BBP 124: Break Free from Manual Tasks: Automate Your Blogging Life Jessica Dornieden
Shownotes:
In this episode of the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast, Jessica Dornieden unveils the art of automation, revealing how to transform complex processes into seamless workflows tailored to bloggers.
Learn how choosing the right tools can significantly enhance efficiency, as Jessica provides insights on popular automation software like Zapier and Make.com. She emphasizes the importance of flexibility in tool selection, encouraging bloggers to move away from beloved but limiting platforms to better optimize their operations.
About Jessica
Jessica Dornieden is an Online Business Mentor and Tech & Systems Specialist. She helps online business owners and content creators to get their work done more efficiently by using tech and systems to their advantage.
Jess has been in the online space for more than 7 years and has gone from techy Virtual Assistant to being the CMO and CTO for a multi-7-figure coaching company. Jess was one of the first Certified ConvertKit Experts and she is also a Certified NLP Practitioner. Since she struggles with ADHD she has had to find many ways to get work done without burning out.
Blog:
If you’ve ever felt bogged down by the repetitive tasks of blogging, you’re not alone. Jessica emphasizes the need to develop a strategic plan to automate your blogging processes. But first, you need to evaluate the tools you have at your disposal.
Choosing the Right Automation Tools
When considering automation, it’s crucial to understand that the effectiveness of your automation depends on your current tech stack.
For instance, if you’re writing in Notion and trying to automate with Zapier, you may run into limitations due to slow API updates. In this case, Jessica recommends make.com over Zapier as it integrates better with Notion.
On the other hand, if your blogging occurs in Google Drive, Zapier can efficiently handle your needs since it has a well-established integration with Google Docs. Always choose the automation software that aligns seamlessly with your blogging tools.
Don’t Get Stuck in Tool Loyalty
One common mistake that prevents blogging growth is a strong attachment to a specific tool. Jessica notes that some bloggers cling to tools like ConvertKit, even when better options could enhance their efficiency. She advises that if your current project management software is hard to integrate, consider switching to one that offers robust automation features.
This may require a bit of time initially (about 2 to 3 hours), but the long-term benefits of better automation can save you countless hours of manual work and unnecessary expenses.
Building Your Automated System
After determining the process and selecting the right tools, the final step is to build your automated system. Remember, the extent of your automation may be limited by the tools you choose, so don’t hesitate to make changes if it aids your blogging success.
In conclusion, automate wisely and don’t hesitate to explore new tools until you find the perfect workflow.
Tools and Resources Mentioned
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Transcript
[00:00:00].17] – Liz Stapleton
Welcome back to the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast, where we’re all about making your blogging life a whole lot easier and a lot more fun.
[00:00:13].12] – Liz Stapleton
I’m your host, Liz Stapleton, and today we’re learning from Jessica Session at the 2024 Blogger Breakthrough Summit. She’s about to become your go-to guide for turning those complex processes into smooth automated workflows. So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let’s dive into the wonderful world of automation.
[00:00:30].14] – Jessica Dornieden
We’re going to want to develop our plan for actually automating this process that you’ve written down. So you need to look at all of the options out there for building automations that accommodate as much of your process as it currently is as possible. You’re going to end up using some tools, for example, Zapier or Make.Com, which used to be called, I think, Integriumat. What you can and can’t automate is entirely dependent on your tech stack. For example, if you write all of your content in Notion and you’ve chosen Zapier to connect Notion to WordPress, for example, then you’re going to be limited in the data that you can send automatically from Notion to WordPress without having to copy and paste it. That is because Zapier is extremely slow with updating the API integrations. So if you are a heavy Notion user, then you’re not going to want to sign up for Zapier, you’re going to want to sign up for make.com because make.com has a way better integration with Notion. If you, however, do all of your blogging and you write all of your posts in your Google Drive account, then you’re perfectly fine to use Zapier because there isn’t any challenge with the integration with Google Docs because it’s been running for years and years and years and years and a gazillion people use it.
[00:02:03].22] – Jessica Dornieden
So it’s a really good integration. So depending on the tools that you use in your blogging process, you’re going to want to choose an automation software that actually works really well with those specific tools that you are using. And then once you have that picked, you want to try and automate as much of that as possible. And here’s my honest recommendation. A lot of people get stuck when it comes to growing and optimizing their business because they are married to one specific tool. They love, I don’t know, they love Convert kit as an email service provider so much that come hell or high water, they will stick with ConvertKit, even If there’s another platform out there that does what they specifically need for their blog, for their business, it does that one million times better, faster, more reliably, more efficiently, whatever, they will still stick with Convert kit and bang their head against the wall instead of just switching providers. So my best recommendation is if you’re currently handling your blogging process in a project management software that’s really hard to integrate with anything else, switch flipping project management softwares to something else because there isn’t anything that you can’t figure out.
[00:03:24].06] – Jessica Dornieden
And it is an investment of maybe two, three hours to move your existing stuff from one project management software to another. But that allows you to access better quality automations. And therefore, it is time you’re not spending on manually doing things or paying a virtual assistant to do instead of you. So not switching tools a lot of times can cost you a lot of money, and it’s money you’re basically throwing right out the window, and you could be investing that into other things. And then the last step, once we know what exactly the process is, we know which tools we can and can’t use to automate it, the next step is to actually build out your system. And as I said, sometimes the system that you can build is limited by your tools, and you should always consider changing it because it will help you in the long term to just turn this into a more successful venture.
[00:04:20].24] – Liz Stapleton
All right, there you have it. Automate wisely. Don’t get too attached to your tools, and keep experimenting until you find the perfect workflow. Thanks for joining me today on the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast. Keep those questions and comments coming, and let’s make blogging as effortless as sipping a mojito on a sunny beach. Until next time, keep blogging, keep growing, and most importantly, keep having fun.
