Turning Off-Line Into On-Line Content

Tammy Powley is a weblogger and freelance writer from South Florida.

One of the first content collecting tips most bloggers pick up is signing up for content helpers like google news alerts. I have to admit to doing this myself, and I use a lot of them. News alerts (no matter if they are from google or CNN or wherever) are wonderful tools for automatically gathering content related to your blogging topic. Of course, it takes time to go through all those alerts. For example, much of what I write about is related to jewelry, beading, and jewelry making. So, I would say about half of the alerts I get are about people stealing jewelry, not exactly something my readers want to know about, even think about! But, while these web tools are great, there are other ways to gather content ideas off-line and incorporate them into your on-line blogging needs.

Here are a few tips for finding information related to your content in the off-line world.

• Subscribe to related magazines. Now, I know some folks are going to say they don’t have time to read all the magazines that deal with their topic, and that’s not exactly what I’m suggesting. However, select a few magazine that are the better-known titles in your industry. I have to admit to being a real sap when it comes to magazines – I truly love them – but I have learned that I just don’t have time to read them all, and they all don’t have information that my readers care to know about. Therefore, I’ve tried to narrow them down to a chosen few. One example is the publication BeadStyle. For me, this is the perfect magazine because it covers jewelry making, beading, and jewelry fashion. By just skimming through the ads and table of contents, I usually come up with at least a half dozen content ideas for my blogs.
• Read your local newspaper. Again, don’t feel like you have to read the whole thing, but skim read the headlines. The local paper is usually pretty inexpensive, and it has local as well as national news. Even with jewelry, every once in a while, I’ll find a related article, maybe something about a new fashion trend, a celebrity designing jewelry (oh, yes, Paris Hilton comes to mind), or yet another story about a beader turned entrepreneur. Most people read the paper, at least on the weekends any way, so this idea isn’t much of a stretch to consider.
• Look off and then on line. Most periodicals these days have web sites, especially the larger ones. Once you locate some content ideas in a hard copy, remember that you can also find links on line as well. Look for the URL in the publication’s header or in the first few pages where editors and other contributors may be listed. Look for key words within articles as well. If you are writing about Donald Trump, then google him and see if you can locate his web site. (By the way, it happens to be www.trump.com/main.htm and it’s actually pretty cool.)
• Find frugality at your library. Hardcopy publications can get pricey, especially if you are writing about topics such as business or finance. Unplug on occasion and make a trip to your local public library. Bring along some change. While many libraries allow you to check out magazines, some will not allow you to check out the most recent issues. They also have some materials that are only available in the reference area in the library rather than circulation, so again, you can’t check them out. However, you can photocopy them.

Once you start looking around in your off-line environment, you’ll be surprised at what you can find to help generate content related to your blog topic. It’s easy to get so caught up in the virtual world of the net that we forget some people still actually read hardcopy publications, and in fact, these publications can be useful to even the most devoted weblogger.