Content Plus Community Blog Challenge Post 15

In Connie Ragan Green’s 30-day blog challenge, the level of commitment, knowledge, and overall good vibes of all the participants  is simply stunning. So much so that I have created a new category of links on my sidebar. Check out the “Tips from my Colleagues” on the sidebar. You’ll find links to specific articles overflowing with insights and practical tools and tips. It’s an ongoing project, so check back regularly.

To connect with me on Twitter:

@bobbyemiddendor

From the river of Tweets earlier this week, I came across this message from @iandavidchapman who retweeted from @problogger 140 Characters and the Swing to Longer Form Content
My take on the conversation: Community+Content=Twitter&FB+blog.  The basis for an online business is community plus content. And yes, content may also include products, either our own or affiliates, and ideally both. Actually community plus content isn’t a bad model for non-virtual businesses as well: The “content” is your expertise about the products and services offered.

Darren Rowse @problogger concluded his post saying, “Short Form content is powerful in driving traffic to and building conversation and community around your longer form content.”

The community of us gathered in response to Connie’s 30-day blogging challenge is seeing this principle at work. The challenge is not only about creating 30 days of content, but also about getting in the habit of creating content. What I’ve observed after sporadically posting on my blog for just over a year: It’s deflating to just whistle into the void. And that is the amazing piece of this blogging challenge, because the third part of it is stepping into a flow of making connections, which we are doing via Twitter and also via Facebook and the Facebook Networked Blogs application.

There are just an amazing number of ways and places to connect, so it’s a challenge to keep all the pieces straight. And it’s so delicious to connect into a conversation with real people who are doing high-integrity work online, learning and supporting each other in the 30 day blog challenge. There’s great diversity of expertise, yet each colleague speaks with authenticity and authority. Check it out on Twitter at #blog30.

The Write Synergies Tribe Challenges

If you are a writer, author, healer, soul-preneur, or Conscious Creator with a big vision to create and a message to share, someone who is overwhelmed and daunted by the process of getting the message out and getting the words right, then you are in the right place.

Are any of these your sticking places?

  • You have a draft of your project or the marketing copy, but you are struggling to find the right words for the message that really make it come alive.
  • You are bumping up against the  inner voice that says, “Who do you think you are to be offering this?”
  • You would love to find some support to help you get out of your own way so you can share your gifts.
  • You could use regular inspiration and motivation, reminding you that the “big famous people” also started out not that different from you.
  • You feel overwhelmed by all the ways to get out the message. You need a practical and doable plan.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a GPS system through all this?

Consider a personal guide and map-maker — like your own personal GPS system for your creative project and getting your message out — giving you practical and spiritual guidance for helping you get to where you want to go.

I support and mentor you — fellow visionaries, conscious creators, writers, authors, and healers — with your messages. We bring your big ideas to life and your projects and messages out to the world.

I’m using the Write Synergies Vision Quest process on myself. You’re seeing part of the process in action during this 30-day blogging challenge. I’m a writer who helps people with their marketing. Yet just like the shoemaker’s children getting their shoes last, it took me the better part of a decade as an independent writer and marketing consultant before I started my own online presence. Don’t do as I have done!

(Check out more on Twitter at #blog30.)

Tribe-Gathering

Sivers (of CD Baby) reported on this band’s tribe-building experiment http://sivers.org/livecd .  In the post titled “Emphasize meaning over price = More paid sales,” he calls for others to try it and report on their  results.  While this is focused on bands, I’d say, the more Conscious Creators who try it, the better.

All Conscious Creators — including visionary writers, authors, publishers, speakers, healers, and caregivers, as well as visual and musical artists —   might glean some new marketing mojo by experimenting with this method of “connecting to the heart of your fans” for creating powerful resonance, building relationships, and building the greater community.  It might be your social media experiment in generosity. And generosity can feed and grow in myriad ways.

As the Write Synergies Guru, I have to say that building community around generosity and authenticity are the keys to generating results greater than the sum of the parts, so ramp up those synergies!

My thanks to Terry Madl, Renaissance Man Extraordinaire, of Strange Attractor Press, for bringing this link  to my attention.