In part one of using the practice or method of mind mapping for our blog expansion I covered a few beginning steps to always keep in the back of your head and the start of building your blog. We start by brainstorming and then organizing all the thoughts to reality. Now, in part two today I want to continue and tell you how I have used mind mapping for building my blogs and making smart mistakes. We’re getting into the “meat and potatoes” now. Are you prepared and ready?
If you have not read part one please do so to get the full benefit of part two.
Quick Review
1. Brainstorming + Organizing Thoughts
Brainstorming is where we dig deep into our passion, purpose, and start thinking about the intial workings of our expansion. This is where you grab a piece of paper, a whiteboard, or use some software such as MindNode for Mac users.
Organizing All Those Thoughts (Reality)
The time has come now to organize all of these thoughts or ideas you’ve brainstormed. Organize them in terms of reality and the true you.
Here is where you refer back to those beginning steps I previously talked about and these same steps are going to help you throughout the whole mind mapping process. Remember we are out to make smart mistakes while expanding your blog.
Continue to read part two (steps two and three).
Beginning the mind map practice is easy. You start with your blog name as the main node/block, then think of things such as the following to add to your mind map (sections):
- Post Categories
- Social Networking Communities
- Ways of Promotion
- Goals
- Products / How to Make Money
These are just a few things I’ve come up with but should surely be considered into being apart of your mind map and blog expansion. Remember to think about the obvious parts of your blog that should be apart of any expansion. After you have considered some of these and/or your own to your mind map the real fun and work begins for building your blog.
2. Breaking It All Apart
Now, we’re going to break the main sections of your mind map (figured about above) apart to make certain that you don’t kill your blog.
Analyze Your Sections
A basic mind map is put together by staring with your node (in this case your blog name). We then create sections from that which are the things you have previously defined to be apart of your blog for the expansion process. Well, from these sections begins the deep analyzation of how and where you want your blog to go.
Ask yourself, “where you want your blog to go”?
For instance, say you want to make money with your blog and to do so you want to create a product. Remember this product is just one of your several sections and focusing on this section is just as important as every other one (all working together).
Think about everything that you want in your product. What role does it play? How will it help and attract the community you have built and/or want? Will this product be one that is used to urge your community to promote your and your blog? Will this product be an introduction to another product you have in the works? All of these are a few questions that a “simple” product plays in expanding your blog. You just need to show it on your mind map.
Immediate Action
Now, that you have your sections all analyzed, it’s time for immediate action on them.
Trust me this could take some time and thought. But, its important and worth it as I wish I would have done this with my previous blogs.
In all sections think about the needed steps to reach whatever you have planned or visioned for each each. Then analyze and rank those steps to the importance and impact each one will make on building your blog for each section. These are the steps for immediate action. Don’t worry about the others right now. It’s time to build, get going, and start making those smart mistakes I’ve been talking about.
Think, Conquer, and Implement
It gets even more interesting. Break down those immediate action steps even further. What will it take for me to accomplish this today, tomorrow, and this week? Ask yourself this and keep pushing for more steps, analyzation, and deeper thoughts under each immediate action step you’ve decided on. We’ve got to conquer these steps that form the initial beginning of our blog in order to expand.
Last thing with all these steps is you can’t just leave them hanging in the thought process.
You need to implement them. If you don’t implement you won’t know your smart mistakes. Don’t want to expand or not?
3. Keep Looking Back to Keep Moving Forward
If you don’t implement you should not worry about reading the rest of this post. I strongly believe that making mistakes and building off them creates one of the best ways for success. I’ve personally experienced it (why I believe it), but I’m not at the point of success yet. We all are bound to make mistakes, but we are better if we can point them all out and go forward.
Know Your Mistakes
These mistakes could be the wrong steps you took for immediate action or what kind of sections you came up with for your blog. Read back through this post and think about the “what if” scenario and really anything could be a mistake. Everything is prone to a mistake, just know yours.
Build Off Your Mistakes
Knowing is half the battle. After knowing think about what happened and what you need to improve on or do differently. This is called building off your mistakes and you can’t build your blog without doing this.
How have you built off your mistakes? Any case studies?
Return to the Map and Keep Editing
Finally, return to the map you initially created. Use it as a historical but ongoing path of your blog’s development and expansion. Mark the mistakes and always be editing the map for a smart expansion for you and your blog.
Please know that this would be greatly helpful when used when starting your blog, but it can be implemented at anytime 
Blogging Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2010 Blogussion.com. All Rights Reserved.
Mind Mapping for Blog Expansion & Making Smart Mistakes, Part 2
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 | Hi, this is Néstor Pabón I'm just a regular "Joe" who discovered internet marketing back in 2004, and by 2005 had replaced my day time job pay check, and doubled it by mid 2006. If you liked this article and would like me to share with you how I make my living online subscribe to my Newsletter for more tips and "insider" strategies. |
