Who’s ready to kick off the new year? While you’re in your office setting all of your goals, filling in your calendars, and organizing all of your thoughts, consider planning your Q1 blogs! I’m a firm believer that with a little planning, everyone can build a well-thought out blog schedule and actually blog consistently. Blogging is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to market your small business, so you should make it work for you this year! Here’s a few tips to get your blogs planned out for the whole first quarter (seriously, that’s only 12 blogs!). 

Create a schedule. 

I LOVE using Trello for blog schedules. Build a template then add 4 blogs to each month on your schedule. To fill them in, pull up your work schedule for the first quarter. Determine which days you’d like to publish your blogs. There really isn’t a magic day, so pick what works best for you. While you have your schedule up, look at any sessions you might have coming up. I know that the first quarter is generally slower for most photographers, so if there aren’t too many, don’t sweat it! Add those sessions into your schedule, keeping in mind when you would be done editing the images. For many photographers, that’s 1-2 weeks post session. The same concept applies to product based business. What launches do you have coming up or new products? Which can you highlight when?

Fill in the gaps.

Now that you’ve added the sessions or product features you want to blog from Q1, it’s time to fill in the gaps. This is where most business owners get scared – and I get it, seriously! But here’s a few ideas you can use if you need to fill in gaps! 

•       Sessions or products that you didn’t blog last year (we all do it, no shame!)
•       Think of questions your clients ask you often and prepare a blog that answers those questions
•       A list (like locations you love, places to get outfits, tips for your session)

If you want more ideas, you can check out a recent post HERE about blog schedules!

Batch write your copy.

One of the hardest parts about writing blog copy is, well, writing it. But it doesn’t have to be hard. Grab your favorite drink and put on your favorite music and sit down with your blog schedule. Begin to write a little bit about each session or topic you’ve picked. (PS. This is one reason I LOVE Trello because you can add notes on each card – a quick tip: pop into Trello after your sessions and jot down a few things that happened, so no matter when you go to write them, you have notes for yourself!). Write about what you loved about the session or the family. Make sure to highlight the location you were at and if anything happened that you can use to educate future clients, mention it. Before you know it, you’ve got 300 words! 

I recommend batch writing because then you don’t have to start the process over for each blog. If you sit down for 2 hours, I bet you can write your 12 blogs. Obviously, if the session hasn’t happened yet, save that one for later… but you can do the rest! 

Want more tips to blog for your small business? Grab the Blogging Toolkit to learn all of my tips, tricks, and strategies to blog with intention and strategy!!

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