Inspiration for ideas comes in many different forms, including: Observations while walking down the street, discovering a new product at the store, or hearing about an unusual experience on the nightly news. Inspiration for blog posts can come from any of these, but more often than not, most won’t be related to your business goals or objectives.

One of the best sources of inspiration for a blog post comes from reading other blog posts. You may ask, how does this help me if someone else has already written it? There are several ways.

1. Can you expand on their idea?
2. Do you have a different viewpoint?
3. Have you experienced a situation you can use as a case study?
4. If examples were given, are there others that develop into another story?
5. Does it remind you of a book your read that you can review?

These are just a few of the ideas that can come from reading someone else’s blog post. You should never copy someone else’s work. Always put your thoughts in your words. It’s ok to quote a piece of their content if you give proper attribution.  And if you do get direct inspiration from their blog, be sure to mention it in your blog post, including the authors name and title of the blog post with a link back to the original post.

What are some other sources of inspiration for blog content that you can think of? Did reading this post inspire a new idea for you?

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Tim McDonald Categories: General, How To

The Working Wardrobe, an Astek blog consulting client, just made #4 in Forbes’ list of The 20 Best Fashion Blogs for Professional Women. Hats off to Rachel Yeomans and her team for achieving such an honor in little more than a year of publication.

After working with Rachel to establish the initial strategy and infrastructure of her blog, nothing gives us more joy than seeing it soar like this. Once a publication is off and running, the majority of the hard work is in the diligence and discipline of writing and editing. In addition to that, Rachel has a natural ability to cleverly leverage social media channels to reach the people for whom she and her team write.

The Working Wardrobe is a publication geared towards the working individual–be it on finding a job, maintaining that job, interviewing for that job, or changing jobs–all the while knowing what to wear for that specific occasion. Please join us in congratulating The Working Wardrobe for their ongoing success!

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun, Marketing, Social Media, Web

One of the biggest challenges we face when working with bloggers and within Astek is keeping the momentum of the blog going. If you were to look at our blog for the past month, you’d think nothing was going on at Astek, which couldn’t be farther from the truth!

As we get back in the saddle after vacations and various other last ditch efforts to soak up what’s left of the summer’s warmth, it’s a good time to offer some suggestions for keeping your (and our!) blog going.

1. Set a Realistic Schedule. Whether it’s once per week or once per month, set a schedule that you’ll be able to keep. We all get busy once the day starts going and the blog often falls to the bottom of the list. Try committing to writing your blog before you do ANYTHING else on every Tuesday, for example, and see if that helps.

2. KISS (Keep It Short & Simple). One of the things that seems to block a good article is being worried about making it perfect and long. By all means, you want to use proper spelling and grammar, but often the posts that get read the most are the shortest. Post a link and your immediate thoughts if you don’t have more time.

3. Remove Barriers to Publication. Even the act of logging into a website to update your blog can create an excuse not to publish. We recommend MacJournal or WinJournal to write posts quickly and easily from your computer. Programs like this make adding images simpler and save your login information so you can publish with one click.

4. Keep a List of Topics. Find a way to keep a list of all the interesting things you see on Facebook, the Web, or that people send you. I use MacJournal to queue up possible blog topics, but you could use Delicious.com or even a Word doc. If you keep a simple list you’ll never be stumped for a topic. As Andrew Crowe recently discovered, sometimes the list is right under your nose.

5. Be Honest. …with yourself and your audience. Don’t waste time back-filling spans of time without posts. It’s all ancient history by now anyway. Just focus on getting on top of your current schedule and don’t worry about the past.

Keeping a steady publication schedule is important for readers and search engines to know that you’re active. Let me know if these help and if you have some other tips that work for you, please leave a comment.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media

Wondering what the deal is with these “apps” on Facebook or LinkedIn?  Or perhaps like me up until recently, Facebook apps are old hat while LinkedIn’s offerings are more unknown.  Well, firstly, app is short for application.  An application in the social networking context is an extra, optional element to include in your profile.  It adds functionality beyond the core information displayed about you and your activity on a particular site.  Apps often bring external information into your profile, and this is where they are arguably most useful.  For instance, if you or your company has a blog, you can display its feed on your Facebook or LinkedIn profile.

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Andrew Crowe Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Web