Welcome to the Productivity Blog

This is a guest post written by Amy from Amy Howard Social.

Don't we all want more Pinterest followers? Of course we do!

Believe it or not, there is a magical method to creating Pinterest boards that are optimised for gaining followers. The secret is, STOP pinning for yourself and START pinning content that your TARGET MARKET will love!

You need to be very strategic in what pins you pin and what boards you create. Today I am going to share my Top 10 Must Have Pinterest Boards for Gaining New Followers.

#1 | {Brand Boards} are a no-brainer, an absolute must, and totally necessary for your Pinterest account. Always place these boards as the first boards that you have.

Also, you should always pin YOUR BRAND PINS onto as many of your personal boards as possible. And for the love of sweet tea, please pin your brand pins onto group boards that you are a part of. Your brand is your baby, show it off first!

#2 | {Food & Drink} is the most popular category for both men and women on Pinterest.

Now, I am not talking about pinning your sweet mama's recipe of potato salad that everyone already knows how to make. Pin food and drink images that are appealing to look at, that you may never even make. Pinners are attracted to pretty images and will repin pretty food and drink images. Personally, I combined food + drinks together onto one board.

#3 |  {Home Décor} boards should be full of inspirational interiors.

Again, pinners want to see gorgeous images and will be attracted to pins that allow them to escape reality. Let's stay away from the pins that actually look like our homes, instead pin images that your target market wants their home to look like. Trust me, home décor images get A LOT of repins. You can take a peek at how I separated my home décor boards by interiors here.

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This is guest post written by Tash from The Bottom Step.

Firstly, it’s an absolute honour to have the opportunity to guest post for Holly!

This is one of the first blogs I found and loved. I think she has a real talent for posting great content and ensuring her readers are part of the conversation. So thank you again, Holly!

I’m Tash and I started blogging earlier this year. Whilst I haven't been at it for long, I do think there are some key lessons I have learnt on my journey so far.

I initially started writing as a way to hold myself accountable for tasks and goals I set myself, as I often found that I would set them and rarely achieve them fully. However, within the first few weeks of having my blog I found that I was becoming 100% more productive in all aspects of my life.

As I began to share these stories I started receiving great feedback from friends and family, and soon realised I was organically building engagement. This then gave me the motivation and the inspiration to build my little corner of the internet into something greater, but the question is ... How?

I wanted to focus today specifically on engagement and how to use this to grow your social media presence and in turn your blog audience.

#1 | Be Consistent

You may have already seen this title in 100 other blogs - talking about being consistent with your amazing content and your readership will grow. However, what many of them neglect to talk about is being consistent on social media in general.

Before blogging I had never really been a big fan of Twitter; however within a few days, I soon realised its benefit and the wealth of knowledge it offers.

But it’s so hard to be on it all the time and remembering to post 3/5 times per day on a regular basis - enter Buffer!

Buffer has become my new best friend. If you haven't heard of it, it’s a scheduling tool designed specifically for use with Twitter. It allows you to pre-write 10-100’s of Tweets in advance and schedule them to go live at set times.

This completely transformed my social media reach, gaining me engaged and loyal Twitter followers EVERYDAY! Now I don't have 1000’s, but the ones I have stay! They aren't ghost followers, they are people who are following me, because I post content that is relevant to them CONSISTENTLY!

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This is a guest post written by Cydney from The Good Life.

I've got a lot to thank for blogging.

Although it's been a turbulent journey, since the new year - when I started to really take pride in my content, got inspired and have so far managed to stick to it - I've already had so many opportunities open up for me. 

It helps that I've surrounded myself with like-minded bloggers and have also gained the confidence from running a couple of small time businesses.

But both the online and offline skills that I've gained through managing a blog has landed me a Creative Assistant role at a local company. So I'm living proof that your blog can lend a hand in getting you your dream job.

I have to pinch myself sometimes at how lucky I am to have landed this role. The company saw potential in me and didn't want to pigeonhole me as I have creative skills. I feel like such an entrepreneur as I literally handed them my ideal job description, and they hired me based on that. We agreed a real salary and contract, and I have now been there for just over two months.

This is a huge deal for me as I'm a young parent, have no qualifications nor a creative degree, and left college with barely a letter accredited to my name. I've just worked hard on personal development, networked and sought new challenges. I value my skills and my worth, and took pride in my hobby, treating my blog like a business and portfolio of my talent.

So, considering my journey and my success, I want to share the truly valuable skills that will make your CV shine and hopefully get you a step closer to where you actually want to be.

#1 | Online Marketing

So I'm guessing if you have a blog, you've probably got a Twitter profile, Bloglovin' page, Instagram account and maybe a Facebook page to go with it. If you're like me, you've probably got well over 500 pins on Pinterest too and actively use Snapchat, so you're already doing better than half the companies out there!

You can write a post, and half the success of a blog is knowing how to promote yourself and engage on social media, and you're already doing that! You're attracting like-minded people and showing off your passions and lifestyle in an appealing way.

Well hi, this is what every company/brand needs to be doing, and you're already a PRO.

Any company in the 21st century should understand the importance and potential of social media, and because you can do this with your eyes half shut, you can bring a huge amount of value on this basis.

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This is a guest post written by Natalie from Strategist Cafe.

Creating and designing is the best part of work for me.

I love developing useful content to help my audience and clients grow their business. The more content I create and that my audience can use and apply, the more I build relationships, brand awareness, and my influence.

 My goal is to always mass produce content, so that I don’t spend all of my time thinking of what to create next. I will also avoid possibly over planning and not being productive. It’s what most of us want for our business - we want to have all of our content organised and automated so we can focus on our clients and spend time with our families.

To mass produce content, it’s important to create in batches, no matter how many topics you cover. Batch creating will help you stay organised and productive in your business. So here are three tips to help you batch create more effectively.

#1 | Create content in themes or series

Creating content in themes or series helps you stay organised with your business, because it gives you direction in what to create and share with your audience. There are many different areas of business that our audience needs help with understanding, implementing, creating, adjusting, etc. This makes more work for us as we must fulfil the needs of our audience.

It’s easier to take care of our duties through themes or series. These are specific topics that we need to produce to deliver to our audience based on their responses and engagement with our content.

I find that creating in themes or series helps with creativity and productivity. Just because we create amazing content doesn’t mean that we have to use it right away. I create monthly themes. It’s the easiest way to talk about several things under one category.

For example, one month I covered content creation. Each week, I broke down content creation and the steps it takes to create useful content for my audience. A different week explained what content is and why it’s important for a business. Another week, I talked about different types of content, mistakes that are made with content creation, and how to organise content. Before I presented my audience with anything, I created and developed all of the content for each topic under this one specific subject.

I’ll share another example with you:

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The success of Instagram and Pinterest prove that people can take action purely on visuals alone. So why do visuals play such a huge rule on social media? Let’s break it down.

 

Here’s 5 Reasons Why Visuals Are Vital on Social Media

#1 | Visuals Are More Attention Grabbing and Memorable Than Text Alone

This concept has been around since the beginning of advertising. And if you’re a visual learner this is nothing new to you. A visual representation tells a better story and can play to the viewers’ emotions.

For example, if you’re hungry and you see a picture of a sandwich on Facebook, you’ll continue to read the ad. On the other hand, if it had been a post without the visual of a sandwich, it wouldn’t have had much affect on you and it’s likely you wouldn’t have noticed it.

It’s also important to point out time moves faster these days. Well, not literally, but it’s evident that our world moves at a faster pace and we digest content faster than our own parents did a few decades ago. We have a shorter attention span and respond better to short and concise messages. Hence the popular 140 twitter character limit. It’s easier for us to remember a visual post that caught our quick eye.

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This is a guest post written by Els Pontin.

For me, this came out of absolute necessity. 

 

 Around twelve months ago - I decided that in addition to a job that took around sixty hours out of my week involving a daily commute of one hundred miles, I would re-train as a Professional Coach.

For this, I would fill my every evening and free days honing my coaching skills. I would also start a business, be the perfect girlfriend, and move house. Said house had a garden which needed to be transformed from a field into a habitable space. It needed fencing, a shed and plants. Not to mention a lawn. I would also take a position that would fly me over to California for a month to re-invigorate my training skills for work. There’s more, but I won’t bore you.

Complete gospel truth, that was my year last year. 

Awesome. 

Result - for a Type A, over-achieving, driven perfectionist who is a total ‘yes’ to everything girl and can absolutely juggle a million things at once, I got there. I completed the training, aced the final exam, started the business, juggled the many tasks at home, pretty much kept my relationship on track, saw my family just enough to keep them from disowning me and plastered a smile on my face to keep up appearances. 

Actual result. Complete and utter overwhelm, exhaustion, guilt and anxiety times ten - with a daily wave of feeling that I wasn’t doing anything well, I can’t keep doing this and I am the only person in this relationship that is coming last, ALL of the time. 

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This is a guest post written by Sarah Thompson.

Remember when you were little?

Anything was possible.

Everything was so magical, the big wide world was there for discovery and adventure. Step back to those days and loose yourself in my dreamlike world of art for a while.

I have loved to draw for as long as I can remember. It has always been a time where I get lost in my own imagination, a place where time passes so nicely. From hours of copying pictures of horses from books when I was small, to studying art to degree level, there has rarely been a time when I have not been creating something.

After my degree in fine art sculpture, I decided to become a primary school teacher, and art came in useful daily. It seems all children are born artists, and they inspired me alongside me inspiring them (I hope!). After a move from London to Dorset (south England) and having two, of my three, children, I stopped work as a teacher. During all this time, I was still constantly making my own drawings and paintings in my spare time, having local exhibitions and sales of my work.

My sister in law told me of a company who was always looking for new designs for their cards, so I thought I would have a go at submitting some. Unfortunately my designs were not really what they were looking for, but I really liked them, and I thought, ‘Well, if they don’t want them, I’ll turn them into cards myself!’ . So I did! That was the beginning…

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This is a guest post written by Victoria from Butterfly Crafts.

Blogging can be challenging can’t it?

Having to come up with new and creative content on a regular basis to fit whatever posting schedule you keep is hard work, and anyone who says differently quite frankly is lying!

I really enjoy blogging and am quite happy with my twice weekly schedule as that gives me time to be creative but also juggle other requirements on my time [day job and housework I’m looking right at you].

But what happens when the creativity runs out and you sit down at your desk/sofa/cafe/bath to write and there is nothing there? What is a blogger to do when the ideas run out?

This has happened to me a couple of times now and so I thought I would share my seven top tips for when the ideas stop flowing and you want to run and hide.

#1 | Get a change of scenery

You know the saying ‘a change is as good as a rest’? Well that’s just as true when you have a creative block. Take yourself for a walk or a run, go out for the day, or go somewhere you wouldn’t normally go, as you may find new scenery can help spark the ideas.

If that’s not really possible try and switch up where you work or blog from – usually work at your desk? Try the sofa. Usually work at home? Try a coffee shop.

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There’s quite a trend in the industry at the moment when it comes to making money with our blogs. And one monetising method that is usually really popular is the idea of ads.

But are they a good idea? Sometimes. For me - they’re a bad idea and I’ve never ever used them on my site.

So to help clear things up for all types of bloggers, I wanted to talk about the pros and cons for using ads on your website and also whether this is always the right fit for you. Let’s go.

How do people use ads?

I’m sure you’re familiar with what ads look like by the various different sites you visit, but I’ll quickly go through them just in case:

• On their sidebar - This is probably the type of ad you see most often - an image in someone’s sidebar.
• A blog network - Blogging networks have become even more popular recently. When you join one, you simply place an advert on your blog, which will then promote other blogs in the same network.
• Sponsorships - This is like what you see on magazine websites - someone pays you a certain amount of money to advertise on a particular part of your blog.
• EPC - This stands for earnings per click. Basically, it’s an ad you have on your blog and you earn money every time someone clicks it.

Don’t get me wrong - there are lots of other ways to use ads. But these are usually the most popular and the ones you’ll notice the most. Unfortunately, while a lot of bloggers are told using ads is a great way to start making money online, they aren’t told any of the potential negatives.

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It was around the start of 2013 when I made the commitment to be positive every single day.

Technically, I’ve always been a positive person - it’s a word people always use to describe me. But after a bad final year at university, it definitely changed me. I knew that I always felt better when I looked at everything in a positive light, but because I let the negativity take over me, I never seemed to see the full benefits.

At the end of 2014, my mum gave me the idea of writing down three things I was grateful for, and three things that had made me happy at the end of each day. I made the decision to start this and commit to including this in my routine. 

Reflecting on the past couple of years, which have been huge, in terms of both my career and personal life - with new jobs and starting to build my life together with Tom - I can say without any uncertainty that I’ve never been happier, more confident or more at peace with myself than I am right now.

Since I’ve now been keeping up this commitment for a long time, I wanted to share with you what I’ve discovered through daily positivity. It’s become such an essential part of my day that I couldn’t imagine life without it.

IT WILL HELP YOU BE MORE INTENTIONAL

When you purposefully become more positive, you’ll start to understand what you want in your life, but more importantly, what you don’t want. You’ll gain clarity on what goals you want to achieve and be able to prioritise - you’ll want to put the things that give you positivity in your life first. You’ll begin to realise that you don’t want to waste your time on things that drain you of energy or give you negative vibes. You’ll become much more mindful of how you are spending your time and what areas of your life are giving you positivity. 

Through being more intentional and positive, there have been some amazing things that have happened in my life - finding my soulmate, building wonderful relationships with my family, getting a fantastic job at a top institution, and building this blog to the success I believe it has.

YOUR ACTION: Think about what areas in your life are stopping you from being positive and plan how you can change them. If you’re unhappy in your job, start looking for another. If you’re not getting enough time to work on your graphic design portfolio, take another look at your routine. Taking a little step closer to positivity every day will add up to big changes.

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Self-care - you’ve heard of it, right? Heard about it too much? Yeah, I feel you. Recently, it seems like our whole industry is throwing this term around quite a lot, from people saying they need to start implementing self-care into their life, to others saying they’re having a self-care retreat.

Don’t get me wrong - the idea of pushing past the feeling of “busyness” and finding time for ourselves to do things we enjoy is key. Self-care is vital to being happy and fulfilled throughout our lives.

But with so many people talking about it, an area of mistaken belief has developed. There’s no point in using the word self-care in your everyday lingo (whether you’re speaking or writing), unless you know what this means for you. And if you’re thinking, ‘well I have me-time in the bath every evening when I finish work’ - you need to realise there’s so much more to it than that.

So I wanted to break down self-care into teeny little pieces and tell you exactly what’s involved. It’s all pretty fascinating - when it’s used in the right way. Plus, as you know if you’ve been a reader of this blog for X amount of time, it’ll be jam-packed full of actionable ways you can get started on self-care today.

THE DEFINITION OF SELF-CARE

I thought this would be the best place to start, right? 😉

"Self-care includes any intentional actions you take to care for your physical, mental and emotional health."

What I really want to talk about here is the word intentional. These are actions we need to schedule into our days deliberately and with a purpose. See why the bath scenario doesn’t really add up? Because although that’s something you do everyday, it’s also something you do without really thinking about it.

So ultimately, self-care is about doing actions and activities with a clear intention to make yourself feel relaxed, peaceful and also to take you away from your day-to-day life.

But the stumbling block for most people is that because there are so many different ways to practice self-care, they don’t know where to start. It’s like anything - one person’s way of doing it might not work for you and vice versa.

Don’t worry though - I’ve got something that might come in use for you at the end of this post!

I was talking to a friend via email about self-care last week and she said how much she was struggling with it. She said she’d tried getting into the typical activities like watching a new TV show or starting yoga. But for her, it was keeping a journal that worked best for her, because that was when she was completely in her own moment.

So in order to help you figure out the ways to practice self-care that will work for you, we’re going to go through five different categories that’ll cover every aspect.

If you choose to include an intentional action from each of the five groups, you’ll be ensuring that every area of your life is cared for, which will help you even more on your path to get you to where you want to be.

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Lizzie is a professional business and lifestyle writer who creates epic content for start-ups and marketing companies. She also runs Wanderful World, a blog for creative freelancers, where she creates courses, runs workshops, and writes actionable posts for budding freelancers.

DID YOU ALWAYS WANT TO GO INTO YOUR CHOSEN CAREER?

At the back of my mind I always wanted to be a writer, but I was too embarrassed to admit it. Writing was the thing I loved doing the most, but I figured that I’d never be able to make a viable career out of it.
 

WHEN DID YOU START TO DEVELOP A PASSION FOR WHAT YOU CURRENTLY DO?

I’ve been writing ever since I can remember. My mum has little stories I wrote when I could first put pen to paper, and throughout school I started and scrapped about a hundred novels!

I’d always had writing as a kind of hobby, but it wasn’t until I started my blog in 2012 that I realised it could actually be a viable career choice. I had my eyes opened to a whole new online world and I absolutely loved reading about people who had gone freelance or had leveraged their blogs so they could make money. It was inspiring and I wanted some of that action!  

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Want to get more eyes on your latest blog posts?

Promoting yourself on social media isn’t easy, and finding the perfect balance is near impossible. But generating a buzz through your platforms can make a massive difference to how many people view, comment and share your content.

If you’re new to social media or you’re looking for ways to make more of an impact, this post is just for you. Today, I’m sharing 10 tactics you can use to generate the biggest buzz ever.

Ready to go?

 

#1 | Use teasers

Whenever a business launches a new product, they're always more successful when they have a teaser campaign.

Teaser campaigns are used to offer a peek of products or information that acts as a clue, which helps to build excitement. This way, when the big launch day comes, people are excited about your product and ready to buy it.

This is exactly the same when it comes to your blog posts. You can share a peek of what’s to come on your blog over the next few weeks, and that way, when you publish your latest post, people are ready to head over to your blog. 

Check out this teaser that helped to launch my #BloggingBreakthrough eBook in January. I posted the last few words that every reader would see when they finished the book. This is now my most liked photo on Instagram and built up a lot of anticipation for the eBook’s release.

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Let’s paint a picture. You’ve been blogging for a few months or even a few years. You’ve got a consistent publishing schedule and you’re being active on social media, You’re essentially doing all the things you’re pretty sure you should be doing in order to grow your online presence. But your audience isn’t growing as fast as you like.

You watch all these other bloggers whirl past you, running straight into a crowd of their devoted and excited followers and you’re thinking, what? My content is great. Why am I not seeing those results?

Believe me - I’ve been there. I know how frustrating it is. But I also know the problem - you’re not honing in on your blog topics.

What does honing in on your blog topics mean?

First of all, you need to keep in mind the goals for your blog (so where you’re heading), and your why. So why you’re even running this blog in the first place. Once you understand the purpose for why you’re creating content, it will start to make it easier to define the topics you actually want to write about.

But before you start thinking about surveys and reaching out to your audience - stop. This isn’t about them. It’s about you. It’s all about you. Why do you dedicate so much time to your blog? What’s your dream? What do you want to get out of it?

Are you hoping to earn some money through brand partnerships? Do you use your blog as your creative outlet? Are you trying to start your own business and using your blog to support this? Does getting likes, comments and interacting with your community make you feel like your work is meaningful? Are you creating products to sell alongside?

There ain’t no point in going any further until you figure this step out.

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As a blogger writing about various topics, it’s imperative to channel my creativity into what my readers need. One of the reasons I offer so much different content on ABOH is because I love how creativity can act as an outlet. I thrive on writing about my experiences to help others and combined with the power of creativity, inspiring and motivating people to get to where they want to be. 

It would be my dream to do this for a living and I love everything I do for this online space. But when you love being creative and it’s a part of who you are, it can be hard to figure out how to keep it under control and focus on the day-to-day running of things. Through my experiences recently, I’ve found some ways to really figure out how to keep things for my blog running smoothly, whilst fuelling my creativity at the same time.

Listen to your heart

I’ve been writing my whole life, ever since I was little. Writing is a huge part of my creative process, whether it’s writing for this blog or writing pages everyday in my journal. As far back as the start of high school, I remember feeling the need to get my thoughts out in the form of writing. It was one of the biggest ways I learnt to understand who I was. I would come home and just write for hours, doing what my heart wanted me to do. 

Since then I’ve thrived on fulfilling those needs which is a big reason why I started ABOH. When I experience loss or if I’m going through a difficult time with something, I don’t feel a block. I feel an overpowering urge to process my emotions with a pen and paper

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As I worked on reviewing the tasks I’d completed in June and made plans for July, I realised something. Despite the fact that I made important progress and learnt lots of new things, it didn’t really seem like I’d done anything different. And in fact, I’m not sure whether some things were done to the best of my ability.

Yes - you need to give yourself a break in order to grow and you shouldn’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself. But it wasn’t really about that. I was working hard. Was I working smart? No. Which is what today’s post is all about - why “busyness” is a false sense of productivity.

Alright - what does this even mean?

Essentially, it’s thinking you’re being truly productive when really, you’re not. It’s busy work, multi-tasking, and just plain busyness, which leads to you not getting any real work done. I don’t think the process of being productive is something you can just switch on. It’s a whole skill in itself that you’ve got to develop. I believe that I continue to better this skill on a daily basis - productivity is something that is really important to me.

So if this is something that sounds like you, thankfully, you can start making a difference with some small changes.

In the blogging world especially, it seems like it’s “cool” to be busy. If you’re not constantly reaching one goal and moving onto the next, then are you really doing any work at all? This is obviously not true. We’re all working hard. And if you switch off at 8pm and don’t do any work on a Saturday, then I’d actually say that you’re the cool one. You’re finding the balance. You’re working efficiently. You’re not just being busy for the sake of it. You’re enjoying your life and being productive at the same time.

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When you’re applying for a job and in your interview, most of the conversation focuses on you. It’s usually all about why you want the job, what you’d bring to the role and whether your experience and qualifications tick the boxes.

But choosing to take a new job that you’re offered is as much your decision as it is the company’s. They might think you’d be the perfect fit - but do you agree? You’ve got to think about whether this path will fit into the life that you love and help you progress along your career path. You spend an awful lot of time in your day job, so you need to make sure that you make the right decision.

I’ve gone through this process many times now - some jobs I’ve accepted and some I haven’t. But every time this situation has happened, I’ve asked myself some questions. So today, I want to share these questions with you that you can now ask before you accept any job offer. Plus at the end, you'll find a free PDF so you've got them all in one place to use forever.

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It seems surreal to think that in two months, I'll be celebrating ABOH's third birthday. I've never poured this much time and energy into a project and not a day goes by where I don't do something related to this blog. It's been difficult, rewarding and so fulfilling to see how much this online space and my community have grown, especially over the past few months. I love sharing my journey with you all. Blogging has been fundamental to getting me where I am today and I can't stress the importance of it enough.

So in celebration of my 25th birthday on Saturday (whoop whoop!), today, I'm sharing 25 of the biggest things I've learnt about building an online presence. I hope that these insights might help you with your own journey and open up your mind to new possibilities too.

 

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Have you ever had a conversation with someone about something and they’ve just stared at you blankly? You’re going on and on about a subject you’re passionate about, but they just don’t seem to get it, or even be taking it in.

My point?

My point is that communication isn’t always easy. Sometimes, people get what you’re saying with no questions asked. Other times, you’re trying to explain your thoughts or visions to someone and they just don’t make sense. There’s usually a barrier, because it seems like you’re spouting jargon, which a lot of people try to avoid.

Specifically, I’m talking about building an online presence. And blogging. Over the past few years, as I’ve gained more and more experience, my strategies have developed to help improve communication.

In this post, not only will you find definitions that will really help you out, but you’ll also find questions to help you break down the strategies you have for running your blog. Plus a PDF of everything so you can keep it in an easy-to-access place. All I want to do is help you bring the party to your blog and get yourself even more organised. But we’ll talk more about that later.

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Over the past year as a blogger, I’ve been surprised that increasing members to my community and building my online presence - the things I feared the most - were growing at a pretty natural rate. Instead, the thing that nagged me the most was straight-forward: finding the motivation (and time) to do the work I needed to do.

Sounds ridiculous, right? But after chatting with enough bloggers, I can say that this is a common problem. These days, I’m able to get a hell of a lot more done (although I’m still working on it). So today, I want to share with you the lessons that I’ve learned and why you haven’t been able to get things done. After you’ve read this, you’ll have increased motivation, inspiration and productivity. Let’s go.

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