The idea for this post and brainstorming session is pretty much completely stolen from Philly Love Notes, a local blog here in Philadelphia. But since I know that I really needed to go through a similar thought process here on ABP, I figured I’d share my process of going through it as well and take input from others.

How to Create Content starts off by talking about how people no longer go directly to the source for the content, instead people go to social media, RSS feeds, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. Well I’ve found that mostly be to be true with other forms of content, I also know that a huge bulk of my readership comes from Googling how to do something ballet-related. Go figure.

However, I totally understand that this idea is true: You have to be everywhere and anywhere your readers might find you. ABP is–we have Facebook, a Facebook group, Tumblr, a Pinterest board, G+, Twitter, Instagram, and we are SEO friendly.

The overall goal of the podcast, to me, was to help you come up with easier ways to not take up too much time brainstorming how to do everything.

I’d recommend it to anyone who is looking for ways to get more out of blogging.

Grace shares that the key is to develop easy and effortless high quality content that can be shared over multiple platforms and comes naturally to you. She goes into a little bit about how to do some research, and one of the things I’ll definitely be doing a look through my analytics to see what has been really popular over time.

Grace then goes on to share 10 main categories of content, many of which I feel there’s a spot for ABP to fit in (and I’d love to hear what you’d like to see):

1. How to/Instructionals: I’ve got some of these up there (how to sew slippers, how to to stretch, how to strengthen ankles). I’d like to do more. Let me know where you’d like me to start or if there’s something you’re dying to see an instructional post on!
2. Informational/History Background: There’s pretty much none of these up on ABP, but I’d like to dive into it.
3. Reviews: I love writing reviews and I plan on doing more ballet-specific ones in the future.
4. List of Resources: Will definitely cover more of these in the future as well. Have a favorite resource you refer to again and again? Let me know!
5. Interview: I’d really like to expand this category to include more professionals and instructors. I also think there’s some opportunity to re-interview some adult ballerinas, but I’ll get to that a bit later in this post.
6. Visual Tour/Essay: I’d love to (or have a guest blogger) visually document a ballet class at a new studio or a trip to an exciting performance.
7. Roundups/Best ofs: I need to be doing more of these of my current content.
8. Commentary of Current Trends: Not sure how to work this in.
9. Link Lists: Same as 7.
10. Podcasts/Video: I could maybe do podcasts or audio interviews. I don’t know at this point if I personally feel comfortable with video.

Then the podcast went into some trusted go-tos, a lot of which I already do:

1. Day in the Life: I’d love to feature other people’s day in the life as adult ballerinas, and I think it might make an interesting follow-up to the first round of interviews, and would be great to have some photos.
2. General Guest Posts: Clearly, I love these. But it was also mentioned having someone take over your Instagram account for a week, which might be a good way to use the adult ballerina project specific one I don’t currently use.
3. Share Personal Brand Manifesto: It’s recommended to do this about once a year, so I’m thinking I’m going to write one post blog.
4. Story of a favorite person, place, or thing: I need to include more of these, and I think it’d be an interesting way to work in “reviews” of things I already have or places I already visit. I’d love to have other people share the same things as well.
5. Sharing your trusted tools: Not sure here. Seems to be this would be similar to number 5 in my case.
6. A moment of failure and/or success: I’d lump my regular class updates into this, but I need to do more of these. The podcast mentions that this reminds your readers that you’re human, too.

Overall, this was a really great exercise to help walk me through what I can be doing more of and what (and who) I can feature on the blog.

Is there any particular post, article, or idea you’d like to see in any of these category? Let me know in the comments!

Photo by: Alan Cleaver