo tanked and started collaborating with Bing. AOL got bought out by Huffington Post. All of the older search engine sites we used to use (e.g., excite, askjeeves, lycos, etc.) have become completely irrelevant and unable to keep up with the larger search engines. Many, like Yahoo, just gave up and merged their search engines with the bigger ones. Search has completely changed, and is still changing and getting more and more social. This is especially true as the Big G folks keep working on their own social transformation; and as the big FB keeps creating billions of ways to make our personal info into a massive pool of beautiful searchable data for marketers.

PRIVACY

Facebook changed all of their privacy policies and their whole look and layout (and so did Google and everyone else, too) because of privacy concerns that landed many networks in government hearings. You really should review the Terms of Service and Privacy policies on the sites and networks you use in order to keep up with changes. This information also is vitally important to understand if your blog or website is not self-hosted … your content could be greatly impacted and you’d never know without reading.

APPS

Also, most likely, you have recently been introduced to newer, better social media apps that are free or less expensive than the ones you’ve been promoting because of your affiliations. Specifically, the new Buffer App could become a good replacement for much of what you used to do with hootsuite (but not everything, so don’t give up on HS, yet). If you have been an affiliate of Hootsuite, changes in the social media marketing world will definitely impact your affiliate marketing efforts.

You feel my drift?

OBVIOUSLY, CHANGE IS INEVITABLE

Everything is changing. And it’s changing every day. Especially with constant mergers and acquisitions (such as the one between Facebook and Instagram for a billion bucks … wow!)

This means that you have to keep educating and re-educating yourself. And this also means that you have to get your content updated, and keep it updated, constantly, especially if it has to do with social media marketing. So, I just want to encourage you to make this a daily / weekly part of your content creation strategy. Here are some ways you can more easily keep your content current and relevant.

THREE TIPS FOR SIMPLER, FASTER

AUTHENTIC CONTENT CREATION

{1} Just get it done. And do it faster. In other words, use awesome new social media marketing tools that allow you to more quickly create and publish your content. Set aside the perfectionism. That is the only way this tip will work for you.

{2} Subscribe. Then Read. Daily. Or at least skim. The faster you get new information, the faster you can learn, and then the faster you can incorporate your learning into your content in an authentic way, without the pressure of feeling like you have to buy content. Be watchful over the quality and authenticity of what you are reading. Stick with some of the main info sites (i.e., Mashable, and also read the original sources, instead of just relying solely on news/blog articles)

{3} Journal: written journal, typed journal, audio journal, video journal, toilet paper journal, Evernote journal, email journal, voicemail journal … truly, it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something where you can consistently keep track of your ideas and thoughts and refer back to it easily when you need it. So, basically, just make sure it’s legible or audible and accessible when you start writing/recording your content.

RE-PURPOSED CONTENT

Now, I want to make it clear that using licensed or private label rights-copy (PLR) is just fine, based on your purpose, like if your blog is a shared blog within a network or group who are sharing content for your organization or goup’s benefit. However, by my own standards, it’s just not okay for me to use it on this site, most of the time. So, I have my own set of original reports (See Reports.DonnaMarieJohnson.com) that I have researched and written on my own which I am in the process of updating. I also have a ton of blog posts I’ve written since 2007 which I am also updating.

Generally speaking, if I feel that someone else has written something you should read, I’ll just tell you who they are and/or give you their link (especially if they provide an affiliate link). I may re-purpose someone else’s licensed content every once in a while. However, I just don’t like the redundancy I see on a lot of sites, and have no plans to repeat the same here on my business blog because it doesn’t fit with my purpose for having this blog.

My goal here is to connect with you, about more than just business, but about life, too, because your life impacts your business. How could I possibly do that properly with lots of content that’s just from other people’s hearts all of the time?

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. What tips would you give for simple ways to keep your content current and relevant?

Thanks for reading!

~Donna Marie Johnson @DMJConsulting

Thanks for visiting DonnaMarieJohnson.com

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