How to Streamline Your Content Writing Research Processes
This week's livestream topic comes thanks to Phaedra Rogers! When we're completing our research for client projects, whether they're strategy, articles, or case studies, knowing some quick hacks, steps to follow, and tools of the trade can be super helpful in getting your research done quickly and efficiently. This week's livestream is going to go over how I do my research, the processes and tools I use, and how you can create your own streamlined system for finding facts and data.
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Hello friends. So Charlotte's outside right now and we've been trying to get her, uh, so I'm a little late, but you know what? Sometimes that happens. So today we're gonna talk about tools. We're talking to talk about research. We're gonna talk about putting things together, um, bows here. So at least we have that. Oh, he's never on camera. There we go. Hold on buddy. Little me give you a
Trio.
Charlotte sometimes likes to hang outside and tree squirrels, and sometimes she likes to sit out there and get the squirrels ready,
Buddy. Good job.
So Charlotte's not here right now, but she will be shortly. So let's go over tools. So today's live stream. Oh, it'll probably help if I had my, but I don't. That's how this week is going for me. So today's live stream. Hey, Vicki, welcome in, um, is about, or is from Fedra. So one of my coaching students, Fedra and I were having a session one time and she was like, you should talk about the tools that you use to do your research and how you put together all your content stuff. So we're gonna go over actually two phases of it. So, um, phase one is like our actual research, like the things that we do to find studies and, um, things we do to find information. And then the other part of it is gonna be sorry, is gonna be, um, how we're gonna put together different types of content work, like how we kind of put things together for strategy or how we put things together for helping our clients kind of see different or, um, putting their ideas together. So we're gonna put all those things together. All right. And if you have questions, you can always pop 'em in the chat. Happy to answer. 'em I don't think we have any questions that popped in today. I guess. I didn't. Yeah. So, um, yeah, so we're not gonna do those questions today, but we'll do questions later, but if you have questions on whatever I'm about, um, during this livestream, feel free to pop him in the chat. So let's get going, buddy. You wanna trio
Good job. You're the best.
All right. So the number one thing that we're gonna talk about is how do we do our research, right? Like how do we actually, um, get our research done? Hold on. We might have Charlotte.
Will you bring my phone? It's on the bed too. Oh, thank you. Oh, I thought it was Charlotte. She still outside? Yeah. Okay.
Well we got 50%. I got my phone, so I have my notes. Hey, welcome in. So like a good person. I finally have my notes. Okay, cool. So let's talk about content research. So there's a few things that I do, and I think that they're really helpful. Um, so number one, when I'm doing my research is I'm going to specific places. So PubMed, P U B M E D. PubMed is a great place to find studies. Um, it's a great place to information. If you're trying to get stuff together for a magazine article, or if you're looking to back up a point that you need to make. PubMeds great. Another one that I like is science daily because unlike people like V who are really good at science stuff, I am not very good at science stuff. So I need somebody to be like, here you go, dumb, dumb.
Here's the dumb down version of this study. So science daily is really good at, um, providing a bunch of different types of studies that you can go look at to put in your articles, um, to back up points, of course, but it also gives you like all of these synopsis style. Um, basically like this little synopsis of the study in human language, not in like, like PubMed is more for like people in the science community who can read those strange phrases and stuff. So you kind of have to extrapolate a bunch of information, but science daily at least speaks to you like regular human. So I like science daily, a lot for finding studies and information. I always find it really helpful. Statista is another one. Um, Statista is really great for finding different types of studies. They're always running, uh, different types of surveys and they're always great at, uh, really like giving you a wealth of information.
So you can find a bunch of different studies to back up a point because they do a bunch of different studies on very specific things. So if you need two or three studies to back up a point St. TETA science daily are usually my favorite Gallop polls. There's always gall polls to go look up. And then there's always national organizations that are doing studies, right? So if I'm looking for information and I'm looking for information for, or, um, like a reported article, or if I need to put something into like a blog post or something for a client like a business client, uh, I always am looking in different places like different national organizations to see if they sponsored a study or if they came out with a recent study, those are always really helpful because obviously they're trying to study things in their, um, in their field.
Sometimes they're a little biased, so be careful about that. But most of the time, those national organizations have great, um, statistics and great research that are really helpful. The other one that I really like is, um, I think that one of the great things about being a journalist is being able dig into a bunch of different types of content. So you can look at stuff like demand metric, or you can look at HubSpot or you can look at, um, Hey, Annie, welcome in Annie. We only have one right now. Charlotte's not in here, she's outside, fluking around. We tried to get her in. So I was a little late, but, um, hopefully she'll be here soon. She's outside, you know, doing Charlotte things. Sometimes it's hard to get her inside unless we go run her down. And then that's a whole nother story. So if you're using like different types of places to find stats and information, um, I think that, Hey, Getty, welcome in.
I think that when you're kind of looking through all these things, one of the great things about being a journalist is that there's like so many resources out there. You can also go read other people's articles, right? Like you're usually not the first one to write about something every once in a while you are every once in a while, there's something really unique that you get to write about that's brand new, but most of the time you're gonna end up writing about something that somebody somewhere has written about before, or at least done partial research. Right? So this is something I tell my students all the time, like my freelance writer, wealth lab students, and then my coaching students. I tell them this all the time, go read up on your topic, go read up on it, go figure out like, what have people said before?
How can you make yours different? How can you kind of like look at their research? And this is the really, Hey, she welcome in. And this is the really important thing to remember. Do not do not copy paste their stats. Okay. Every once in a while you will come cross some stats that are like, well known, right? Like there's some Harvard studies that are like very well known, right? Like the happiness study that's been going on for like a hundred years. That's where very well known. So if you're reading an article in the New York time, so the wall street journal or traveling leisure or some other big publication, and you come across this very well known study, of course you can use it. But the deal is that when you're looking through other people's articles, you don't just be like, oh, that's a perfect stat.
Let me just steal that and just paste that in my article. Like, no, go look at the study. Did that person actually interpret the data? Right. Did that person actually look at all the things in there and get them right? And also there is plenty other information in that study that isn't about one stat. There are plenty other places in that study. And usually now, like now that we have the internet, everything's linked. So they're like, Hey, here's our study. Like, here's the link to it. Go, go read it yourself before it used to be like, there's this study. And then you'd be like, okay. And you have to go dig it up and find it yourself. Now, everybody basically just, um, links to everything, which makes it easier. So the deal is when they link to a stat and you're like, that's a great stat, go read the study, don't steal the stat.
You can take the stat if it's like a regular well known stat, right? Like it's, it's something, um, that lots of people know, it's something that is very, um, a groundbreaking study or a long term study. That that's fine. But when someone puts a study in there, go read it, go find the original study and pull your own stats. Cuz I bet there's other stats in there that are actually really helpful to you that you can use. Right. We're using our opportunity to read other people's articles. Not only to find our own angle and to do some background research and figure out like, okay, what's been said about this topic, but put our own spin on it. Like we're gathering information, right. We're reading other people's work. And we're in fact finding stage so that we can sift through what we really need. And what's really useful.
We're not there to like paste and grab and you know, plagiarize other people's work. Like don't do that. Um, the deal is that there lots of times where other people have done a ton of research and then we can kind of piggyback off that and then do our own ton of research. Right. We are putting the puzzle together. I've always kind of thought of it this way when I'm doing my research and I'm putting things together for posts and articles, especially when you're doing ones with like hundreds of stats, like I've done, um, lots of articles. Like when I turn things in that have tons and tons of stats. Um, I like how you guys also just side note, I know I'm a little like off to like I'm little everywhere today, but I like how you guys welcome each other in, so it's nice that we hang out and we get to welcome each other and say hi to each other.
I feel like a lot of times with freelance writers, we spend a lot of time alone. So, um, it's nice that you guys all welcome each other in, it's kind of like our little live community where we get to hang out. So I always think that's nice. So thanks for doing that, welcoming everybody in, um, we are doing our own research and we're putting the puzzle together. So when you're doing all these things where you have hundreds of stats or you're pulling together all of these different where, uh, you need a lot of research, right? You're not there to just like copy paste two, three stats from like the New York times. You're there to be like, oh, the New York times found this study. What else is in this study that I can use, uh, the wall street journal or this, you know, FSR QSR has this great press release that they put out with this study.
What else is in that study that, um, or that data from that, uh, you know, like Teo or one of the other restaurant industry, um, places where they find data, sorry, then you can kind of start digging in around that and put the puzzle together. So the deal is that we want to read widely and pull stats from to different places. Teo is another place Mintel is another place. Um, there's tons of places that put out lots of studies that we can go find. Um, but I think when we're doing all this research, right, we're looking at all these different places, we're putting the puzzle together. I am always a writer who collects a lot and uses very little. This is, it's just my us. I used to fight it a ton. I used to really be negative about it. And I'd be like, you're over researching.
You're doing to watch. And I did I over research. I've, I've curtailed it a bit. Um, but the deal is that when we are doing our research, like for me, I have to see the big picture I have to see like into 50 articles that have been written about something. I have to see like all of the things then put my stats in there and kind of, I need to put my own puzzle together. This has always been how it is. I go very big picture. I gather a lot and then I whittle it down. So this is something that I think is really important in that when you're covering a topic, you bunch of things, but you have to whittle it down to the things that matter most, right. Is this relevant to this particular topic? Is it answering a question that my reader has?
Is it something that is furthering the piece or is interesting to the piece or keeps the reader reading? Is it something that really supports my point really well, is this stat, this information that I've collected really necessary, like, and I'm giving up words for it, right? We only have like, typically your articles are gonna be somewhere between 700 and a thousand words, right? That's most of the time for a magazine, let's say if you're writing a really long blog post, it'll be a thousand to 3000 words depending. So we're writing our post. We only have so many words. Hi, snorkel.
Welcome. Oh my gosh. You're so dirty.
You're like a chin chill. You love your just baths. Okay.
Can you go sit in your spot?
Oh my gosh. She's so dirty. Can you guys see all the dirt
On her? All the dust. Good job being.
Oh man. She, so Charlotte likes to go out there and take dust baths like a gen. So she goes out there and rubs herself
In all the dry grass
And then comes in. Can you see, like that's not shine on her fur. That's dirt. That's like
Brown dirt.
This is my chin dog. Snorky
Why do you do that? Here you go, buddy. Snorky you're just like, you're gonna have to get it back now.
Poor snorky snorky wasn't feeling so great today. So hopefully she's feeling a little better later. Um, she did have a birthday on Monday. Her birthday's on Valentine's day. So she's officially nine years old. She's got her, uh, frosted jowls coming in. She's looking a little, little older, But you know, and she's wiser, you know, she's wiser now. Here
You go, buddy. Good
Job. All right, MI you wanna do a little trick? I like your funny ear.
Ready? Yeah. Good job. Good girl.
All right. So let's get back to our topic. So now that we have all of our research, you have to whittle it down to the things that are most important. It you're giving up word count. You only have so many words. So you have to do the right words in the right order at the right time and fulfill the assignment. Right? That's the point, oftentimes where we get caught is short assignments, right? We have a, an assignment that's like three to 500 words. Like we're doing a little blurb or we're doing a really short article. That's 500 words. That's when, when things get really hard when we really have to cut it down. Um, but man, I think a lot of times for me, when I'm doing my research, it's I have to see the big picture. I have to see the whole thing. And then I take pieces out of it and make my own puzzle and really whittle it down so that, oh, I should have put my numbers up. This is just how today's going. Thanks for riding the ride. So the, um, that's all the research that we're doing. Um, thank you, Vicky. She says thanks for the happy birthday, even though she's staring at me cuz she wants more trios. So all right, Charlie, you ready? You gonna show me your high five skills,
High five. Good job. Other one. Good job.
All right, Barry. You ready?
Since you're just kind of like
You guys are in your opposite places today. So that was our first thing. Right? So I'll just put up one just in case. So the last thing is we're doing all of our research so that we can put our puzzle together. We're looking at a bunch of different places. There's a lot of different areas that we can look for research, honestly like you can just Google a ton of different places. Um, like I said, like trade magazines are a good one. Teo Mintel science, daily PubMed. Um, what was the other one? Satta? There's a lot of places where we can find stats and information that are really, really helpful. So the deal is that look at it. I, I always find this as helpful. Look at it from a big picture point of view, read up on your topic, do some background research. What if a other people said about it?
What can you give a unique take on? Uh, what are some things that you can find in the studies that other people quoted that are actually, you know, it's, it's just as good of a stat, but it's different and useful. It's not just copy paste. Um, Annie said I made a virtual birthday cake for the group to enjoy its chocolate grape. We, we love chocolate over here. Um, Charlotte, you're kind of chocolatey, right? You're not really chocolatey. You're I guess you're a black dog. You're black and white and your eyes are chocolatey. You look like a bat. You look very bat like today. Congratulations. Yes, let's do your high
Five. Ready? High five other one high five. Good job. You're doing great. All right, there, here go buddy. The
Job. So that's our first point. Our second one is tools that we are going to use for, um, finding our content stuff and putting everything together. Um, oh, you know what, actually let's skip that to is gonna be the things that we're used for. Let me check my notes. They went to sleep. Hold on. Um, yeah. So the next thing, where is we're gonna have like our process and the things we do. So let's say that you're looking for something. I always end up doing a few little computer tricks, right? So I use control F a lot of times, right? Like command F or control F to find stats and information or dot coms or percent or whatever. So if I'm looking through a big document, like let's say, uh, sometimes I have to look through big boring government documents to find certain things I use con control F to find it.
I'm just like I type in percent, the word percent or, um, the percent symbol. It depends. Right? Like it depends what's style guide they're using whether they say percent or use the percent symbol. So type that in that always helps to find data.com always helps to find data because they say, oh, it's from techno.com or it's from blah, blah, blah.com or statista.com. That always helps you find data in documents. Anytime you're looking through a giant document or something type in or percent or, um, different types of intervals, right? Like different types of things that you would find in their like units of measurement or, um, I guess it depends on what you're researching. Right. But you wanna make sure you're using these types of things to search the information out. Like there's government documents that I've looked at that are like hundreds of pages long, right.
Sometimes you get in these documents and you're like, where is this thing? Like, like, let's say, um, I think if I remember right, I had an article that I found this, um, I was researching something for a real estate article and I found this stat in like a big publication. I was like, that's a great stat. What else is in there? And they had linked to this like hundreds of pages of government document. And I was like, uh Godammit. So then I had to go dig through to find the original stat, right? So the original stat stat, I just like command F I'm like 87 or whatever the number was. It took me forever to find that. And then once I, I had to go dig around with that document for other stats that I could use. Cause I didn't really wanna use that stat.
I just knew that document was useful. But anytime you have to search for something, just do that. Like don't actually scroll the pages, looking for numbers. Like that takes too long, just command F the other thing too, to remember when you're doing these types of things in terms of tools and processes, is that sometimes people put data in on the opposite side. So someone will take a stat, right? Like the study says 97% of people like pizza, right. But another article will take that stat and say 3% of people hate pizza. But the, the, the, um, study that they link to use, it is 97. So if you ever look at something and you're like, well, where's the 3%, like, I don't know how they got this number. Sometimes people subtract or they change it using the other side of that stat. Right. So they say, okay, well, if 97% like pizza in this study, 3% don't so sometimes you get like, this has been something that, um, for a long time, I would just look for one I'm like, okay, that stat says 97.
What's the other information. The deal is a lot of times people just like subtract or use the other numbers or, um, they take the opposite of that. Right? So like they say 14 million people do this. Well, then they're like, okay, out of the rest of the us population, this many people do this. Right. So sometimes that be confusing. Don't get confused by it. Just remember there's opposites, right? There's always another side. Like it's 50, 50, or it's 97, 3 or it's, uh, 20, you know, whatever, 20, 80, 20 it's remember there's two sides of those stats. So sometimes that can be confusing. Um, another thing that I do when I'm collecting my research is that I start a big barf dock. Okay. This is something you look so dirty. You're like, she's over there making noises at me. I look at her, she look like she's been through like, uh, you know, like with Dorothy, when she's been around in the house, like sorting around. You're so dirty. Why did you do that? Roll around in the dirt, like a little hog. Um, so I start a big barf dock and I put all of my stuff in there. Ready? Good job. All right, buddy. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Ah, I didn't throw it. You were too close. All right, MI ready? Good job.
All right, you go buddy. Good job.
I start a big barf dock. I put all my stuff in there. Sometimes that barf doc is 20,000 words. Sometimes that barf doc is 5,000 words. Sometimes it's 10,000 words, but I organize it and give myself context for all of my research. If I don't do that, it becomes a huge mess. Some people like spreadsheets, some people like to put their, like, put, make different documents for different things. I put it all in one doc because I am a highlighter, a bolder and a tele and a scanner. So when I'm going through my research, I'm like, oh, this is important. Highlight it. Or this is a different section. Highlight it or bold this part. Cause I might need it later or IAL size this cuz I it's on the fence. Like I have different symbols that I use in my mind to help me pay attention to different parts of data.
But when I'm doing these big research projects and I'm gathering all the information for my content, I need to see it in one place, start a bar document. Don't be like, oh I only this part or I only need this thing and like put it in your actual article draft. No, start a big document of just data. So for example, when I'm doing these big posts, like I've done posts before where I've had to do 20 stats or 50 stats that are really helpful in X industry. And you need to start a big doc for that because the deal is that you're not finding just 20 stats. You're actually finding like 50 or 70 stats and then cutting it down to the 20 most important. This is another thing that I think is big picture to cutting it down. A lot of times I see writers just find 20 stats.
They're like 20 is the number I need. I just find 20, no big mistake. You need a lot of that. So you can see which ones are the most important to the audience. Like which ones are actually really useful. You don't just go out and find out the minimum and be like, here are 20. It goes back to the same thing. It's the right content at the right time with the right stuff at the right word count. Right? So it's all of these things that we need to have so that we can cut it down. So you're gonna do more to get less. And this is part of the process. This is figuring out which stats are most important and which things are, um, most useful. I think it's a big mistake. If you just go out and find the minimum number of things you need, because what ends up happening is you miss stuff, you end up missing things, you end up making mistakes.
Um, I of make mistakes, right? I'm not a robot. I make mistakes. I made mistakes recently. Um, when you're doing a lot of research, it's really easy to make a couple of mishaps. Um, but that's why we go back to editing, right? That's why we have someone else help us like our editors checking our work. And um, we submit all our sources, but the deal is that we, you have to have this big document. Like you need to have this big document. At least this is how I work of stuff that you can look back at because the deal is, once you start writing and putting things in putting all your stats in your doc and putting all, like putting the actual puzzle together, in terms of writing the, the article, you forget, you forget all of these stats. I do this all the time.
I'm like writing along. I'm like, didn't I have something that said this. And I'm like, whatever. I keep writing my barf draft. And then I'm like, oh, I go back to my big document, my 20,000 words of stats and notes or whatever. And then I'm like, oh, I did have something. And then I slotted in later you need to have a separate space where you can just put all your stats in and then you have a separate document where you're actually writing your article. The deal is that you can also go back to that bar or that giant block of stats. So if I end up doing a ton of research for an article, now I have a giant ate full of stats that I can use for other articles. Let's say I found 75 stats. I only use 20 of them for an article.
Well now I have 55 stats. Wait, was that right? Did I say 75 and 20? I don't remember. So let's say I had, um, 25 stats for an article and I found 75 right now. I have 50 stats that I use that are saved in my little document, um, that I can go back and use for other articles. So that's really helpful. It's really great to have that block document by itself of research that you can use later. Um, the other part that's really helpful with that is that you need to link everything. So everything in your document needs to be linked so that you can go back and find it when someone's like, Hey, you need to like, show me your source for this. Or like, let's say you forgot to link something. And someone's like, where did you get this from? Put it in.
Um, you also need to be able to easily reference it. Like if you have to go back and like, let's say you mistyped something or you made an error and you typed the wrong country or you typed the wrong company, you need to at least have the link. So go back and check it. Um, Getty says data, visualization tools for graphic representation of numbers are beneficial. Every picture tells a story. Yeah. Sometimes that's really helpful too. Yeah. It depends on how you put things together. Like for me, um, I really like to just see everything in the document, like just says words. Sometimes people do better with pictures. So people make mind maps to put all their data together. For me, just having a big documented data is really helpful. Yes. Would you like to submit a complaint she's over there? Like making all this noise? I don't know if you, you guys can hear her, but she's over there being a SAS. All right. Ready?
Good job athlete. You go buddy. Good job.
All right. Uh, if you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about researching and creating quality content and uh, building a high earning freelance writing business, subscribe Charlotte, your ears. You look like a bat. I wish it was Halloween. Cuz then we could put your little bat shirt on.
Ready? Good job. You go, buddy.
You're so close that if I throw it, I know you're not gonna catch it and you keep moving closer. All right. The next thing that we're gonna talk about and the last thing that we're gonna talk about today is doing content projects. So that was all one and two is all about doing your own research for your own stuff, right? So your articles and your blog posts and doing it on your side, but if you're creating research, um, so like if you're working on a content strategy project or if you are working on some kind of content marketing effort with a client and you need to get a lot of data for them, these are the tools and tips and tricks to do that. So I felt like that was the most helpful just because if we, um, if we oftentimes straddle these lines, we're not always like when we start out as freelance writers, we often have this lower level of responsibility where we're creating content, but as we learn more and we have ideas and strategies to share and we really get involved deeper with the content with our clients, that's when we need a vast array of tools.
So we're gonna go over those. So when you're kind of doing your content research, I love HubSpot. So, um, I love HubSpot for finding stats. I love HubSpot for organizing things. So, um, a lot of my clients put all their stuff into HubSpot to manage all their, um, content marketing efforts and to manage their email list and to take classes and all this stuff. So HubSpot always great. Second is Uber suggest. I like Uber suggest better than SC us better than, um, Moz, better than, um, a bunch of other tools that are out there. It just, I just like the way the tool functions. I like that Neil Patel is always adding new features and that if you just pay your lifetime membership one time, you just keep getting all these features. It's great. Uh, Uber suggests for me is one of the best ways is for me to pull reports and pull reports on like the top liked content, the top keywords that are driving traffic to a site, the top articles or pages on a site that are pulling the most traffic in competitor research, um, keyword ideas, content ideas.
It's just a very vast tool. There's also a tool called clear scope, um, that I've had some clients use that I think is really great because it's giving you a lot more than keyword stuffing or phrase stuffing, right? So a lot of people are switching to long tail keywords and phrases because that's becoming more popular with Google, not surprising. Um, so the deal is that clear scope and another tool similar is like phrase.io, uh, where you put your piece in and it gives you like 20 or 50 words that or phrases that you can put in the piece. So it's not like you're repeating the same keyword 900 times you're putting in like 20 or 50 distinct different phrases. It gives you a letter grade. It gives you a word count to shoot for. It gives you, um, a reader like you should shoot for college level, or you should shoot for eighth grade.
That's really helpful. Um, it gives you a little score, like a little grade of like, this is where, you know, you have to get a B plus in order for this content to rank. So it's, it gives you the ability to see like what you have to put into it to make the content rank amongst the competitor content that's already ranking. So I think that's really helpful. Um, I also like put things in Google drive. I know that sounds very simplistic, but when I'm turning in a bunch of work, I think that a lot of times when you just have it in a shared area, that's really helpful and you can basically just put all your stuff in there. You can organize all of your different content things. So if you need to send a spreadsheet to someone with keyword recommendations or a content analysis, you can put that in there.
Um, you make it easy for your clients to find all the stuff that they need, right? So when you're doing your content research, put it all in one place. And then when you're ready to submit your work, share that folder with your clients. But I think the best thing is that it's all in one place for your clients to easily find it and to be able to go back and reference it when they need to. So for me, I think Google drives really good. Sometimes your clients will give you access to like HubSpot or they'll give you access to their Dropbox or access to another place where you can store data and information. That's fine. Um, you can do that too. But for me, I like to just put in, in Google drive, I like to make all of my little spreadsheets and my little presentations and my documents and share 'em all on Google drive.
Um, the other thing that I think is really helpful is again, like having that big document. So like I start a content strategy project. I, I create another giant document. I go through all of the marketing materials. They send me and I plus their website plus anything else I can find on my own. And it takes a long time. So I make this big giant document going through all of my notes and important things from the market materials. They've sent me, um, doing background research on the company, looking at their website, looking at all the stuff they've done, I make a big document and it really helps me reference it back. So when I'm like, what did they say about this? Or what are their differentiators or what are the things that, um, you know, what was the percentage of this thing that they were successful at?
I all already have a document that tells me what it is. I don't have to go look at their website again. I don't have to dig it up. These reference materials are really helpful, especially when you're doing content strategy projects, cuz you have to do so many different things. You're doing like a content audit, a competitor analysis, um, an insights thing where you're telling them that basically their best opportunities to fix like create better content or create more content or create content better than their competitors. You're also doing, um, basically giving them their, your deck, right? Your content strategy deck. And you need a reference doc where everything lives. So you can keep going back when you need to cuz you will. I do it all the time. Um, yes, Vicky, she's definitely a bat dog and we have to be careful. Like we have to say the T very strongly bat dog because I don't wanna say B a D dog because then they get sad. We never really say B a D dog anyways, just because, I mean, look at that. Like you just, you just look, you look like she be hanging upside down right now.
Hi buddy. Can you sit good job
Close enough. You're sort of on camera.
All right. Ready?
She has no trouble with it. Bo has always had trouble catching things. So the deal is when you're putting all your count content strategy stuff together. Um, usually the tools that I like, like main ones are Google docs, Google drive, Google sheets, um, Google presentations or Google slides, whatever it's called. Um, sometimes I use HubSpot. If they let me use their HubSpot, they Google analytics. Sometimes I dig in there. Um, I love Uber suggest you could use something like Uber suggests I feel like just gives you a much wider picture than the other tools do. Um, maybe it's because I like it. Like I that's just the way my brain works, but like a HFS or um, like my or SCM rush or other tools that are out there. Like I just feel like Uber suggests is the best one. Um, and then Google drive is always good and then having that big doc for everything.
So I think also what helps is if you build a process that makes the most sense for how you like to work. So like I said, some people like to, to put a mind map together, you know, they go into those mind map programs and they connect everything that way. If that works visually, like if you're a visual person do that for me, I just need like a big block of text. Like I need a big document full of text that has highlights and colors and bold and italicized. And I have all these different things that I use to trigger my mind to be like, okay, this color, this highlight color is a new section of data. This highlight color is, um, you know, like the original study, but you actually need to use this part of the study. This bolded part is something that you weren't sure about or this italicized part is something that you were like using for something else.
I have all these different things because I've developed that over time. And I think that's really important, especially when you're doing content strategy work. And when you're kind of putting together research for articles is that you, you create your own step by step process to give yourself like visual cues and reference material and places to store things, um, and places to do your and collect that data and pull reports because you need to submit all that stuff basically. Um, but I think it's really important to figure out that process for yourself. And like I said, there's plenty of places to find data. There's plenty of ways to research data and look through things. Um, I think that when you're kind of pulling content strategy stuff and when you're pulling like content marketing background stats. Yeah. I think any place where you can pull like reports and not overwhelm people with data, like pull, pull specific chunks of data that make the most impact.
I think that's really useful. Cool. Okay. I think those were all the tools I wanted to go over and all the things. So let able to check my notes. I'm gonna put our friends on you guys can see if she makes noise. She probably will. She makes this like little woo woo face. Are you gonna woo woo at us. Okay. So, alright. I think that's everything I wanted to go over. If you have questions, you can always pop 'em in the chat, but if you have another process, if you have another process, oh see, there she goes. Um, if you have another process or a way that you put your content marketing work together, or your reported articles or blog posts or case studies or your content strategy stuff together, pop it in the comments below. Let me know. Cause I'm interested in how people do research and I'm always interested in how other freelance writers kind of put their stuff together. Um, for me, I'm always trying to refine my processes. I'm always trying to make things better. So any suggestions pop 'em below, if you feel like, you know, um, there's a better way to do something that I'm doing. Feel free to pop it in the comments below. I always love to hear what people are thinking. Um, you ready? Good job athlete. All right. 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh buddy. You were so close by your foot. Did you get it? Oh, you did good job. Ready? MI
Gosh, such an athlete. Bo is like Bo was like a foot away from me and if I throw it at him, he can't catch it. He just can't do it. He just, that's just not one of his strengths. He's a very good snuggler. Not a very good treat catcher. Cool. All right. So I think that's all I wanted to cover today, but I don't see any questions in the chat. I'm glad you guys showed up. I'm glad you had a good time. If you have anything, um, that you wanted to, I always have this place open. So if you ever had a question or you want a topic covered on the livestream, you can go to mans.com/question. You can also submit anonymously. So I've had people come in and be like, this is an embarrassing question. I wanna be anonymous. So you can always submit anonymous questions in there.
Um, and there's sometimes where people pop in there and put in topics where they're like, can you go over this more in depth? You know, it's not a question, but it's really like this long topic, like today's right. Fedra and I were talking and she was like, can you go over the tools you use the processes systems, things that you put in place for all these things. And I said, yes, let's do that. So yes, I hear you. I hear you making noise. All right. So I hope this was helpful. I hope everybody has a really good Friday and I will see you next Friday. Um, feel free to give it a thumbs up. If you felt like this was helpful and subscribe. If you wanna build a high earning freelance writing business, or if you wanna learn more about how to do quality content marketing or put together your content strategy projects, uh, I will see you next Friday. Bye.
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