From the Beyond Bylines Team: Our 2017 Blogging Resolutions

In 2016, the Beyond Bylines team did our best to help you better your writing. We gave you tools and tips.

Most recently, it was ways to captivate audience with Instagram Stories.

Some of the takeaways there: Do a giveaway, host a poll or quiz, and share Q&As.

You can find much more on the blog, whether it’s upping your writing game to finding resources to assist in productivity.

Here are some of the highlights from 2016:

• How to edit yourself
• How to make your blog stand out
• Design and productivity tools for bloggers and content creators
• Tools for creating simple GIFs to enhance storytelling
• Using Facebook to improve your reporter resume

As in past years, our writers took a moment to reflect on their blogging and where they’d like to take it in 2017.

Christine Cube, senior audience relations manager
@BeyondBylines, @cpcube | Blog: Beyond Bylines

Every year, I always say I want to write stronger stories. You know, the kind that really make a difference and impact our readers’ lives. I’d like to think I accomplished that this year, and I’m looking forward to more of the same in 2017. Honestly, what’s helped my writing immensely is working with the Beyond Bylines team and editing their fine work. You learn so much from reading others. This year especially, I learned so much by editing them.

Anna Jasinski, audience relations manager 
@BeyondBylines, @annamjasinski | Blog: Beyond Bylines, Contributor to Beyond PR

Managing a blog for a brand can be difficult. The day-to-day gets busy, and so do your writers. At the end of this year, I worked on pulling together a strong group to expand our writing team. My hope in the new year is to actively work with these awesome folks to get ahead when it comes to building out our editorial calendar. This means finding a better forum for all of us to discuss ideas and assign out posts. As far as working on me, my goal is to write at least a post a week — even if just for improving my own writing.

Tabresha Langham, customer content specialist
@PRNmedia, @TabreshaL | Column: Media Insider on Beyond Bylines

I’m excited to continue the Media Insider weekly posts in the new year. I tend to focus much of my writing on the landscape social media has in the media industry, so continuing this is definitely a part of my plan. I hope to discover and share more stories about how media companies are utilizing technology to innovate new and interesting ways to engage and share news with younger audiences.

Jessica Alas, multicultural audience director
@PRNmltcult, @alasjessica | Blog: Beyond Bylines

I really liked María Laria’s quick tips on how to run your own TV talk show. I think our audience would benefit from advice like that. That said, I would love to contribute to a regular “pro tips” section on our blog where we interview seasoned journalists for their expert how-tos.

Brett Savage-Simon, audience relations director
@savsimon | Blog: Beyond Bylines

I can be a bit of a procrastinator and wait until the last minute to get my writing done. Somehow, I perform better under pressure, or at least that’s what I tell myself. Next year, I hope to change that and start writing my posts in advance. I also hope to jumpstart my own personal blog that I started a few years ago. I learned a lot of great tips from a recent Poynter webinar entitled, “Making Your Side Hustle Work for Your Journalism Career.” My goal is to write at least one post a week until I have three in the can ready to go.

Julia Rabin, media researcher
Blog: Contributor to Beyond Bylines and Cision’s Media Updates and Behind the Headlines

I just joined the blogging team toward the end of this past year, so most of my goals for 2017 revolve around getting more involved and active on the blog! This upcoming year I hope to read more, get informed, improve my writing skills, and continue thinking critically about the environment we’re writing in. I hope to come up with some fresh content and help readers think critically about the world around them and the content they put into it.

Subscribe to Beyond Bylines to get media trends, journalist interviews, blogger profiles, and more sent right to your inbox.

Christine Cube is a senior audience relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. Check out her latest on Beyond Bylines or follow her at @cpcube.