Happy New Year, here’s to a stand out 2014.

One of my resolutions for the new year is to not get hung up on the same hurdles in 2014 that slowed me down in 2013. I hate hurdles. The only thing I like about them is that after I’ve cleared them, I learned something. It’s great to learn . . . ‘cuz Knowledge is power!

I’m still feeling a lot of the holiday spirit so I’m going to share with you some of the things I’ve learned over the past few years. 2014, in many ways could be called the year of content marketing, so these tips and tools will hopefully help you overcome some hurdles when it comes to content marketing.

Seriously though, repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results, as Einstein says, is just insane.

Plan and coordinate with style and flair, and a little help from co-schedule.

I found co-schedule late in 2013 and fell in love instantly. I used them on my personal blog and we also use them here on the corporate, result150 blog. CoSchedule provides an easy to use, drag and drop calendar system for WordPress that lets you schedule content, and social messages that link and post based on the content you’re publishing. You can work cross-functionally across multiple locations easily which makes collaboration on multiple pieces of content  a breeze.

Monitor trends and stock pile ideas for later with Instapaper.

Okay, so some time in 2013 a search party had to come find me, they found me lost in a mound of Google Alerts. I found that using them to monitor topics I wanted to read wasn’t working. Enter Instapaper. What does work however during the day, is to peruse a lot of headlines and make quick assessments  on whether something fits my interest areas or an area for content. If it does, I use Instapaper to snag the article for reading later so that I can digest it and possibly expand on it, curate it or build off it and cite it in a future piece of content. Works great on all of my devices too. I’ll usually have a few articles to read every night before bed.

When your stuck stuck and need a prompt to get over a blank page.

I remember my first time experiencing the symptoms of blank-page-itis. The cold sweat. The trembling of the fingers. It’s scary. Overcoming writers block should be an Olympic event. Just like content marketing hurdle jumping.

Heidi Cohen has a great list of ways to generate ideas for your content marketing needs. I’ve also found that some of the generators can be just enough of a push to get the juices flowing. Some of the generators I’ve found have been through here and here (you have to have an open mind with that one).

Ready? Set? Run!

I hope these tools help you and I’d love to hear of any tools you use, I’m always looking to add to my toolbelt.

Look at you, you hurdle jumper you! Happy New Year!

What about you? What tools have you found that help make content marketing flow a little smoother?