The following is a guest post by Patrick Panuncillon from LinkVista Digital Inc.
If you've been a social media writer for quite some time now, there are times where you'll find yourself at a creative dead end. Have you ever been in a position where you have exhausted your brain so much and couldn't produce any ideas on how to promote a particular product or service? And, no matter how you try to think of anything informative to convey, your mind just can’t supply any words to communicate your ideas? It’s called creative burnout or writer’s block and it happens to the best of us.
Writer’s block has happened to many great writers of our time, and even before our time. How can you fall in love with writing again and feel inspired? All you just have to do is to regain the inspiration and the passion for writing even if right now you feel like running away and hiding in bed all day. Here are three easy tips that will guide you back on the road to feeling inspired with writing social media content again.
1. Rediscover the thrill of writing for social media
Try rediscovering the reason why you wanted to become a social media writer. Look back at your old posts, some that you are really proud of to get you started. If you feel like no one is ever engaging with you on social media, try inviting your online friends and followers to leave comments and ask them engage in the conversation. Asking your readers for feedback on what they would like to see may spark your creativity and fuel the pathway to a stronger, more connected readership. If your readers feel like you are truly listening to them, they may feel more open to comment on posts or share more feedback in the future.
2. Read books that reignite your creativity
If you feel like you’ve lost motivation in writing, read inspirational and motivational books. You can even read books or blogs about the subject of your next post to inspire you. You may also opt to read books that feature inspiring stories about the challenges and success of some writers to see how they got over their writer’s block.
3. "Close the door!" - A tip by Stephen King
When talking about writing, we've all got a lot to learn from the American author of horror, suspense, supernatural fiction, the great Stephen King. Stephen advises writers to write their first draft with closed doors. In this context “closed doors” means to write the piece solely in your opinion first. Once you're ready to revisit it, open the “door”. That means you are ready to open up your piece to the opinion of others, be it coworkers or your editor, and most importantly the mind of your reader.
While you can’t directly ask your entire audience for feedback, imagine thinking about your piece from their state of mind. What would they think of this? Would they relate? Would they agree? Try being the critic of your articles by imagining the things that your readers would say when they read them.
Takeaway
In writing, as in any profession, if you enjoy what you do it won’t feel like “work”. There are times when you may fall out of love or passion with work and those are the times when you must search within yourself to reignite your zest for writing. Following these three tips when in a writer’s slump will hopefully help you get your creative juices flowing again. When you find yourself in a dead end with nothing to write in mind, simply remember the reasons why you're doing it and look for what motivates you to communicate in the exciting medium of social media.