Mindjet mind maps make it easy to create personally branded graphics for your social media marketing.

Mind maps created with Mindjet are capable of far more than planning books,  content marketing editorial calendars, and tracking ideas.

For example, I created the mind map, at left, to accompany yesterday’s Personal Branding Blog post, Using Six Hat Thinking to Build Your Personal Brand.

Using Mindjet, I created the graphic in less than 15 minutes, less time than it often takes to locate and download a stock image!

Benefits of branded social media graphics

There are numerous advantages to creating article and blog graphics with Mindjet, instead of downloading generic stock art.

• Relevance. Although generic free, or low-cost, stock art is great for adding visual interest to a blog post, that’s often as far as it goes! The resulting graphics do nothing to reinforce the key ideas you want visitors to remember from reading your content. Taking the time to create a custom graphic, on the other hand, previews your message and helps readers remember it.
• Style, or brand. In addition to enhancing your message, custom mind maps maps help you establish a personalized graphics style reinforces your personal brand. At right is an example of the mind map style I use to illustrate many of my Personal Branding Blog posts, including my “blog diet” post.  Having a “signature” style for your guest posts is especially important if you are contributing to blog which contains posts by numerous contributors.
• Planning your post. Mindjet mind maps offer a “bonus benefit” in addition to visually setting your blog posts apart. The time you spend creating the graphic is offset by the time you save writing your blog posts. I’m at the point now where the first thing I do when I start to prepare a blog post is to create a mind map of the ideas I want to share, and the order I want to describe them.

Once you become comfortable creating mind maps, you’ll find that you can use Mindjet for other marketing and social media opportunities, including SlideShare presentations  and Screenr narrated videos.

How do you use mind maps for your social media marketing?

I’d like to know more if you’re using mind maps created with Mindjet, or other mind mapping programs, as a social media marketing tool? Are you using mind maps for planning blog posts, creating editorial calendars, and tracking ideas…or do you also include mind maps in your blog posts? Share some examples, below, as comments. You’re also invited to share your concerns or questions about the steps involved in creating social media graphics with mind mapping software.

#Content Marketing Tweet offers 140 bite-sized ideas to help you create and market compelling content to promote your book, brand, or business!

#Content Marketing Tweet is the perfect introduction to content marketing for busy authors, small business owners, or self-employed professionals looking for concise, actionable advice that can be read at traffic lights, between meetings, or while traveling.

You’ll be amazed at how much information can be shared in 140 characters, or less!

You’ll gain fresh perspectives on creating and promoting your marketing content without feeling like you’re back in college, studying for mid-terms.

Universal content marketing perspectives

Instead of focusing on specific content marketing media and techniques, like blogs versus webcasts and YouTube videos, #Content Marketing Tweet focuses your attention on more important, fundamental issues.

It will help you develop answers to questions like:

• What can content marketing do for my business?
• How do I reach prospects and customers by providing valuable content?
• How does content marketing fit in with my overall marketing strategy?
• How does marketing change with social media?

The author, Ambal Balakrishnan, is a technologist turned marketer with business development and marketing strategy experience in premium and fast-growing product divisions at Cisco and Telecordia. She blogs extensively at Connect the Docs, for ClickDocuments/ClickIdeas, and tweets at @Ambal and@ClickDocuments.

Actionable, concise writing

Like all books in the popular THINKaha series, (which includes my #Book Title Tweet), each idea has economically written to share both an idea and a perspective in less than 140 characters.

Among my favorites in #Content Marketing Tweet are these examples:

37. If you are not measuring the effectiveness of your content marketing, you may just be engaged in “activity without productivity.”

62. A great content creator will not only entice a reader to begin reading but also encourage the reader to finish by acting.

139. Trust is the very foundation of a good long-term customer relationship. Is your content helping you build that trust?

Bonus content

In addition to the 140 bite-sized ideas, includes several valuable enhancements, such as brief essays at the beginning of each section. These provide a context for the ideas that follow.

There are also two additional sections:

• Section VI. Content Marketing Commandments. These provide a quick review of the philosophy reflected in the 140 ideas.
• Section VII. Use Content to Reach Your Target Audience. This essay-like section addresses topics like defining the Content Era, questions to ask yourself about your goals and objectives, picking the right content type, and the 5 C’s of content marketing.

Testimonials

The value of the information in #Content Marketing Tweet is attested by the testimonials it has received from content marketing and social media experts like Joe Pulizzi, from the Content Marketing Institute, Michael Stelzner from the Social Media Examiner, and New Barrett, author of Get Content, Get Clients.

I consider it an excellent value for both newcomers as well as experienced content marketers looking for a review of the essentials needed for success.

To learn more

To learn more about #Content Marketing Tweet, you’re invited to download an excerpt. The book is available in paperback, PDF, and Kindle versions. Share your impressions and takeaways below, as comments.

If your marketing platform is based on a WordPress blog, show your appreciation by wearing a WordPress 10th Anniversary t-shirt.

WordPress is going to celebrate its 10th anniversary on May 27, 2013!

Between now and May 27th, WordPress is offering a special 10th Anniversary t-shirt for just $10!

The t-shirts are available for men and women in black and silvery gray in a variety of sizes. (The silvery gray makes sense since the appropriate because the traditional gift for 10th anniversaries is tin or aluminum.)

We tend to take WordPress for granted

WordPress is such a familiar part of so many of our lives that we take it for granted.

Many of us created our first serious online platforms with WordPress. It seems like just yesterday that WordPress offered the ability to create pages as well as blog posts.

Whether you’re using WordPress for content marketing, social marketing, or blogging a book, show your appreciation to WordPress by proudly wearing their 10th Anniversary t-shirt!

How long have you been using WordPress?

Share your landmark WordPress experiences, like the date of your first post, or the day you received your first comment, as well as the number of WordPress blog posts you’ve created, as comments below. (This is my 1,469th published post on this blog!) You can also ask your questions about blogging with WordPress on my End-of-April free book coaching call, today, August 30, at 4:00 PM EST. Plan to attend!

Tips for using graphics to show process, like the 7 steps needed to create a content marketing strategy.

Visit the Content Marketing Institute’s article, Build a Successful Content Marketing Strategy in 7 Steps and download the white paper.

Why you need graphics in your blogs and white papers

Words, alone, cannot do what graphics, like the above, can do. Here are some of the things you can learn from the Content Marketing Institute’s graphic:

• Introduction. At a glance, the graphic introduces you to the 7 building blocks, or steps, in the Content Marketing Institute’s Framework for content marketing success.
• Order. The  graphic also provides order by emphasizing the sequence of the actions associated with each of the 7 building blocks.
• Importance. Each of the building block is drawn to the same size. This communicates that all of the building blocks are equally important.
• Interdependence. Notice that the 7 building blocks are represented as links in a chain. This emphasizes that a success content marketing framework requires the presence of all 7 building blocks.
• Continuous. The smaller gray arrows around the edge of the 7 building blocks communicates the idea of a cycle of continuous improvement that is characteristic of successful content marketing strategies.

Story-telling with position and alignment

Notice that the 7 building blocks do not appear in a straight line, i.e., centered on the same horizon. Nor do they appear with arrows between each building block.

Instead, there are slight variations in the vertical position of each building block. This is because the authors, Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose, wanted to emphasize that the Framework was not a linear process, or a template.

Rather, the authors wanted display what might be missing from your content marketing framework, or what might need to be increased, in order to achieve greater success.

Branding and message retention

As you’ll see when you blog post, the colors of the used in the graphic are consistent with the colors used throughout the Content Marketing Institute blog, website, and the Framework white paper.

There are other design subtleties that you might want to note, and bear in mind for your future blog posts and white papers. For example:

• Blog post version. The graphic contains a title and Content Marketing Institute logo when it appears in the blog, where readers are likely to encounter it for the first time.
• White paper version. But, the title and logo are omitted when the graphic is used by itself on page 2 of the white paper where it’s introduced by and explained by the adjacent text.

In either case, the graphic is simple enough to be understood at a glance, yet strong enough to serve as a memory anchor helping readers’ remember the key points used in the white paper.

Finally, graphics based on the 7 building blocks of a successful content marketing strategy are used as section organizers in the white paper.

Storytelling with custom graphics

Stock images, photographs and illustrations showing generic office, geographic, or business-related themes are common in blog posts and white papers. Used properly, they can provide a context for the messages they accompany. They’re easy to search for and cost-efficient to obtain.

However, for pure storytelling power, when you want to create an iconic visual that you can use over and over again to drive home your message, nothing can beat custom-created graphics like the Content Marketing Institute’s 7-Step Framework shown above.

Each element of the graphic can be fine-tuned to reflect the nuances of your message so your graphic will not only provide a quick, “understand-at-a-glance” introduction to your topic, as well as serve as a “memory booster” reinforcing your reader’s ability to remember and act on your message.

Share your favorite examples of storytelling graphics used to communicate complex messages at a glance! I’d like to know what you think about custom graphics versus stock art, and where you find the best examples. Share your comments and questions about graphics below. Reminder. You’re invited to attend my April End-of-month Book Coaching Call on Tuesday, April 30, at 4:00 PM EST. All Published & Profitable friends are invited.

To save time writing a nonfiction book, choose a title, like Jeffrey Abrahams’ 101 Mission Statements from Top Companies.

Subtitled, Plus Guidelines for Writing Your Own Mission Statement, this is an example of a type of book that provides a structure for selecting and organizing your ideas and efficiently writing your book.

Writing this type of book, once you identify the ideas, or–in this case–the mission statements, you’re ready to start writing!

101 Mission Statements is also an ideal format for blogging your book while writing it.

Structuring your message

101 Mission Statements is efficiently organized into two parts. You can examine its table of contents and sample pages by visiting Amazon.com and clicking the Look Inside! icon attached to the cover:

• Part 1: How to Use this Resource. This section provides a concise overview of the role of mission statements, target audiences, suggested keywords, and a step-by-step process for for creating mission statements.
• Part 2: The Companies And Their Statements. The 101 mission statements follow, presented in alphabetical order. Each statement includes a one or two-page discussion of the key ideas in the mission statement, and concludes with a summary of the business and its address.

Ideal for blogging a book

Like many book titles profiled in recent blog posts, see How to Choose the Right Title for Blogging a Book, 101 Mission Statements is an ideal format for blogging a book.

Blogging a book helps you save time writing and publishing a book because it helps you pace you writing progress and helps keep you on schedule.

Instead of a few, easily-procrastinated major deadlines, blogging a book replaces a big project with numerous, shorter, easily-completed tasks.

Progress comes quickly, when you have a structure for your daily writing, and you don’t have to write that many words about each topic. With a simple structure like 101 Mission Statements, even busy entrepreneurs and self-employed professional should be able to find the time to prepare two or three highly-focused and structured blog posts a week!

Working from an alphabetical list of firms with meaningful mission statements will also contribute to consistent productivity. Your enthusiasm and motivation will gain strength the further along you get in the alphabetical list.

How to learn more about time-saving titles

To find out more about choosing nonfiction book titles, take a look at my #Book Title Tweet: 140 Bite-sized Ideas for Compelling Article, Book, and Event Titles.

In addition, you’re invited to attend my April End-of-month Book Coaching Call on Tuesday, April 30, at 4:00 PM EST. All Published & Profitable friends are invited. There is no charge to attend, and you’re invited to ask your questions are choosing book titles, blogging a book, choosing topics, or marketing your books.

Share your comments and concerns

Share your impressions and questions about writing a book after you visit 101 Mission Statements on Amazon.com and reviewing its table of contents and sample pages.  Does this book change your perception of what’s involved in writing a book or blogging a book? Does this book title approach suggest any ideas or topics for you? Share your comments and questions, below!

Click the graphic to access Webbiquity’s compilation of 33 carefully-curated content marketing and copywriting guides and tips.

Whether you’re new to content marketing, or are looking for fast access to the latest ideas and trends, you’ll find Tom Pick’s 33 Phenomenal Content Content Marketing and Copywriting Guides and Trips blog post worth visiting and bookmarketing.

You could spend hours surfing and searching, and not find as many helpful voices and viewpoints organized in one place!

When you visit Tom’s post…

One of the first things you’ll notice when you visit is the range of voices, from familiar to new discoveries with fresh, informed ideas and perspectives. You’ll undoubtedly find discover new resources for future follow-up.

You’ll also appreciate the range of topics included, and the in-depth information contained in the 33 articles.

I’m also pleased to report that Webbiquity has included one of my own articles, Write the Best Titles for Content Marketing: A 10-Point Checklist. It’s one of my favorite projects, and includes my downloadable title evaluation worksheet. (Thank you, @tompick and Webbiquity!)

After spending time on the site and following the links, share your favorite articles and discoveries as comments, below. Which of the 33 content marketing and copywriting guides and tips provided inspiring ideas and insights, and who are you going to start following in the future?