18: How to be Productive as a Travel Creator Even If You Have No Time

Today, I'm giving you the best tips for ways to be productive when you don't have too much time (yes, even just 10 minutes!) That way the next time you are at in waiting room or have an awkward amount of time to twiddle your thumbs,  you can take advantage of every minute to network, get creative, and improve your content. Let's create content, not consume!

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Transcript

Laura Haley: [00:00:00] Hey, travel creators! I'm Laura. I'm a content developer for travel creators, and I help them reach a new audience in newsletter creation, and I'm a content repurposing specialist for all of my friends in the travel creator space. And right now, I'm having one of those, I have a thing later so I can't do anything until I go to that moment.

Laura Haley: Do you know what I mean? Those are the freaking worst. But I'm gonna be sharing with you stuff you can do to help you propel your travel creator journey to where you want it to be in this awkward amount of time that we have. And I've broken it down into sections for an awkward amount of time. So we have like 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes to give you some quality relatable Realistic tips of things you can do in that amount of time that feel productive.

Laura Haley: Okay, let's start with 30 minutes 30 minutes Always surprises me. It's a little sneaky one because you can get more done if you are intentional so So, the first thing you can do, [00:01:00] and I want you to also save this, save this episode to come back to during a time when you're having one of these awkward times, so you can get something done to help you reach your goals and then you can go to your thing and feel a little bit better that you didn't just like scroll on your phone for the last 30 minutes.

Laura Haley: Okay, so the first thing we're going to do with our awkward 30 minutes of time is to analyze. What the heck is going on in the travel creator space? Are there any new trends? You might know how I feel about trends. I'm more of an evergreen content girly But if it's something that is very applicable go for it.

Laura Haley: So I would Open up your little device. Be careful. Don't fall into like the scroll hole. Okay, and go to two creators. Pick two that come to mind immediately. Don't think too hard about your niche in the travel space and see what they're sharing about. Are they sharing anything trendy? Have you been noticing a lot of trends?

Laura Haley: Cool. Write it down Go to your content organization board in Asana that we created in the second episode of this entire show Go drop those [00:02:00] ideas in there Amazing now take three more minutes Just scroll through the rest of their content and think critically, don't just consume, be a creator. Think about what they're sharing, and if there's anything there that is applicable to your niche as well, that you could also share about.

Laura Haley: Amazing. Okay, you've done it. That was the first. task. You could literally spend 30 more minutes doing that. You can also now reflect on anything that's been going on in your life lately. Have you been traveling anywhere? Did some crazy travel incident, as they tend to do, just occur? Or any crazy story you just learned that you really want to share about but you just can't wrap your head around yet?

Laura Haley: This is your time. Write down that story. I like doing pen and paper like bullet points. Okay, like what's the main lesson here that I learned from this experience? How can I share that in a piece of content that you know gets to one of my goals as educational entertainment or is it going to help people learn more about me?

Laura Haley: The next [00:03:00] thing you could do is look at the content you've already created on another platform. Meaning, okay, I might go back and look at my podcast transcripts and be like, Ooh, that was a good little tidbit. That was a good little tidbit. And pull it out and figure out how I want to frame that in a different piece of content, meaning like an Instagram Reel.

Laura Haley: Now, if you don't have a podcast, think about another, maybe a YouTube video you created or just another piece of content you've already shared. And pull three bullet points out of it in a different way you can talk about that same or similar thing. Now, the next thing you can do with your 30 minutes, especially if you're feeling like in a real content creation rut and you're just like, I don't know what to do, I would Ask other travel creators.

Laura Haley: I would do a little bit of networking in these 30 minutes, okay? So I would get into some DMs and just say, hey, I've been [00:04:00] loving what you're creating, or just like, get to know people. Just don't even, don't even, well, you can ask them. You can ask them, sure, right off the bat. But I was gonna say, it's also beneficial just to befriend people for many reasons.

Laura Haley: But you can either befriend them or you can ask them and be like, I've been really loving what you're sharing. I've been feeling I'm kind of in a rut. How do you get your inspiration from? What do you think of all these awesome ideas? I really like to respect what you're doing. I think it's really cool.

Laura Haley: There you go Slide into 10 people's DMs authentically in these 30 minutes and you can use your remaining time to actually engage with their content. And again, you can take some of their pieces. Are they sharing anything trendy? Are they approaching content in a way that I want to approach it later on?

Laura Haley: And bookmark them and then rethink them later. How that piece of content they shared applied to your niche and how you can deliver to your audience better Okay This next one is a great one to do in 30 minutes and this Does or could involve a little bit of market research too is to brainstorm [00:05:00] really awesome call to actions I feel like I see different ones all the time and I I think it would be really valuable to sit down and just brain dump, just go through, look at people's content through the lens of what is the call to action, where are they placing the call to action, and then you can make a list of them and figure out how it applies to your own content.

Laura Haley: I think that is an excellent use of your 30 minutes. The last thing you can do in your 30 minutes is to take a look at your profiles. Is your profile picture freaking old? Does it need to be updated? check your bio for any typos. Yes, please. See if maybe there's something in your travel niche that has changed a little bit and you've just been like, uh, I've been meaning to update these highlights, or I've been meaning to update my bio.

Laura Haley: And you just haven't done it, do it right now. And then also make sure that like, the back end stuff, so like, go into your settings and make sure that like, your email is correct, your contact information is all correct, all of your links are working in your link in bio or whatever you're using, [00:06:00] just to make sure.

Laura Haley: We're all good on that front. That's another great thing to do. You can also use that time to look at creators you admire and see what's going on in their bio And see if there's anything you want to update for yours Okay, welcome to the 60 minute section. So if you have an awkward 60 minutes between things, as we often do, here is some stuff you can do.

Laura Haley: One is to analyze what's going down in your content town. So this means you're going to go into your content analytics and find some of the pieces that are top performers. And then we're gonna break it down. Like, why? First, it's just good to know. It's just good to know what content is doing well for your audience because you can learn so much from that.

Laura Haley: You can also compare. Let's say I post about tips for newsletters in January and I posted similarly different tips for newsletters in February and I can look at the performance of those two pieces on a similar topic, but in [00:07:00] different months Like how did those do?

Laura Haley: Was it genuinely were the tips better? Was it delivered better? Like what made one of those pieces do better than the other? Was it the way I delivered it? Was it the tips? Why? So, kind of put in on your little engineering hat here to dive into what the heck do people want to see from me?

Laura Haley: What am I giving them? What do they like about it? What do they hate? This will also help you see patterns, okay, and commonalities among your successful posts so you can replicate them for future ones as well. In your 60 minutes, you can also take this time to respond to comments and direct messages.

Laura Haley: Sometimes, if you're getting like an influx of comments, questions, DMs, it's so easy for them to pile up, and it's like, honestly, I would rather take the time to sit down and just Answer everybody in one go rather than feeling like it's a like a text message that you have to like answer immediately That's at least how I approach doing it you can also see if there's any questions people are repeatedly asking you in there and make like an faq sheet from that So that you can use those [00:08:00] questions to create further pieces of content And if you're not the type of person who is engaging with your audience every day This is a good time right now to get into the habit of doing that.

Laura Haley: I honestly would set a 10 minute timer I don't think you need 60 minutes to do that But you could use the rest of your time to critically look at 30 minute tips You could look at what your admirable peers are doing and See if there's anything that you can also replicate but in a better way that applies to your niche Another thing you can do in your 60 minutes is to make a list make a list of all the content things or creator things that are going on in your brain that just feels so overwhelming to do right now and write them all down because then you can kind of categorize them.

Laura Haley: Okay, are the things that I need to do, are they for my website? Are they for social media? Are they for my marketing purposes? Are they for Working with [00:09:00] brands and client purposes so you can kind of just brain dump and then categorize What the heck do I need to do to feel successful and then you can try and figure out Where can I fit those to do into my upcoming calendar for this week?

Laura Haley: I find that that's really helpful is to write down. What do I need to accomplish this week to keep things afloat? And where can I fit in that stuff? That's also going to help me get to the next phase. Okay, in our 90 minute awkward time frame, here are some things you can do. You can take to the internet to learn more about questions people are asking in your niche.

Laura Haley: Okay. You can also do that, use that time to do keyword research. Don't freak out about keyword research. is like, what? One of my biggest fears because it's so overwhelming and unknown. What I mean by that is just ask the internet what people are asking about your niche. What are the keywords that are coming up there?

Laura Haley: don't like reading too much into keywords Okay, definitely seo is important, but i'm saying you don't have to be an expert to at least try it If you have a [00:10:00] website Use this 90 minutes to take a little peruse through it. I'm not saying you're going to be able to edit everything on your website in the next 90 minutes, but I would first start by taking a critical look at, okay, what are things that I've been meaning to change for a while?

Laura Haley: One, if they're quick fixes I can do in 10 minutes, awesome, I'm going to write them down right now, and then I'm going to knock them out in this 90 minutes right now. If they're bigger structural things, just make note of them if you haven't already, and once again, use this time to schedule. another time to make those changes.

Laura Haley: You can be looking for visual changes. Okay, like, I hate this photo now. Or content changes, like, all right, this is not really how I talk about myself anymore. How can we update that? And if you don't have a website, use this time to create one. And if you don't have a newsletter, use this time to create one.

Laura Haley: I have a podcast episode dedicated to how you can create a newsletter in a single afternoon and send it tomorrow. And if you are a creator who feels as though you're [00:11:00] in a place to start reaching out to brands and collaborating with them, this is your time right now to do research on those brands. To figure out, are they really the brand I want to work with?

Laura Haley: Do they really align with my goals? And I know creators say this all the time. I'm only going to work with people who align with my goals, but like Do the research to make sure that's really true. Okay, because it's really awkward if you're a sustainable travel creator and then you promote a product who does not have sustainable values.

Laura Haley: That's awkward. Don't let that happen. Don't let that happen to you. Okay. But this is the time where you can fine tune your pitch that you send out. You can also, maybe you have a list of brands you want to work with. Okay, go actually look at their freaking content and website and figure out how you can contribute to that instead of being like, I want to work with you.

Laura Haley: Anyway, that's like a whole nother topic, like pitching strategy, which we can probably get into in another episode, but in essence. Look at the picture sending Research businesses and brands you [00:12:00] want to work with. Take this time to personalize your pitch. Take this time to also follow up with any leads.

Laura Haley: Remember the sale is in the follow up. So go to your email inbox, start sending those replies. Don't overthink it. This is also a time to update a database of leads, okay? Where are they in the lead phase? Have I lost them? Are we on to the next thing? That is a good use of time in these 90 minutes. Now, if you have 10 minutes or less, this is what I do.

Laura Haley: I open the social media platform I'm most active on and I engage with my community. Meaning, I find my peers or other travel creators or folks I want to help on the internet and I just engage with their content in a genuine manner. I'm not asking them for anything. I'm just commenting. In my own personal way like oh my gosh, this place is so cool.

Laura Haley: Whatever I genuinely think about their content I'm engaging with it That is what I do when I have like a really awkward like maybe like five minutes if i'm like in a waiting room or something [00:13:00] Anyway, I hope these tips were helpful for you so that you can feel like you can get something done To help propel you to where you want to be in these awkward amounts of time and let me know Come to me on instagram and @travelcontentwriting and let me know What tips you loved and what you often do to try and fill these awkward spots.

Laura Haley: Okay. Happy creating. I will see you next wee