One of the biggest challenges in blogging is figuring out how to get inspiring blogging topics and consistently creating interesting content. My husband, Mike, has been working at being a blogger for some time now. His biggest hold-up is time. He not only has a full-time, corporate, day job but also is trying to build a photography studio and launch a movie blog. Whew! There simply are not enough hours in the day.
While walking our dogs one night, we were talking about how he could get help with his blog. There are plenty of good, freelance writers out there and I know a couple, but our issue was the cost. Right now, this blog is more of a hobby than business so we could not afford to pay a professional. Plus, we needed someone who knew the subject and was passionate about it.
And boom! Inspiration hit. Why not offering free movie tickets to people willing to post their reviews of movies that they have seen on our website? (BTW, check it out at www.iheartflix.com.) For movie lovers it is a great deal. Get paid to talk about the movies that you have already seen. For us, it is a great deal because we get content for about $20 a post. Overall, it is a pretty good deal for all involved.
To promote our program, we posted an ad on Craig’s list and send prospects to a registration page on the website. Within a few hours we had our first submission and they continue to roll in. Overall, our little experiment turned out to be a great success to quickly and affordably creating a lot of blog content.
This solution won’t work for everyone. If you are blogging about something technical that requires expertise, then you might have to look a little harder or spend a little more for good content. The key is to think outside the box to find ways to keep you blog thriving. How will you keep your blog fresh in 2011?