Have you ever wished you could write a great blog post in less than 15 minutes? Keep reading, because your wish is about to become reality.

This article will show you five practical tactics you can employ when writing any blog post. The great part is that you’re going to get it done in less than 15 minutes.

Before I begin, let’s address a horrible content-based epidemic swarming the Internet:  quantity does not equal quality. Most great writers know the importance of being brief.   This does not necessarily mean that you should craft a one-line post, but it does mean you should be value-focused and not length-focused.

Tactic #1: Plan Your Writing

What are people searching for? What interests them? What do they want to read? Figure this out and then develop an organizational format for your articles. For example, my organizational format for this post is:

• Headline
• Question
• Tactics and explanation of tactics
• Conclusion
• Call to action

Tactic #2: Create a Headline Bank

Why do you think most blog posts fail? It’s because the headline isn’t catchy!   People are drawn in by headlines.  Determining the right headline for your post can be the difference between a reader staying or leaving your site.

A headline bank is nothing more than a list of grabbers that will not only save you a huge amount of time in the initial writing process, but they attract your readers to the content. At the very least, your bank should include:

Questions

When you begin by asking your readers a question, they feel as if you are speaking directly to them.  There is much power in asking the right questions.  For example:

• Who else wants to write a great blog post in less than 15 minutes?
• Is your Twitter campaign sinking?
• How do you make the perfect connection with your audience when speaking?

Quotes

Very few bloggers begin their posts with quotes, but they are just as powerful as questions because they add credibility to the subsequent content.  For example:

Nicholas Boothman stated, “The cheapest, most effective way to connect with others is to look them in the eye.”

Short Stories

You can use sentences and phrases as well for story headlines.  Stories do not have to be two or three paragraphs in length. Let’s examine two short powerful story headlines:

• The Runaway General
• A Tale of Two Twitter Users

Statistics

Numbers always gain the attention of your readers and they do it quickly.  For example:

• 100,000 people affected by iPhone 4
• 500 million flock to Facebook

You can easily access ideas from what you already have. Just pick one from your headline vault and get going.

Although you need to have a bank of headlines, you shouldn’t write your headline until the body of the article is complete.  Why?  Because as you write, ideas change and as ideas change, so will your title. Allow the content to control the title.

Now, if you examine this list closely, you’ll have an option for every day of the week. All you have to do is rotate them to fit the needs of your audience. Also, see Brain Clark’s article 5 Simple Ways to Open Your Post With a Bang.

Tactic #3: Time Yourself (Watch the Clock)

Time is the most precious resource we have.

You need to make every minute count.

When I first started blogging, it would take me three hours to write ONE blog post.  Yikes!

Your first task is to remember that perfection is not an option. Don’t spend all day trying to craft the “perfect message.” Create short, comprehensible sentences and step away from the computer.

You may be concerned that people will not read your article because it’s not perfect.  Not true.  Think of progression and not perfection.

Despite all of your perfective tactics, some people will still never be satisfied.  Set your timer for 15 minutes and when it stops, you’re done.

Tactic #4: Use the “Series Approach”

Say you’re planning to write a blog post concerning this topic: 5 Simple Steps to Getting Your Business on Twitter. Instead of packing all five steps into one post, create a weekly series by breaking each main topic down and creating a single post for that topic.  By doing this, you’ll have developed blog posts for a full week:

• Monday: Set Up Your Twitter Account
• Tuesday: Choose Your Twitter Name
• Wednesday: Upload Picture
• Thursday: Upload Your Best Link
• Friday: Write an Interesting Twitter Bio

Now, let’s create a plan with a few tweaks to the article titles.

• Monday: How to Set Up Your Twitter Account to Attract More Business
• Tuesday: 3 Steps to Avoid When Crafting Your Twitter Name
• Wednesday: Using Your Twitter Picture to Attract Targeted Prospects
• Thursday: Link-building with Twitter: Upload Your Best Link for Success
• Friday: How Writing an Interesting Twitter Bio Can Make You Millions

This will keep your readers coming back for each step.  By looking at the titles of the above posts, you’ll be sure to cover only the necessary content that pertains to that headline, meaning that the content will be shorter. Thus you can almost ensure that you meet the 15-minute mark.

Tactic #5: Get to “the Meat of the Problem”

How would you feel if you went to McDonald’s and ordered a quarter pounder with cheese only to walk away with bread and lettuce? You wouldn’t be too happy.  So, keep that in mind when writing for your readers.

They want value, not diluted information.

So don’t get your readers all revved up with a great grabber, neglect the body (being the meat) and skip to the conclusion.  Imagine reading this:

• Introduction: “Are you aware of the fact that 80% of your colleagues spend more than 45 minutes crafting an introduction for their daily blog posts?”
• Body (the meat): Here’s what you should do to avoid this roadblock:  Prepare.
• Conclusion: All you need to do now is click the Join Now button and pay the $99.95/monthly fee.

Wow, what a great way to start a relationship.  Not good.

The point here is that anyone can ramble on and on or even write a brief statement about something that really does not provide value.  If you want people to continue to follow you and your blog, you must provide quality and not leave the bigger needs unmet.

In the above example, the questions that your reader is going to ask are, “How do I prepare?” and “What am I preparing for?” You see, this is the main source, the missing piece to the puzzle that will throw the entire article off into wonderland. Simply put, your readers want detailed solutions to problems.

Creating a great blog post in 15 minutes might be difficult for you at first, but if you focus on providing value, planning ahead while keeping “headlines in the bank,” your readers will thank you every time!

What are your thoughts? What’s your experience?  If you like this article, press the retweet button at the top of the page. Let’s get the discussion going.

By now, you have probably heard the success stories of companies like Dell and Starbucks, which have created hugely successful social media presences that serve millions of fans and generate millions of dollars of revenue.  The only problem is, your small business doesn’t have 1/1000^th of the brand recognition these companies have.  You run a solid small business that is well known in your niche or your region, but not beyond.

How can social networks become useful marketing and operations tools for smaller businesses that don’t have a large customer base?

This question has kept many small businesses from interacting on social networks, as a recent study showed that only 24 percent of small businesses had begun social media marketing.

Here are five tips to optimize your small business’ social networks to attract more customers online.  Small business owners and marketers do not have the luxury of lots of free time to monitor social networks, so these tips are intended to help you be as efficient as possible.

#1: Make Your Profiles About More Than Just Your Industry

While you should be demonstrating expertise on your Facebook fan page and your blog, you should also be adding local context to this information.  What does the information you are providing mean for your specific region?

If you are selling homes, provide information and links about the local area, as well as the real estate you are offering.  As a small business, you are competing against large national news sources, so provide something the big guys can’t afford to give—local perspective.  The Wydler Brothers Realty Team does just that, offering insights on the Washington, D.C. market as well as homes they are offering in the area.

On their blog, Wydler Brothers Realty offers advice on the general DC area, in addition to their expertise in the real estate industry.

#2: Offer Value

By far the most important tip to getting value from social media for your business is offering value to the customers you want to interact with.  First, make sure your social media presences contain all the information a customer needs to find you on and offline, and provide a clear idea of what your business offers.

Second, define what you’ll be offering your potential customers in return for their attention and time.  You can offer promotions or discounts specifically for fans of your Facebook page, for instance. 

If you do not have the budget for special offers, make sure the content you are offering is valuable to the potential customers you are trying to reach.  Envision the need you are filling for the target customer and serve the customer with useful information related to your business or industry.

Rackspace sees high interaction from polls. Smaller hosting companies could learn from what the market leader is doing, and replicate the types of activities that drive engagement.

#3: Show Consistency

Nothing is more likely to reduce the effectiveness of small business social media outreach than inconsistency and spotty participation.  You can’t expect potential customers to revisit your Facebook profile if it is hasn’t been updated in the two weeks since they first visited, or expect them to make a purchase from your Twitter outreach if you only post 2 updates per month.

For example, Naked Pizza, based in New Orleans, messages its followers on Twitter 1 to 15 times per day.  It is now receiving 20 percent of its total revenue from these interactions.

#4: Diversify and Connect

It takes some time investment on the front end, but reaching out on multiple social platforms—then connecting the different presences with the same themes and message—is crucial to reaching the most possible customers on social networks.   You don’t want to replicate the same message on every platform, either.  Though services like ping.fm are great for simplifying content posting, try to add something unique to each social media presence you maintain.

#5: Be Competitive

Observe your competition and their social media activity.  If your business is the only one in your industry and region interacting on social networks, congrats, you’re ahead of the curve.  But more likely than not, your competitors are experimenting on social networks, too.  Observe what they are doing to grow their base.  Which tactics are working?  Which are not?  This is exactly what you’d do in a competitive assessment offline, looking for ways to improve your process by evaluating your competitors.

Remember to stay persistent, as it takes time to establish robust presences on social media sites.  If you act on these five tips in your social media outreach, you will leverage your time effectively, and see improved results from promoting your small business on social networks.

What techniques have been most successful for you on your business’ social media presences?  Which of these tips do you see the most/least potential in?  Let us know by commenting in the box below!

One of the major objections I hear about social media is about time.

Do any of these sound familiar? “Who has time?” “You expect me to do all this on top of my normal duties?” “How do you fit everything in?” … and so on.

I am not going to lie to you. Social media does take time. In fact, time is going to be one of your major hidden costs of doing business on the Internet.  And for some of us, that time could be wasted if we are not careful.

You need to watch where your time goes to ensure you’re spending it efficiently and with the desired impact.  Here are five tips to help you.

#1: Spend Your Time Intentionally

It’s all too easy to just chit chat, browse and surf, get distracted or feel like we are making progress when really we are avoiding work and using social media “engagement and interaction” as an excuse to procrastinate. There are good conversations and wasteful conversations and you need to decide which is which.

Consider a face-to-face networking event. Do you spend all of your time speaking to one person at that event about the weather, or do you spread yourself around a bit and find new and interesting people to connect with? Are you just hanging out or do you direct your efforts toward a precise tactical aim or specific goal?

You need to know what you are doing and how you are going to measure your success.

How does this help you find time? Well, most businesses and individuals already allocate time for marketing, networking and research. If you know that your social media activities come in under one of those headings, and your efforts in social media are going to achieve equal or better results to other things you could do under those headings, then you are equipped to carve out time to try social media instead.

#2: Carve Out Time Where Social Media Is More Efficient

Because of my social media efforts, I no longer have to pitch, write proposals or go to sales meetings. I have never had to cold-call for my own business, and I do not write competitive bids.

How much time could you save if you didn’t have to do this kind of sales lead generation or closing?

In my previous job, I would have to spend more than six hours in a car just so I could go to one 30-minute sales presentation competing with several other companies with very little differentiation between us. Not only was it soul-destroying and a colossal waste of time, it was actually very ineffective.

I am not saying you will be able to 100% replace your old way of doing things with social media right away, and I would not suggest that is wise even if you could. But you should be able to take an hour or two out of a week to test social media and see how the results look. In fact, combining approaches usually works best, as each technique and medium compounds the results of the others. Reaching prospects through a multi-channel approach is normally much better than the sum of the parts.

The great thing about social media is you can pretty much get involved anywhere and any time.

#3: Use “Dead” Time

How much time do you spend just waiting? I was recently at a conference in Las Vegas and because of the long-haul nature of the travel and the fact that I would be alone much of the time, I did a lot of hanging around and waiting, which I filled with social media. Just think of your average business trip… What do you spend a lot of time doing?

• Flights
• Taxis
• Queues
• Departure lounges
• Restaurants
• Meetings
• Hotels
• …?

If, however, you have an Internet-connected laptop or smart phone, you can at least use some of this time to stay connected, engage with people, write some content or otherwise go from “hanging around” to being semi-productive. If nothing else, you will feel like you are not all alone in the world!

How long does it take to check your messages and send out a tweet, status update, check out a link, or answer a question? Seconds? Minutes at most?

How many times during the day do you get the odd 10 minutes where you are simply waiting?

Even at my desk I have to sit and wait, watching progress bars as something calculates, prints, renders or uploads. Those are prime “check what is happening in social media” times!

What if you find you have more than a few minutes to spare?

#4: Escape, Bulk-Produce, Store Up and Schedule

On those occasions when you have a good chunk of time, make the best possible use of that time and get a power hour of content produced.

• Outline and write a set of blog posts to go out later when you are too busy
• Brainstorm and create ideas, mind map your thoughts and generate headlines
• Plan for the future, write up an editorial calendar, “most like to meet” list or line up meetings with people with whom you have lost contact
• Get organized and make your week more efficient with tasks, to-dos, filing and an empty inbox
• Write out some interesting tweets to go out over the next week so you only have to check in and reply each day

One of my friends “escapes” to the coffee shop a couple of times a week and does all his content creation and planning for that week in those few concentrated hours. Being out of the office with zero interruptions (other than the constant stream of fresh latte) means he can bang out several quality items and his brain cooperates, rather than fights against his productivity with distractions and… Ooh, shiny!

#5: Just Relax

My last point is that this is not meant to be a chore. Nobody is testing you, tracking your use of time or holding you to any grading system. It should be useful and it should be fun!

Aim to build a reputation for being helpful and providing value, and most of all being a real human being. Then people will be much more forgiving and understanding. You do not need to be perfect.

If you do not post an article this week, so what? Your Twitter followers might be concerned if you do not appear for a few days, but they are not going to start saying bad things about you if you are too busy to tweet!

For me, social media is primarily social. It is my coffee break. Yes, I do find it a very effective set of tools for my business, but I also deeply appreciate the people who are at the other end of those avatars and tools. If you keep relationships foremost in your mind and do not treat social media as something you have to do or else, you will have much greater success at it!

What do you think? Have you struggled to find time? How do you find time for social media? Please share your comments below…

Photo by Leo Reynolds

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