Blogging Tips

5 Ways To Overcome A Creative Block

September 2, 2019 itsamandaburnett 33 Comments

If you’re a creative person like I am, then you’ve most likely experienced the dreaded creative block. One week, you have so many ideas for your blog. You have content planned for your Instagram. You have a strategy in mind and you’re on top of the world. Then all of a sudden, you have no idea what to do. Your mind is blank and you grow frustrated. You just want to get an idea to come out of the brain that once could come up with five in one minute. It’s one of the worst things that could happen when you genuinely love creating content. The past two weeks, I’ve been in dealing with this. I’ve dealt with it before though so I took these 5 steps and it’s safe to say, I’m back and my creativity has been restored!

Take a break

This is the first step I highly recommend. It’s also one that I hate but it actually works so hear me out. When you spend so much time planning and creating, your mind is working pretty hard. Us creative people are always thinking. There’s a reason why you can’t think of anything anymore, your brain is tired!

Taking a social media break isn’t bad. Will you get as many views as normal? Probably not. But you need to remember that taking a step back will do more good for you in the end.

Tip: When taking a break from creating new content, just edit and re-publish old blog posts! It’s called refurbishing and from experience, it can actually help your blog without too much effort on your part. Bring those posts from six months ago back to life!

Make Self-Care A Priority

When we’re so busy creating, we often neglect ourselves without even knowing it. You wake up super early so you can get work done on your blog before getting ready for your day job, sometimes forgetting to even eat or drink enough water. You get back from work and you waste no time working on your blog/social media again resulting in getting little sleep. Sound familiar? I know I’m not the only one guilty of this, guys!

While you take a step back, focus on yourself. How?

Make sure you’re getting enough sleep
Eat three meals a day and drink enough water
Read
Catch up on Netflix shows
Journal
Pamper yourself with a face mask and a bubble bath
Go out and be social

Keep A Notebook Nearby

Creative blocks don’t last forever and you will eventually get some ideas flowing again. The thing is, they may come at any random time and you don’t want to risk trying to remember them. Keep a notebook nearby so you can write an idea down right away when it comes to you. This may even mean bringing it in your car or to work with you!

This is a good tip to do at all times but especially when you’re going through a creative block!

Reorganize/Change Things Up

There’s a good chance your creative block is from things being a bit too repetitive or boring. I know I personally always feel more refreshed and motivated when I buy new home decor, rearrange my room, organize my makeup drawers, or even getting my hair done!

Here are some more ideas for you:

Buy new home decor
Rearrange your house
Change your look
Go shopping for a new outfit

Find Your Inspiration

Believe it or not, inspiration is right around the corner.

Photo by Katarzyna Grabowska on Unsplash

Look up inspirational quotes and write your favorites down
Check out the list of my favorite positive affirmations
Pick up a self-development book (I’m loving Girl Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis right now)
Read articles on successful bloggers and influencers. What are their secrets? Write down some ideas that you get!

It Doesn’t Last Forever

I’m going to end this blog post by reminding you that your creative block will not last forever. Try taking these 5 tips into consideration! I’m sure you’ll get that much closer to breaking free and getting your inspiration back.

If you’ve experienced a creative block and you have a secret to getting out of it that I haven’t mentioned, let me know below!

5 Ways To Grow Your Instagram For Beginners

August 5, 2019 itsamandaburnett 48 Comments

How to grow your Instagram for beginners

Let me start by saying, I’m no Instagram expert. Just last year, I only had about 400 followers. Today, I have reached a little over 1k! Instagram is definitely one of the hardest social media platforms to figure out. If you’re finding it hard to grow and be discovered, I promise you that you’re not the only one!

I’ve come a long way in just a year. I’ve made many mistakes, learned from each one, and have finally reached my first major goal of 1k followers. You may be sitting there thinking, “Must be nice but I’ll never be able to accomplish that.” Although, I have 5 tips that are perfect for beginners to focus on. These tips got me to where I am now!

Create Quality Content

When people are on Instagram, they want to discover good content, right? I mean, think about what you like to see when you’re scrolling through Instagram. If an image is dark, hard to see, the main object is off-center or if the picture is too busy, the chances of the person scrolling quickly past are pretty high.

This being said, it’s important that your pictures are of high quality and visually appealing. Does that mean you need a fancy expensive camera and equipment? Absolutely not. Honestly, most of my pictures on Instagram are taken with my phone. It works pretty great if you ask me! So what are some key things that help create good pictures?

Natural light (If it’s a bit dark, turn up the brightness!)
A pop of color
Clarity
Focus on the main object

#Hashtags

Hashtags have been around for a while now and believe it or not, they are actually a powerful tool to growing your Instagram and getting discovered by new people. If you post about beauty as I do, anybody else who is interested in beauty can find your posts just by searching #beauty or #makeup. Although, you should always try to use new hashtags with each post. Try using the brands or product names that you’re posting about. You can also see how popular a hashtag is by typing it in. Did you know #beauty has been used 322M times?

I like to have a good length of a caption under my posts then at the bottom, I’ll leave about 5-10 hashtags that relate to what my post is about.

Another thing you’re able to do know is following hashtags! So for instance, if you follow #beauty, anybody who has a post with that hashtag will pop up on your feed! This is a great way to discover and interact with new accounts.

Tag Brands / Companies

I’ve been posting product pictures and reviews on Instagram for a while and I’m embarrassed to say, I only recently started utilizing this magic tool! When you post a picture of a product, you should tag the brand so it has a chance to be seen by them! I’ve done this quite a few times now and I’ve received likes by brands such as Butter London just because I’ve tagged them in a post with their eyeshadow palette!

Post Often

If people truly like your content, you don’t want to leave them hanging! I personally always check profiles that I love to see if they post anything new. When you post often, your loyal followers will keep engaging with your posts! I personally like trying to post every day, if not every other day.

Another tip is to utilize your Instagram stories! On days that I don’t feel like I have the best photo for my feed, I’ll post a nice quote or an engaging poll to my story. This way, I’m still being active!

Engage Daily

If you’re not one to post every day, you should at least hop on Instagram for a few minutes a day and leave lots of likes and comments to the people your following. Engaging lets people know you actually care about their content as well. I’ve had many instances where I was following somebody who wasn’t following me back but after liking and engaging with their posts often, they ended up following me back!

Even if somebody doesn’t follow you back, it’s still nice to leave love on a photo if you genuinely like it. Let’s be real, they’re in the same boat and are working hard to have their content seen just like you. At the end of the day, we’re all in this together.

Reflection Time!

After reading my five tips for you, how confident are you in yourself that you can practice these to reach your goal? No matter where you’re at with your Instagram game, don’t forget there are no limits to your potential. A year ago, I never thought I could ever reach 1K but here I am. I worked hard and with hard work comes results.

I hope this post helped anybody who’s working hard on growing their Instagram. As I keep growing and learning new things, I will happily make more posts in hopes to keep providing insight.

7 Tools You Need For A Successful Blog Post

April 15, 2019 itsamandaburnett 22 Comments

Hey guys, thank you for stopping by my blog!

Today, I woke up and noticed that I now have 300 blog supporters and I’m so overwhelmed and thankful! In honor of my blog growing, I want to start sharing some tips and tricks that I’ve been learning when it comes to my own blog. When I first started my blog, I wasn’t sure if it would reach many people. Writing is my passion but it’s so much more fun when you have an audience that you’re reaching! I’ve been seeing a lot of “I want to start a blog, but I don’t know where to start” all over social media lately and I totally understand that! Starting a blog can be quite overwhelming when you don’t know where to begin.

In this post, I’m going to be sharing my top 7 tools that I personally use to create my blog posts. There’s a lot more that goes into creating blog posts than just typing something up then clicking “Publish.”

*This post contains affiliate links which means if you purchase anything from the following links, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you*

An Idea Journal

Before even writing my very first blog post, I bought an “idea journal” which is exactly what it sounds like. A journal for all of your ideas. One thing I learned is that if an idea pops up in your head, write it down immediately or you might forget about it later. My original goal was to add as many ideas in my journal as possible every day so I would always have something to write about. The truth is, that’s pretty unrealistic and really hard. Writing down one or two a day is more realistic. If I don’t have any ideas or I run out, I will look at other blogs that have a similar niche as me for inspiration.

A Planner

My Erin Condren planner is pretty much my lifeline and not only for blogging. It’s one of the most helpful tools, I think, you can have in your daily life in general!

For blogging, I personally like to write down the days that I want to write a certain blog post and then the day I want to publish it. I will also write down the social media platforms I plan on sharing my published post to and what times. I’m a very visual person and like to see everything laid out before me, so a planner is a must-have for me. You don’t have to get too crazy and plan out every little detail as I do sometimes, but I recommend at least writing down the days you plan on publishing.

Camera / Pictures

A couple of years ago, I saved up and bought the Canon G7X Mark II as a birthday present for myself. It was the best decision that I’ve made. I originally bought it for my YouTube videos but the camera quality is amazing and is perfect for capturing the best blog pictures too!

Now, you don’t need a fancy or expensive camera if you have a blog. You don’t even need to have an actual camera. I know what it’s like to have only your phone to work with and guess what? That’s perfectly okay! You can still capture great photos for your blog with your phone. Another option is using free stock photos. What’s that? Read about the next tool!

Canva

Canva is a tool that I use for all of my blog posts! The main thing that I use it for is to create visually appealing blog graphics. When you click on an article or blog post, usually the first thing your eye is drawn to is any pictures right? Canva has so many great templates you can use and modify for your own blog post!

Like I mentioned above, you can use free stock photos if you don’t feel like taking your own pictures for a blog post. Stock photos can help keep that visual appeal and keeps your readers interested. Luckily, Canva has a wide range of free stock photos you can use! Whatever the subject you’re writing about, chances are that you will find a perfect stock photo to use on Canva.

Pinterest is one of the best places to get some ideas rolling! There are so many “blog help” posts circulating around that have even helped me when I’ve hit writer’s block! Pinterest is also a great place to share your own blog posts. There are about 175 million people who use Pinterest a month! Whether you’re trying to figure out how to grow your blog, the best way to title your blog, or if you’re just trying to get your own blog post to be seen, Pinterest is the app I cannot recommend enough.

Grammarly

Somebody once told me, there’s no such thing as a perfect writer. Although I pride myself in my writing skills, I know that even I make mistakes. When you are writing your blog post, it’s easy to be so focused on what you’re trying to convey that you misspell a word or forget a comma. Let’s be honest, if somebody sees a ton of grammar errors throughout your blog post, it might be hard for them to take your blog seriously. No worries though! Grammarly is a writing assistant that automatically catches any and all errors that you make. It makes blogging so much easier knowing you’re publishing a post that’s error-free. The best part is you can download the Grammarly extension on your computer and it’ll always pop up wherever you’re typing.

Google Trends

Google Trends is actually something new that I’ve using for my blog. You put in a keyword that you’re thinking about blogging about or adding it as a tag, and it will tell you how popular that word or phrase is being searched in other states! For example, the phrase “How To Blog” has a high search interest right now of 100 in District of Columbia and 83 in Washington! This is a great tool to have if you want to see how popular the topic you’re blogging about is and what states have a higher search rate!

Ready To Create An Awesome Blog Post?

Those are the 7 tools that I use and recommend to create a successful blog post! I’ve been blogging for about two years and I’m always learning about new tricks and tools. As I learn, I will share my new tips and tricks with you because I believe that we’re all in this together. If you have any tips for blog posts that I haven’t mentioned, leave them down below in the comments!

I want to say thank you again to everybody who keeps up and reads my blogs. You’re making this dream a reality and it’s the best feeling ever. I appreciate you all.