Guest post by Stefan Debois, the founder and CEO of Survey Anyplace, an online software tool to create engaging surveys, quizzes and assessments. Besides kitesurfing, Stefan is passionate about the use of technology to build professional relationships with people, at scale. Connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn 📩

As the year is drawing to a close, it’s time to rethink your content marketing strategy for next year. 

What worked? What didn’t? What can we do better in 2020? 

We get it, you want to get your family, friends, and maybe even coworkers the best (and most affordable) gifts for the holidays, but you don’t have the time to spend hours combing through the best deals! Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, let’s just say the internet can get a bit overwhelming. You want those savings served to you on a silver platter, and I am here to tell you that this year, we’re doing exactly that. Whether you’re into the latest tech gadgets, the trendiest new clothing, or just more of a gift card person - we got you. Check out these shopping sites running Disqus that definitely deserve their own folder on your bookmarks bar! 

Guest post by Jon Hawkins, the Chief Marketing Officer at Customer.io. Before joining Customer.io, Jon was at Time Inc. as the VP of Growth working on brands such as People, Time, Fortune, and Entertainment Weekly. Jon’s more than 15 years of experience in the digital media industry have given him unique insights into how speed and the ability to pivot are critical to remain relevant and successful.

Welcome back to Volume 5 of our What We’re Reading blog post series! This series aims to share our favorite articles, posts, and reports, relevant to the growing world of digital publishing, with our publishers, readers, and commenters. If you haven’t done so already, you can check out our last post in the series here. As always, we love to hear your opinions about these articles and others that you are reading. So, be sure to share your thoughts with us below in the comments! 

We’ve all experienced it at one point or another-- whether that was finishing your Creative Writing midterm paper back in college, or writing your next article for your blog or company’s website…writer’s block finds us all at some point. It’s just part of the job! 

Before we jump into some of the common reasons for writer’s block and how to overcome them, I want to quickly share a few ways to not overcome writer’s block, commonly mistaken for solutions. You do not overcome writer’s block by avoiding writing until you feel “inspired” or by watching TV (or really any form of procrastination). You won’t beat the block by wallowing in self-pity, either. At the end of the day, there is always one fail-proof way to overcome writer’s block, and it is one that you already know. It’s just the answer that you’ve been avoiding, the one you don’t want to hear: The key to beating writer’s block is by writing. 

If you’re anything like me, you may be wondering… what the heck is TikTok, anyway? You’ve probably seen their branded content syndicated to a number of social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and maybe not even given it a second thought, but this quickly growing app is not one to ignore. It may seem like only teens are using this new, popular social channel, but it’s important to understand how TikTok can work for digital publishers too! We want to jump right into how TikTok can help publishers increase engagement and reach, but if you’re interested in learning more about the background and history of the platform, check out some great information here. To start, let’s dive into the offering of this trendy new platform. 

This week we are trick-or-treating you to some seasonal fun on our Instagram page! In the spirit of Halloween, we challenge you to head over to our Instagram (@Disqus) and comment on your favorite spooky movie to watch and tag your favorite movie buddy! We’ve partnered with some of our favorite Disqus entertainment publishers to create a prize box worth gasping over! 😱 We cannot wait to hear all of your fa-boo-lous scary movie choices. This contest will run from Monday, October 21st to Friday, October 25th at 5 pm PST. After that, we will announce our winner and mail out the grand prize! So, without further ado, here are the rules: Comment your favorite scary movie and tag a movie buddy for one entry. 

With the holidays just around the corner, you may be planning your trip home to see your family or maybe even a tropical getaway to escape the cold winter. While planning travel can be overwhelming (especially on a budget), we wanted to highlight some of our favorite travel sites to help you plan the smoothest - and hopefully most affordable trip possible! So, because time is money 🤑 let’s jump right in with some of our favorite travel sites to check out: 

Before you decide on which digital content strategy will work best for your brand and goals, it’s important to know as much as you can about your audience. Without doing the research and analyzing who your readers are, you can’t even begin to sort out important aspects of your strategy like messaging or how to retain those loyal followers. So to get started, let’s explore a few ways that you can begin to better understand your audience: 

Here at Disqus, we strive to make it easy for readers to engage with content or communities in a variety of ways. Voting on comments can work to increase engagement with your fellow commenters without adding an actual comment, making it easy for readers to interact with content with just a click. Previously, we hid how many downvotes a comment received and only displayed the total upvotes, but we believe that liking and disliking something is a big part of how we engage with content and communicate with each other. Our goal is to create more spaces for people with different opinions to have more constructive interactions. For that reason, (and after receiving some great feedback from our awesome Disqus community!) we decided to bring back displaying downvotes.