Today I want you to share a tip with you for generating content ideas in under a minute using two similar tools. Use these tools as inspiration for topics you could write about.
1. HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generatortool lets you input up to three different nouns and returns five blog topic ideas for you
2. Portent’s Content Idea Generator allows you to generate content ideas with just one keyword. Be prepared that the tool can throw up some quirky suggestions, but don’t let that put you off. Keep playing around with it until you find one you can work with. I also really like how it shows you best practice tips, such as using metaphors in your writing.
Sometimes all you need is a little spark to get your creativity flowing again, and these tools may just the thing to get your creative juices flowing again.
This week I’m recommending a new video tool – with a twist.
Beatleap offers a new, powerful video editing experience, allowing you to create and edit videos by automatically matching songs with your video clips.
The app uses machine learning to automatically match songs to your video, then gives you a number of editing tools such as special effects, filters, and overlays to make your clips unique.
Features include:
20 editing tools and effects as well as 50 filters to choose from
A library of over 1,000 professional songs to synchronize with the user’s video
Automatic trimming, cutting, and mixing of clips according to the beat of a selected track
Stunning video effects which are automatically placed at the perfect timing
Trendy filters and overlays to give users complete control over the look and feel of their videos
It’s perfect for TikTok, but you can use it for any social platform.
Note: This app is available only on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.
In keeping with this week’s Thanksgiving theme, I want to share with you ten tools I use all the time which helps me manage my social media better. I’m thankful to the developers who made these useful tools free and easy to use!
A free suite of apps that allow both web and mobile users to create and share visual content — like posts for social media, graphics, web stories, and animated videos. One of my go-to graphic tools (the featured image on this post was created using this tool).
There is so much you can do with this tool to enhance your visual marketing assets, including creating collages, adding “one-click” photo effects (there are over 300 photo effects and filters to choose from) and an array of graphics (eg speech bubbles). The basic account is free to use and provides users with access to a library of 125 digital effects.
Whether you want a Twitter post or Facebook profile picture, you can create them quickly using Canva’s drag and drop editor. Select from a number of pre-set designs, or create something from scratch. You can also add elements such as custom icons, fonts, charts, and illustrations.
This headline analyzer is a free tool from the Advanced Marketing Institute that you can use to calculate the EMV of your own headlines. It scores the EMV of your headline with a breakdown of why it scored that value.
A free writing app available as a Google Chrome Extension. Adding Grammarly to Chrome means that your spelling and grammar will be vetted everywhere you write on the web. I use it all the time and find it super useful.
A proofreading tool that clears your copy of all unnecessary copy. Just paste your text into the editor and you’ll get an analysis that highlights lengthy, complex sentences, adverbs, passive voice, and common errors.
IFTTT (an acronym for If This, Then That) allows you to sync up multiple apps so that when a certain activity happens, it kicks off a separate activity in another app.
This is a cool tool that enables you to turn your blog posts into slideshow-type videos in minutes. The free plan includes unlimited videos, access to 10 million video files, and 480p-quality video with the Lumen5 watermark. You can also upload your own logo. Upgrading to the Pro plan ($49/month) lets you remove the Lumen5 branding, upload your own watermark and outro, and more.
A super content curation platform that allows you to easily find and share unique, relevant content to your social networks, website or blog. The free version will allow you to monitor a single topic and use the content generated on up to two social media accounts.
Although I live outside the US, Thanksgiving’s one of those holidays I celebrate in spirit, if not in person. I’m always curious to learn more about Thanksgiving traditions and being a foodie I’m fascinated by what people eat at the dinner table.
While I still can’t get my head around that sweet potato and marshmallow combo, a green bean casserole is something I might be tempted to try. If you live in the US I guess you already know the story of how this dish came to be a Thanksgiving dinner staple, but for those who aren’t familiar, it’s such a great marketing story with lessons for all of us who want to improve our content marketing.
The casserole originated over 60 years ago in the test kitchen at Campbell’s Soup, where Dorcas Reilly worked as a home economist. Dorcas invented a Green Bean Casserolerecipe in response to a question from the Associated Press: “What’s a good Thanksgiving side dish that uses ingredients found in most American kitchens?”
First demo kitchen, Campbell’s, 1941
The dish Dorcas invented went viral. Millions of Americans made the casserole that year. And today, over 60 years later, it’ll be served on an estimated 30 million Thanksgiving tables across the US, earning its place as one of the most beloved recipes in America.
So what lessons can this simple recipe teach us as content marketers? Over on LinkedIn, I share six valuable lessons we can learn from Dorcas’s green bean casserole.
This week I’m recommending MailerLitean email marketing tool that makes it easy to create landing pages, opt-in forms, and emails.
With the explosion of social media marketing in recent years, the traditional email format may appear outdated. But nothing could be further from the truth. Even with the pervasiveness of new technology, email still remains a persuasive digital marketing channel for building awareness, boosting acquisition, and increasing conversion.
One of the best ways to build your list of subscribers is to offer something of value up front. This email incentive known as an “opt-in offer” or “lead magnet” is something you are willing to give away for free which requires people to provide an email address to download. This is where a tool like MailerLite is helpful.
MailerLite is free for up to 1,000 subscribers.
The free plan enables you to build landing pages and start mailing your first 1,000 subscribers, but excludes live chat support, free newsletter templates, and certain other features.
Premium plans start at $10/mo for up to 1,000 subscribers, rising in increments per subscribers. Premium plans offer additional features and unlimited emails per month.
This week I’m recommending Hotjar, a website optimization tool.
Hotjar offers website heatmaps, scroll maps, click maps and more, alongside visitor recordings and website funnel mapping. By combining both Analysis and Feedback tools, Hotjar gives you the ‘big picture’ of how to improve your site’s user experience and performance/conversion rates.
Features include:
Heatmaps to visualize user behaviour
Understand what users want, care about and do on your site by visually representing their clicks, taps and scrolling behavior – which are the strongest indicators of visitor motivation and desire.
Visitor Recordings to see what your users see
By seeing your visitor’s clicks, taps and mouse movements you can identify usability issues on the fly and issues they encounter.
Conversion Funnels to see where your visitors are dropping off
Find the biggest opportunities for improvement and testing by identifying on which page and at which step most visitors are leaving your site.
Price: The free plan covers businesses with up to 2,000 pageviews per day.
Healthcare blogs vary in content and style; they range from commentary on a topical issue to patients sharing the lived experience of a disease and healthcare professionals educating patients on the management of an illness.
Blogs written by doctors, nurses, health researchers, patients, and healthcare and digital marketers and innovators add much to the richness and diversity of the online healthcare conversation.
Creating a blog is relatively easy; the challenge lies in consistently updating the content. If you are struggling to come up with new ideas on a regular basis for your blog, then this list of 16 content ideas should help get you going again.
#1 Share Facts About A Common Medical Condition
What kind of questions do your patients most frequently ask about a specific medical condition? Compile a list of these frequently asked questions and answer them on your blog.
#2 Curate Content
Creating original content is time and resource intensive. Curation helps you provide your audience with relevant, high quality information on a regular basis without sacrificing your time and resources. Don’t rely on curation alone; curated content is designed to complement your content creation plan—not replace it.
#3 Announce a New Product or Service
Are you rolling out a new program, product or service? Write a blog post to introduce it and highlight its features and benefits.
#4 Update Readers on Industry Trends
Healthcare is constantly changing and evolving. Can you predict or comment on the latest healthcare trend? Readers will enjoy learning about it through your blog, particularly if you share your own unique perspective. Set up Google Alerts to keep updated on emerging trends in your industry to provide the latest information for your readers.
#5 Create A Poll
There are several online tools you can use to create a readers’ poll. If you have a WordPress.com site, then you’ve got Polldaddy polls already built in. You can create, manage, and see results for all of your polls directly in your WordPress.com dashboard. If you use a WordPress.org install on your self-hosted site, install the Polldaddy WordPress.org plugin. Use it to get a snapshot of readers’ attitudes to health topics like vaccination, screening, complementary therapy, mental health – the list is endless. Publish a follow-on post with your findings.
#6 Write About A Day In The Life
Write about a typica day in your working life as a healthcare professional. Be careful not to write about specific patients or to commit any breaches of privacy or confidentiality.
#7 Plan Posts Around Seasons and Events
Use an editorial calendar to track seasonal, cultural and industry events and write a blog post which fits the theme, for example, “How To Eat Healthily During The Holiday Season”.
#8. Share The Latest Medical Research
Have you been to a conference recently where you learned about new medical research? Or read about the latest research in a medical journal? Let your readers know about it through your blog. Make sure you provide full references and link to online publications.
Ask a colleague to write a guest blog on an area of their expertise.
#10 Interview An Expert
Choose a respected healthcare professional and interview them for your blog. Alternatively, contact several experts in your field and have them answer a question: Take all the answers and turn them into one big blog post.
#11 Write About A Trending Topic
Provide your unique perspective on a trending topic. Find out what’s “hot right now” online by using Google Trends, Twitter.com/Search and Reddit.com.
#12 Provide a Weekly Round-Up Of Healthcare News
Gather the week’s healthcare news into a round-up post. Provide links, attribute sources and add your own commentary.
Welcome to this week’s quick social media tip. Today I want you to think about how you can add SlideShare to your content marketing strategy.
Owned by LinkedIn and with over 18 million uploads and 80 million users, SlideShare is the world’s largest professional content sharing community.
Surprisingly, given how the platform is optimized for social sharing, including the ability to embed presentations (as I’ve done below), it’s often overlooked and underused in healthcare marketing.
How To Use SlideShare
1. Use SlideShare for research.
Get up to speed on any topic. Instead of scrolling through pages of text, you can flip through a SlideShare deck and absorb the same information in a fraction of the time.
2. Share your insights and get noticed
Show what you know through a presentation, infographic, document or videos. When you upload to SlideShare, you reach an audience that’s interested in your content – over 80% of SlideShare’s 80 million visitors come through targeted search. This can help you build your reputation with the right audience and cultivate more professional opportunities.
Top Tip: The good news is that you don’t even have to create original content to do this. Simply find some content you have already written and get ready to breathe new life into it.
Welcome to this week’s social media quick tip. This week I want to show you how to use the Mute feature on Twitter.
Mute is a handy feature on Twitter, which if you’re not familiar with, can be a real boon to your Twitter experience. It allows you to remove an account’s Tweets from your timeline without unfollowing or blocking that account. Muted accounts will not know that you’ve muted them and you can unmute them at any time.
How To Mute An Account
Some things to note about Mute:
Muted accounts can follow you and you can follow muted accounts. Muting an account will not cause you to unfollow them.
Muting an account does not impact the account’s ability to send you a Direct Message.
You will no longer receive push or SMS notifications from any muted account.
Replies and mentions by the muted account will still appear in your Notifications tab.
Tweets from a muted account – posted before the account was muted – will be removed from your Home timeline.
When you click or tap into a conversation, replies from muted accounts will be visible.
How To Mute Conversations, Keywords, and Hashtags
Twitter also gives you the option to mute Tweets that contain particular words, phrases, usernames, emojis, or hashtags. Muting will remove these Tweets from your Notifications tab, push notifications, SMS, email notifications, Home timeline, and from replies to Tweets.
If you would like to stop receiving notifications for a particular conversation, you can choose to mute it. When you mute a conversation, you won’t get any new notifications about that conversation. You will, however, still see Tweets from the conversation in your timeline and when you click into the original Tweet.
