Use Your iPhone To Generate Blog Topics

Tweet iphone Somebody asked me if I liked my iPhone yesterday. I have had it for well over a year and I gave a more enthusiastic – YES! – than I did the first week I had it.

The iPhone was a game changer for me because I use it for so many things – it wakes me up in the morning with the alarm and puts me to sleep with soothing, smooth jazz.

In between my alarm and smooth jazz — my iPhone makes me a better blogger.

There is nothing less productive as a blogger than sitting down at your computer knowing that you must come up with a blog topic to post for that day. You will waste tons of time thinking it over and then crank out something crappy.

The way to avoid this is to be continuously listening, reading and watching what is going on in your industry and then keeping your ideas organized using a system.

I usually generate my best blog post ideas by listening to podcasts, reading other blogs and watching You Tube video.

Podcasts

Podcasting is a great way to do this. I don’t care what you are blogging about – there is a podcast you could (and should) be listening to. You should be actively listening and reacting to what is being discussed. Whatever those reactions are —- those are blog post topics.
I have about 25 different podcasts loaded on my iPhone at any one time — when I have downtime or I am in my car you can usually find me with my earbuds in — learnin’.

RSS Reader

Netvibes has a sweet iPhone version of their RSS reader page and there are tons of RSS apps in the Apple App Store.

If your Chinese food isn’t ready or you are waiting on line at the supermarket — pop open your RSS reader and read a couple of blog posts.

Reading other peoples blogs will help you to generate ideas for your own.

YouTube

I think you are getting the picture here — find some video that is relevant to your blog and form an opinion on the content. Your reaction or spin on the same subject will fuel blog topics.

Evernote

For me, the Evernote app ties the whole thing together. Evernote is a simple way for me to keep my notes together no matter what machine I am on. They have a nifty iPhone app as well.

As I am listening to a podcast, reading a blog post or watching video on my iPhone, I will inevitably form an idea — the key is to get that idea somewhere that you can find it later. I found this out the hard way — oooooh!, I had a great idea for a blog post but I can’t remember it!

Use Evernote or something similar to record your ideas (I like Evernote’s voice recording function – it makes me feel important) and then when you get back to your computer dump all of those ideas into your blogging platform (WordPress, I hope )