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Future Self-Published blog entries will be available on my website charmbaker.com

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Writing Resources: Do You Really Know What Works for You?



Using the wrong resources may result in sucking up all your time!


Writing resources are abundant online, and they come in many different forms, including websites, blogs, videos, books, and online related tools.  Thanks to smartphones and the creation of countless apps, there are some pretty amazing resources available for writers, authors and online entrepreneurs.  With such a wide wealth of choices to discover and take advantage of, just how will you really know which resources are working for you.

If you're anything like me, you get excited at the idea of using new writing resources.  The moment I discover some cool new resource, I can't wait to start using it so I can see if it really works!  On the one hand, this can be a good thing.  The last thing you want to do is “plan” to try the resource out in the future, but never seem to get around to doing it.  So taking the time to try out new writing related resources is a good habit to get into, but you still need to go about it the right way.  If you don’t you may find yourself spinning your wheels, and duplicating activities that are not even effective.  The following paragraph will explain why.

Questionable Success

One major reason that you need to be mindful about trying out new resources is because you don't want to be confused about which ones are successful.  For instance, suppose you discover two new marketing resources, and you try them both out at the same time.  Then, something great happens!  You suddenly start receiving tons of traffic to your articles, books, website or blog.  The only problem is, you're not exactly sure why.  You assume it was one of your new marketing activities, but you can’t be sure which one. 

Of course, you could spend your time repeating both activities again, and watch to see what happens, but what if one, or both activities happen to be very time-consuming.  There is a good chance that one of those time-consuming activities is not even necessary.  It is true that the rise in traffic might just be the result of both activities combined, but if it isn’t, you will end up squandering time that could have been used more effectively.  That is why, it is best not to try to implement the use of multiple resources at one time, if they are unfamiliar to you.

Discover What Works

If you utilize a resource that seems to be effective right away, you don’t have to wait forever before adding another resource to the mix.  But make sure you take enough time to discover what works, versus what is merely sucking up all your time.  Keep in mind also, that some online activities and resources will not yield positive results as quickly as others.  That doesn’t mean they don’t work, it simply means that you have to recognize the underlying value of those resources.  Maybe they’re designed to have a positive effect that is not as readily noticed. 

A good example of the previous statement would be two different, but useful resources such as a YouTube video, and an article directory submission.  Depending on your level of computer skills and expertise, both resources are relatively simple to implement.  You could put together a quick and easy promotional slideshow on YouTube and use it to promote a blog post.  You could take roughly the same amount of time to find a free article submission directory and upload, or link to that same blog post.  Because of the overall appeal of videos these days, you would probably start getting video views much sooner than any traffic from the article directory.  But as long as that article is out there being circulated, the potential for future traffic not only exists, but will continue to grow.  By the time your traffic is affected by it, you may have forgotten that you even made a submission to the directory.

Discover Why

Needless to say, you wouldn’t just sit around, and wait for results from the YouTube video, or the article directory.  You will want to continue trying even more resources, and giving them time to work or not.  But somewhere along the way, you also want to try to understand why something is working.  If you limit yourself to merely repeating what apparently seems to be working, but you don’t understand why, you can never improve or enhance upon the technique.  After all, good will not always be good enough.  You want your knowledge of the resources you use to continue to grow and develop.  This can only happen when you know for sure what works.

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