Content Muse 101 – How to Quote to Inspire
A content muse is someone who manages to inspire others by inventively sharing other people’s content!
I’ve already used the content muse approach as a prime example of advanced content curation techniques.
You don’t have to be a gifted writer! It’s enough to be an intriguing content curator to be inspiring.
It also benefits yourself. You gain popularity quite quickly by spreading the word about others.
This approach is much more rewarding that mere self-promotion most business users mistakenly practice.
How to write unique content
Of course writing unique content also helps a lot.
How exactly can you achieve it? When writing don’t shy way from the
- ridiculous
- outrageous
- profane
When writing or curating make a difference where there is usually none to discern amidst a vast ocean of sameness.
One of the greatest content muse techniques is quoting the most relevant or intriguing text passages from articles.
It reminds me of my best days as a blogger.
Back in the days when I was inspired and enthusiastic all the time.
I’ve lost some steam along the years. Heck, I’m blogging for 20+ years by now!
How to quote to inspire
How do quotes inspire? They inspire in manifold ways. Most importantly they inspire to take action.
An intriguing quote from a post is often far better to make your followers read the posts you shared that the original headline.
Tweets that merely take the headline and share it look automated and can’t get distinguished from similar tweets by other people.
Just try X/Twitter search or X-Pro (formerly TweetDeck) search to look up some popular posts.
X.com/Twitter.com will show the popular updates above all the others.
Why quote at all?
Most users prefer social media updates with quotes! How do we know?
Rand Fishkin of Moz (and now SparkToro) even tested it to find out that quotes inside get the highest CTR compared to headlines etc.
You can also look up a person’s X/Twitter handle and find out what s/he says!
That way you also see who else is tweeting about that user. I compared my own results with a real content muse.
Most of the mentions of my own account name or handle were my own updates.
A real content muse in contrast has a whole list of tweets by other people mentioning him.
They aren’t just simple retweets and such. It was real engagement by real people.
- You could are that it’s my own fault because I’m a shameless self-promoter.
- You could argue that nobody knows me yet.
- You could say that I tweet at the wrong times or about the wrong topics.
None of these explanation are true here. I have taken all of them into account.
I have been able to watch the advanced content muse quoting techniques first hand when my blog readers shared my posts.
Examples of spot on quotes
Just take a look at the screen shot below with three typical quotes by my favorite content muse Anthony:
What do we see above? You can share an intriguing quote from the post!
Try to find a sentence that inspires or incites action.
In the first example it’s an inspirational quote. They are probably the most significant sentences from my whole articles.
The other two are “call to action” like sentences focusing very much on the verb. It’s “socialize” in the second example and subscribe in the third one.
Look at the format. You can also use additional characters to highlight a quote.
On a side note: did you notice the headlines of these postings? They weren’t bad either.
The first example lacks one thing though the answer to “what’s in it for me”.
Provide it putting in brackets because I missed the opportunity to mention it directly in the sentence: [web popularity].
In the second example Identify the crucial aspect of getting more clients these days.
It’s the socializing. I even wrote a post on that a few months later.
In the last example you probably still wonder why to subscribe to the blogs listed n my post.
The answer is: fresh voices, SEO and similar disciplines.
He could have stopped at “subscribe to these blogs” to mimic a simple call to action but he left the user a choice.
You may want and the he offered the reasons why. Everything happened in a very short sentence.
Don’t miss the fact that you have to use quotation marks. You may be tempted to omit them but they are very important.
They show that not only you are speaking and voicing your opinion but that you are supporting and expressing someone else’s opinion.
How to find quotable snippets
Now what? How do you find these quotes? I’m afraid you have to read the whole posts at first.
Don’t just scan superficially like most people including me do it.
Read the entire article first and then condense its meaning to one sentence and find it in the text itself. Otherwise come up with a “summary”.
Anthony does this sometimes as well in cases when I don’t provide him with the clue in the post itself.
I implemented an inline on demand social media sharing tool on my blog in order to replace the standard buttons
Now you only need to select a text passage with your mouse on my blog to be able to quote and share it on social media.
Often my block-quoted items are already prepared for such a treatment both by length and their standalone message.
I know that not everybody can become a content muse over night so don’t fret.
You will have to learn by trial and error. Engage a lot and quote a lot to find your way.
Tad – I really appreciate your analysis .. really .. I do try very much to create value with social media and community engagement. You are one of the first people I began following and learning from – you actually want to engage, teach, and learn.
Sometimes, I get annoyed at the assumed eye rolls regarding supporting relationships and social engagement, butwe must socialize. Otherwise, we’d be like the dude in Metallica’s ONE (for readers, the song is about a guy who can’t communicate with the outside world but still alive and wants to die). that would be really sad.
with social media.. you CAN COMMUNICATE WITH ANYONE IN THE WORLD AT ANY TIME.. that’s incredible.. and has incredible implications for marketing.. but it’s a matter of what you’re doing with it.
You’re a man into health and bettering – if we hardly train for a sport or physical activity, we’ll perform in direct relation to the preparation more or less, right? Do work, people – and don’t be afraid to do it with passion. you just may enjoy better that way.
Tad, dude, don’t know exactly what to say. This kind of stuff makes me work harder, so definitely a thank you for a kick in the ass is in order. your friend, Anthony
other thing i wanted to add about ‘relations’ (that sounds so stupid) ‘being a person’ regards comfort and empathy.
not getting all Carl Rogers-ish, but it’s cool to know someone else thinks something is thought-provoking, or funny, or controversial, or snarky… it’s good to share something else outside of oneself and have someone else identify with that thing and with YOU identifying with that thing.. it’s comforting, whether someone disagrees or not, you’re interacting and building ..
Anthony: No man is an island. What more can I say. You prove it.
I approve this message.
Nice analysis, Tad. I recall the ease of landing on the digg front page with the right incendiary or humorous quote.