You guys... IT'S ALMOST DECEMBER. 2016 is actually going to be here before we know and I for one, can't believe it. It's been a whirlwind of a year with three job changes and a whole lot of new direction on this blog. 

But now I finally feel like I'm in the right place at this moment. My career has taken off and I've got big things planned for ABOH next year so watch this space!

I also wanted to take this chance to say thank you so much to all of you that have taken part in my Reader Survey. It's going to be open until the end of the year so I'd really appreciate your feedback if you haven't filled it in already!

I've been working mega hard over the past few weeks and during my two weeks off in December I'm finally going to create the free download I've been promising you forever. My social media eBook! I'm SO excited and I hope you are too. 

Setting goals at the start of the month is a great way to align my work with the things in life that matter to me the most. Plus, sharing them with you motivates me even more to complete them, and I love reading about the goals you set for yourself too. Today, we're diving into how I got on in November as well as the goals I'll be working towards during December.

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Motivation is a key value on ABOH – so much so that it’s got its own category. I've talked about it a lot, because I know motivation is something a lot of us aim for on a daily basis.

But there’s always one question we ask:

"How do I get myself to be more motivated?”

People go round and round in circles trying out different ways they can be more motivated. But really, that's just making it more complicated for yourself.

Because being more motivated is actually quite simple. 

My mum says that I'm the most motivated person she knows. I get it – it's always been a part of who I am. I can’t remember a time when I've not done something that I've set out to do. That’s just been my mindset. 

My mum will talk to me about Year 11’s she mentors at school saying that they don’t want to revise or do their work. But I can’t relate. Because even thought I might’ve been tired or felt like I couldn't be bothered, I did it anyway.

So if you’re looking for some ways to train yourself to be more motivated (that actually work) this is for you. Read this list, try these out and take action.

We’re going to kick motivation in the butt.

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What do you think of when you see the word “branding”? A logo? Design? Colours? Style? They’re all parts of branding. But what about you as a person? Do you have a logo? A specific design? A specific style?

Somewhere along the way branding has become associated with how something looks. But I've always been taught never to judge a book by its cover.

You wouldn't want someone to get the wrong impression of you, right?

The impression that you give and the values that you hold in your everyday lives are there to represent you.

That is your personal brand.

Here’s the definition that comes up when you put “what is a personal brand” into Google:

“Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. While previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal-branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging.”

Now you might be thinking to yourself: I don’t have a brand, I haven’t been actively creating one. But you’ll find that it has actually developed naturally and exist now, for you, whether you know what branding really is or not.

You don’t create a personal brand. The truth is, you’ve had one for ages. You just haven’t recognised it yet.

You’re a bit sceptical, aren't you?

I know. I was at one point.

But try this.

Google yourself. Just like you did in the blog post yesterday on social media branding. Google your name, your blog name and your location.

Every result that comes up in relation to you is part of your personal brand.

Your social media platforms, your LinkedIn profile, your mentions on other blogs and websites – these are all part of your personal brand. They all help to develop your personal brand.

So the question we need to answer now isn't “do I have a personal brand?” But instead, “how do I use my personal brand to my advantage? How do I define it to be what I want?”

Because that way you’ll be ahead. Employers are so impressed when you can talk about yourself as a personal brand. And if you can communicate that in a unique and effective way, that’s how you’ll be remembered.

That’s how you’ll grow.

Now we’re going to dig in. Let’s do this. Want to know how to believe that you are a personal brand? Read on.

 

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Some of you may have noticed that there’s been quite a bit of talk about branding on ABOH lately. This is because, on Thursday I've got my first public speaking gig about – you guessed it – branding! I'm going to be speaking to journalism students about building a personal brand.

You’re probably fed up of people telling you how important branding is, so don’t fret. I'm not going to repeat what they say. But some people think once they've branded up their website, they’re sorted.

The truth is, you’re not even close.

Building a personal brand online doesn't start and end with your website. Sure, your site might be the core of your brand. But what about the other aspects that help to bring your brand together?

And what I mean by that is – social media.

Social media is so important for your brand. It helps to bring everything together.

It helps you to develop more of a personal identity, establish your expertise and stand out.

You want to be everywhere.

But when someone comes across you on social media, how will they know they've found who they’re looking for? How will they know they've found you?

By branding.

So today, I wanted to take you through in a really simple way how you can brand yourself using social media. Let’s go!

Step 1: Google Yourself

It just got real, guys. Now, I'm not one for Googling myself. But this will show you how interlinked the platforms for your personal brand are.

So what you need to do is use the name of your blog. Now, if your blog name is something different to your full name you can do a search for both of them. But for me, I’d just do a search for “a branch of holly.”

Here's what my search results look like:

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Hey #BloggingBreakthrough, friend! Are you ready for Chapter 4? Yeah? Good answer. For the letter “D” I thought I’d go for something simple. But this is really important for anyone who has a blog or wants to start one. Today, we’re going to talk about my personal favourite commenting system. I hope it'll answer any questions you’ve got about it.

So far in the #BloggingBreakthrough series, we’ve looked at:

• A for Audience
   
• B for Branding
   
• C for Categories

If you want to read those previous posts you can just click on each of those bullet points.

But today’s post is all about…

Disqus

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Whenever you apply for a job, you know there’s always going to be one thing that you need: a great CV.

A potential employer is looking at your CV for only one thing. To see if and why it proves you’re the best candidate for the job. Essentially, along with your covering letter, it’s a sales pitch. This is your chance to tell employers why they should pick you and no one else. You want your CV to be a glittering, stand-out account of everything you've achieved.

YOU WANT TO BE NOTICED.

But here’s the thing. Lately, I've noticed people have been jazzing up the design of their CVs to make them look different. You can even buy CV templates! Now it’s great to want to make it look amazing.

But will an employer hire you just because something looks good?

No.

To make a strong impression, you've got to stand out. But there are things an employer will be looking for in your CV and if they’re not there, you won’t tick that box.

So today, I'm going to go through seven basics that you need to include in your CV and a few other things to look out for. Let’s get going!

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There’ll be many moments throughout our lives when we’ll have to make decisions. Usually, these decisions come down to whether we should try or not. Sometimes we might try to do something and it might not work. Other times, it might work.

But you’ll never know unless you try.

When you’re faced with a challenge or come across a situation where you have to step out of your comfort zone, what do you do? What’s your reaction?

Maybe you've quit your job to do blogging full-time and are now faced with the challenge of feeling confident enough to make a living from this. Maybe you want to get that extra qualification, but you’re worried you won’t be able to manage everything. Maybe you need someone to help you, but you’re too scared to reach out.

What’s really holding you back?

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As bloggers or business owners it's natural for us to work towards goals. You set yourself targets and you want to meet those targets, right? Right.

But here's the thing. People set themselves many different types of goals. For us, a lot of them seem to be entered around the 'n' word...

Numbers.

Just have a think about some of the targets bloggers set themselves:

• Increase traffic
• Get more followers
• Get more comments
• Increase pageviews
• Double subscribers

And everything you’re searching for is “how to do this” and “how to do that”.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's great to set yourself number goals. And it's even better when you hit them. Whether it's an extra thousand page views or an extra hundred social media followers, it's great to celebrate your achievements! But what I want you to remember is this.

Numbers aren't everything. Numbers aren't the most important thing.

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If there’s one question every blogger will be asked it’s this:

Why did you choose your blog name?

There’s good reason for asking this too. It can tell you a lot about not just the person, but also their reasons for blogging.

A Branch of Holly is so special to me and I’ve been asked a few times exactly how and why I came up with this name. So today, I thought I’d tell you. I hope you enjoy the story.

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Hey #BloggingBreakthrough friend! Are you ready for chapter three? I really hope you are. I had a lot of different “C” words to choose from today, but I thought this one made the most sense to start off with. A lot of people talk about this topic and ask me questions about it, so here we are.

So far in the #BloggingBreakthrough series, we’ve looked at:

• A for Audience
   
• B for Branding

If you want to read those previous posts click on each of the titles above!

But today’s post is all about……

CATEGORIES

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If there’s one question you’re bound to be asked in every interview it’s this. And it’s also one of the hardest to answer…

Tell me about yourself

This used to be my least favourite interview question of all time. Where do you even start with answering that? How can you tell someone about yourself, your career, what makes you a good fit for the job and show off your personality? In just a few minutes?

Panic.

If you weren't prepared for this question in an interview, this is what would happen.

You’d go blank, you’d get hot, your palms would start to sweat, you’d start to fidget and then say, “um…”.

But here’s the thing – in every interview I've had, I've been asked this question. Which means it’s 99.9% likely that you’ll be asked it in your interviews too.

And employers have got a good reason for asking it too.

You see, your interviewer can learn a lot about you from the way you answer this question. Plus, with it usually being the first question, your answer can shape how the rest of the interview is going to go.

Luckily for you, I have a five step, bullet proof answer for this that will make you stand out. If the question “tell me about yourself” scares you, this post is for you. Follow these steps and for your next interview, you’ll be more than ready.

Plus, I've even created a free template for you to download so you can fill your answer in as you go along.

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“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”

Willie Nelson

It’s cold, it’s rainy, and the nights are very very dark. If you’re anything like me, work is manic. You've got a to-do list the length of both your arms and you’re trying to get lots of things done before the festive break. Plus, you've got a million and one other things going on, like you need to take your cat to the vets, your car needs its MOT and let’s not even start with Christmas shopping.

It can all get a bit overwhelming, right?

I've always believed in having a positive outlook on everything, and usually, I stay true to this. But I also know how unbelievably hard it is to keep smiling when it seems like one thing after another is going wrong.

Take this month for instance – because I've had various different jobs over the past year, my income hasn't been consistent. This month, I invested in a MacBook Pro, but I've also had to budget for my car’s MOT, my phone screen which smashed and needed repairing and various other outgoings. Knowing all this money is going out of my account could make me want to curl up in a ball and go into hibernation.

But, when you think about it in the bigger picture – it’s just one month.

Just. One. Month.

I stand by the fact that your mind controls everything. A positive outlook comes from your mind and no one else’s.

But there are times when it can seem impossible to change your negative thoughts.

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Whether you think of your blog as a hobby or, like me, you treat it as a part-time job, you'll know how much work is involved. Planning, writing, creating images, editing, scheduling, social media - it's a job that never stops.

It's also a job that can get you very far in life, as I've found myself.

Running an online presence is no easy task. So let me ask you something...

Do you include your blog on your CV? Do you write about it in your covering letters?

If not, do you think you should?

I can spend anywhere between 7 and 30+ hours a week on running my online presence, including my blog,  social media, newsletter and anything else I want to create.

Just think of everything you do for your website on a daily basis and all the skills you use - don’t you think all of those would look seriously great on your CV? Especially if you’re applying for jobs in social media, writing, marketing, journalism, or any job that involves a strong set of digital skills.

Digital is the way forward for every business and that’s where bloggers have the advantage. So if you’ve not yet got your blog on your CV, or you don’t mention it in your covering letters, I’m going to tell you exactly why you need to do this and how to do it.

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Let’s start off today’s post with a little story. Two years ago I was well underway with my MA course in Magazine Journalism. One day we were working on a project. I was on InDesign and a guy next to me was doing some research on Twitter. Then this happened:

Him: “Holly, you just tweeted.”

Me: “No I didn't.

Him: “Well you’ve just appeared at the top of my feed. But you’ve been on InDesign this whole time, so how did you do it?

Me: “Oh, yeah, I schedule all my tweets to go out, because I know I won’t be able to do them during the day.”

Him: “What?! You can schedule tweets?!”

I’ve been scheduling tweets for over two years. Over that time, I’ve built up a community of over 1,000 followers and tweeted over 7,000 times. Twitter has also been the biggest referrer of traffic to my blog for the past six months.

Pretty amazing what scheduling tweets can do, right?

But what I thought when I had this conversation was: how many people don’t know how to do this, but would like to know? How many people would this help?

The answer is a lot.

Recently, I’ve seen quite a few people talking about the struggles of scheduling tweets and knowing where to start. So today, I’m taking things back to basics and going through a quick "how-to" guide for becoming a pro at scheduling tweets.

PST! If you want a shorter version of this that you can just work your way through, I've made a checklist for you! Hit the button below to get it.

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This month, I’ll be speaking at a university to Journalism students on “Making Yourself a Brand.” While creating the content for the guest talk and workshop I’m hosting, it made me realise how many people don’t see themselves as a brand.

So let me ask you a question. I want you to really think about it.

 

Do you see yourself as a brand?

 

Do you? Think about it. If you said yes, then great. If you said no, here’s another question for you to answer…

 

Do you have your own website or blog?

 

I can guarantee a lot of you will say yes to that one. Now here’s the last question…

 

Are you on social media?

 

I’ll bet you’ve said yes to that too.

So do you want to know something?

 

You are a brand.

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You’ve done it. You made it through the interview. You presented your cleanest CV, wore your smartest, feel-good outfit, answered the questions and smashed it. But what then? Do you sit and wait for news? Forget about it until you hear whether you’ve got the job or not?

Definitely not.

If you’re not an entrepreneur and don’t plan to be one, then the likelihood is that you’ll go through a number of interviews during your life. Some of them will be successful and some won’t. And like anything, you’ll want to reflect. We learn by our experiences and mistakes. But how will you be able to improve or make positive changes without questioning what those experiences taught you?

Self-reflection lets you move from just having an experience, to having an understanding.

This is especially true for job interviews. From my first ever job interview for a part-time job at New Look when I was sixteen, to the latest one I had for my job as Marketing Coordinator (which consisted of a design task, presentation and two rounds of interviews), it’s safe to say that I’ve learnt a hell of a lot. And one main thing I’ve done in order to further my career is to keep an interview log.

An interview log is simple – after each interview you have, you reflect upon it and write your thoughts down in this little book. You could write anything. But from my own experiences, I’ve found that there are five main things you need to take away from every interview and reflect upon. So that’s what I’m going to share with you today.

 

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Lack of time – this is something that almost everyone wishes they had more of. But usually, it doesn’t come down to not having enough time in your day. It comes down to the fact that you might not be using your time to your full advantage. And that comes with being more efficient.

A lot of people talk about doing intentional work, work that has a big purpose for you. So you focus purely on the work that’s going to bring you money, happiness and satisfaction – everything else doesn’t matter.

A lot of people think they’ve got efficiency nailed. They manage everything, tick every box and still have time to do things for themselves. But if you feel like you’re wasting time or not using your days to the best that you could be, this post is for you. Yesterday, I shared a pretty epic post about being productive, so this motivational post seemed like a good idea to come next.

Today, I’m not going to give you a list of tools or hacks to help you be the most efficient you can be. To be truly efficient means changing your mindset. So this is how you do it.

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Does this sound familiar? It's a Sunday and you think - it's blog day. You write a list and plan to get loads done. By the end of the day, you feel like you've accomplished a lot. But when you look at your list, only a few things have been ticked off. How does that happen?

It's a real struggle. It happened to me a few weekends ago. But I know you want to get a lot done. You've got blog posts, series and a whole host of other things you want to create. And sometimes, we just need more than 24 hours in a day. I mean, writing your to-do list takes enough time in itself! But how do you actually get it all done? How do you accomplish everything on your list in a decent amount of time without burning yourself out - and also feeling like you want to throw your laptop out of the window?

Well since I'm known around my friends and family as being one of the most organised people ever – I know, gotta’ live up to that, right! - I thought today I could give you a glimpse into my everyday routine and share some tips for how I meet every deadline and actually get things done.

I've also put together a free planning worksheet for you, so you can stay on top of your blog content and get everything done on time.

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