YEC Members: 5 Tips for a Successful Year of Publishing

If you’re planning to contribute more content in the months ahead, you’re on the right path. Sharing your expertise to cultivate trust and grow your audience is a smart resolution, and our editorial team is here to support your efforts.

But while the new year is a great time to make plans, all that January energy and enthusiasm can quickly wane.

My advice?

Don’t let it. Harness it right now. These six tips can help point you in the right direction and put you on the path to great content, all year long:

1. Read our editorial guidelines.

The best and surest way to move your article quickly through the editing pipeline is to get familiar with our guidelines before you write. Don’t skip this step! They cover everything from topic do’s and don’ts to how to handle quotes, links and research. And we update them several times a year — so a refresher is good even if you publish a lot. (You’ll find a link to the guidelines on the same page you use to submit new articles.)

2. Stay in the loop (but skip the clutter).

Follow us on social media and read our community newsletters to see what your fellow members are publishing. Not only is this a great source of ideas, it’s also a smart way to see which articles perform best.

I also recommend taking a moment to clean up your social feeds and inbox. It’s important to follow industry news so you can comment on trends and developments that matter to your audience, but be selective. Otherwise, it’s just noise.

3. Find topics in Expert Panels.

If you participate in our Expert Panels often, you’ve probably had the experience of wanting to write three paragraphs in response to some of the prompts. This is a good problem to have! If a topic inspired you that much, consider writing a full-length piece.

4. Check out past posts on our blog.

We’ve written about decluttering your writing, using outlines, writing about current events and how to repurpose your content, to name a few topics. And if there’s something we haven’t covered that you’d like us to, let your member concierge know.

5. Strategize with your team.

Get together with key stakeholders now to plan out a few topics that tie into your broader business goals, and then create an editorial calendar of sorts, no matter how informal. Do you want to be known as a thought leader in artificial intelligence? Q1 is a great time to discuss upcoming trends for the year. Do you have a brilliant method for overhauling the tired performance review? Plan ahead — it would make a great topic later in the year, when leaders in your industry gear up for similar conversations with their teams.

Since it takes several weeks for an article to go through the editorial process, planning regularly and in advance is the best way to get the most out of our platform. And it ensures you won’t run out of ideas a few months from now when those New Year’s resolutions start to feel like work. Happy writing!