Look outside your inner circle for inspiration

You’ll often hear the advice to look beyond your competitors for inspiration or to improve your product. It’s a pretty simple concept, if everyone in a given field only looks at what is ‘currently successful’ and follows the lead of others, then pretty soon everything looks the same and it takes real effort to innovate and distinguish yourself from your peers.

Fiction writers are encouraged to read extensivley outside their genre of choice, painters are encouraged to study other forms of art… bloggers also need to study other bloggers, not just the ones writing about similar topics, but also those targeting a completely different audience - this is where you’ll find some great ideas that’ll give you an edge when competing for your audience.

There has been two events lately that pushed me in a different direction - I bought an iPod Touch and I’ve been spending way too much time playing World of Warcraft… what does that have to do with Blogging? Let’s take a look.

One of the things I like about my iPod is that I can listen to nearly anything while I’m working… I have some music on there, but mostly I listen to podcasts or non-fiction audio books and boring stuff like that. It wasn’t long therefore that I started tracking down World of Warcraft podcasts… not only did I find some, there were literally hundreds.

When every blog has their own podcast…

There are lots of World of Warcraft podcasts, nearly every popular blog has one and it seems like every second person in the WoW community is involved in some way. Some of these podcasts are very professionally done and they (rightfully so) attract a large audience.

If you were starting a WoW blog, would you start a podcast too? I’d have to say probably not, there’s too much competition there already, but that doesn’t mean you’d neglect that market. Same thing goes for just about any topic you’re blogging on… how can you leverage off podcasts?

Creating your own podcast sounds like too much hard work to me - you need to keep the releases fairly regular, you’ve got to make sure it adds value and in my opinion you need at least two or three good people involved to keep the conversatoin moving in interesting directions… and then you’ve still got to build an audience, much like you’re doing with your blog, but that’s not your only option.

If there are a couple of successful podcasts around in your niche (chances are good), you may be able to leverage off their success by contributing a regular segment to their product. Think of it as writing a guest post on another blog, but this time you’d prepare a short (5 minute max) audio clip about a specific topic within your niche - they’ll be happy with the extra value you’re adding to their podcast, and you’ll get exposed to their (already established) audience (win-win)… not only that, but you don’t need to devote a lot of time to production and you can do the clip all by yourself - no need to work conversations into a five minute piece.

I hope that gives you a few ideas - get out there and see what podcasts are already available in your niche, give them a listen and think about how you can make their show better by offering them a little free audio content.

Image by dan taylor.

The economic downturn… or “I thought I’d stop by and actually blog a little!”

Ok, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted here… way too long - chained to my desk all week and letting World of Warcraft soak up all my free time really doesn’t do much for a blogging schedule.

In case you haven’t noticed… we’re in a recession / depression / hold onto your cash and lock [...] Continue Reading…

How do you blog when you’re cut off from the conversation?

Ok, I haven’t blogged much lately, as you know, I started a new job about a month ago and that sucks up the majority of my time. Most of what remains is spent with my family and for some reason I even seem to be getting more sleep… but that’s not what’s stopping me [...] Continue Reading…

A Change of Pace…

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t posted for about two weeks now… and to be honest, that change of pace will probably continue for a while yet.

I’ve taken on a new job - it’s consuming a lot of my time right now, leaving little time for blogging (let alone anything else), but professionally, it’s [...] Continue Reading…

The Importance of Commenting on Other Blogs

I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but ‘Blogging is a conversation’.

I’m not sure who should be credited with originally saying that (if you know, leave me a comment!), but it’s without doubt, the best definition of blogging that I’ve seen. Blogging is a conversation, as a blogger, we carefully craft our posts each day [...] Continue Reading…

Wordpress Theme Spotlight: Evolution, by Blogging Tips

If you’re putting a lot of energy into promoting your blog, then it’s in your best interest to do everything you can to make your visitors stick around once they find you. Having great content that is readily accessible is essential to keep them around for the long-term, but first impressions do count, and [...] Continue Reading…

More EntreCard Free Credits - Upping the Stakes

The response to yesterday’s call of helping to get the word out for my new blog has been overwhelming silence, so it’s obvious that 200EC’s just don’t cut it or everyone using EntreCard is just chain-dropping as fast as they can and not taking notice of anything along the way!

So… given all that, I’m [...] Continue Reading…

Free EntreCard Credits for Everyone

I’m launching a new blog - one that I have been ‘getting ready’ for some time now, but I need your help to get the word out.

The blog is called Gamblz.com and it aims to connect online poker and casino players with social networking and blogging… it’s an area that the online gambling industry [...] Continue Reading…

The Pessimists Guide to Blogging: Challenges

Today’s episode of the Pessimists Guide to Blogging is about Challenges… those pesky little problems that we all have from time to time - I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, many people find it a challenge just to get out of bed in the morning (something I personally don’t have a problem [...] Continue Reading…

Social Media - Understanding what it can do for you

If you’ve never seen any of the ‘in plain English’ videos from those awesome guys at CommonCraft, then you’re really missing out, they make some of the best videos I’ve seen for explaining social media concepts.

They’ve just released a new one about Social Media and Social Networking - as a blogger you probably understand [...] Continue Reading…