Using Social Collaboration to Produce and Share Your Blog’s Content More Efficiently

By Sarah Evans

Time is money, right? Wasted time is like throwing money down your kitchen sink (or anything with a deep, dark hole). When you blog for a living or as part of your professional role, you may be wasting time. How? By using outdated or inefficient workflows to brainstorm, create and share your content. Most bloggers recognize the need for a better work flow, but they fear a steep learning curve. But, it doesn’t have to be this way. I’ll tell you why.

Have no fear, the productivity junky is here.

In full disclosure, I’m the chief evangelist at Tracky, an open social collaboration platform scaled for the enterprise and accessible enough for anyone to use. I eat, breathe and sleep this stuff. Here’s the secret: the productivity platform (yes, platform, not a tool) you select is the key to working and sharing better, not more.

First, you must acknowledge that they way you work isn’t working. It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s really, but it’s a broken process. Say, “stop!” Demand change and replace older, less effective habits.

I use Tracky to:

• Create a shared editorial calendar for our team, including delegating tasks for various articles (see image below);
• Work on content real-time via Google Docs that I create from within a track; and
• Manage all tasks in my professional life, including urgent media queries, team meetings and various professional affiliations.

If you’re ready to make the change to an open social collaboration and productivity platform, here are a few features to look for:

• No desktop software. Say no to software. Use a platform that is browser and app based.
• Easy on-boarding process. All productivity platforms have a learning curve, but it shouldn’t be so complex that it deters you from using it.
• Open. Allow for contributions even from those not using the platform. If you can’t freely and easily bring people into collaborate, there’s no sense in using the tool.
• Custom notification settings. In order to reduce email, your platform should send regular email updates and allow you to respond on your time.
• Real-time document editing. If you’re working on a project that has many rounds of edits and various documents, the right platform allows you to easily create or upload, comment and edit — together.
• Public and Private. You should be able to create both public and private tasks and groups in order to work seamlessly within in one place. Once you finish your project and want to share it with the world, you can share it publicly in the platform and via social networks direct from within the platform.
• Publishing. People become authoritative by sharing what they’re getting done. Platforms should allow for direct publishing to your blog or website and sharing via social networks.
• Schedule meetings and reminders. A basic feature for any collaboration platform should allow you to add tasks to shared calendars.

Making the shift to a social collaboration platform will improve communication, simplify workflows, engage team members (if applicable), provide an element of fun, reduce email overload, increase real-time collaboration, decrease unnecessary meetings and connect you with your external audience. It’s a decisive business decision that can bring you into the age of collaboration and ensure that you’re competitive for the long-haul.