ProBlogger: Top Three Takeaways from Finding Readers Week: What Can You Do Today to Create Community?

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Top Three Takeaways from Finding Readers Week: What Can You Do Today to Create Community? Posted: 20 May 2014 09:06 AM PDT   In the first week of May, you heard from several bloggers with unique perspectives on how they grew their readership into a force to be reckoned with. It was the fourth Theme Week we’ve held here on ProBlogger this year, and it was an interesting one. We had discussions about introducing forums, how to get people to read your personal blog, how to drive traffic to a startup blog, and how to create a beautiful blog that people can’t help but share with their friends. And while everyone had different advice, they all agreed on these three tips: Top Three Takeaways from Finding Readers Week 1. Relationships The universal sentiment was honour your reader. Give them great content and be approachable. DJ from SteamFeed says to “nurture them”. Talk to real people in real ways. Mrs Woog agrees, saying she writes like she speaks, and that resonates with her readers. She likes to interact with her readers both on the blog and on her Facebook page. She says that she’ll start the conversations, and watch them develop – even seeing readers chat with each other. She advises being available to respond to your readers, and carve out time especially to do so. Corinne took interacting with her readers to a whole new level when she shared her number-one tip for finding readers – to comment on other people’s blogs. She dedicated hours to doing this, and in turn, was rewarded with a highly-engaged readership who have a real sense of community. She then took it one step further and added forums for her readers to interact. In addition to having great content delivered on a great platform that inspires sharing, Dustin recommends “writing for real people”, and said having a voice that people can relate to is crucial in growing your readership. He also advises having a reader profile so you know to whom you are talking. 2. Consistency Whether it’s honing your voice and practising your writing often like Mrs Woog, or posting consistently so your readers know what to expect, like DJ, keeping a rhythm was important across the board. Be reliable. Be dependable. Make blogging and writing a priority. Keep at it. Sound the same in every post. Be recognizable everywhere. Corinne was consistent in commenting on others’ blogs, and that was a successful strategy. Dustin was consistent with the visual experience his readers would receive every time they clicked over to his site. When readers know what to expect (and they know they’ll get an honest, authentic voice), they’ll come back for more. 3. Be Where Your Readers Are It can be an uphill battle throwing your blog to the internet and hoping it gets seen. A strategy that works better is to hang out online in the places your readers hang out. Or where your potential readers hang out. For some of you, that might be Instagram. For a majority, it will be Facebook. Your cohort might be the people who keep G+ rolling. Wherever they are, that’s where you can be. Mrs Woog is active on Facebook, using it as a tool to converse with her readership as well as a place to promote her new posts. DJ recommends syndicating your blog to other sites, and marketing it well. Corinne thinks Twitter is pretty useless for her blog, so went elsewhere for readers. And Dustin believes the right social media channels make all the difference. He advises to ignore the people saying you should be on all of them, and instead focus on cultivating a couple that really drive results. Above all, though, it has to be a platform you enjoy using. I know I learned a few new things from such different perspectives – did something resonate with you, too? Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Top Three Takeaways from Finding Readers Week: What Can You Do Today to Create Community?

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Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

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Wny Affiliates Make Best Entrepreneurs Posted: 20 May 2014 06:31 AM PDT If you’re reading this, statistically speaking… you probably weren’t very good at school weren’t necessarily the cool kid were somewhat of a dork / nerd have the business ambition & energy of a NYC homeless crackhead looking for quick fix Ok, that was a bad analogy. Couldn’t think of a good one, but you get the point. If you are reading this blog, i’m sure your story is somewhat similar to Jeremy’s. In fact, that’s why I was drawn to this blog (and even guest posting here) because his story is very similar to mine. Affiliates get BAD rep – in fact, I’ve heard on blogs that affiliates are the bottom of the marketing pole. The SCUMS of internet marketing that give internet marketing a bad name. Totally understandable. Often affiliates are nameless faceless SUB-IDs of some shady networks promoting even shadier offers and sometimes downright illegal products that no one with 1/2 a souls would promote to their friends or family. If you are one of those – hey, why not use that skill to advance humanity? I promise that you are NOT gonna die with all that cash. If you are one, and are completely disgusted by the dark side of affiliate marketing and do not engage in those activities, my hats off to you. But regardless of your ethics barometer, I must say that affiliates are by far some of the best entrepreneurs I have come across. Here’s why 1) Compete in Open Playing Field Affiliates promote other people’s stuff. That’s their job.. and hence the title “affiliate”. They have no competitive advantage per se – Anyone can promote the same stuff as they do, create (and even steal) people’s landing pages, no proprietary protection that investors ofen seek, no product that can call their “own”, and anyone can buy the same traffic source.. effectively “replicating” any successful marketing campaign. But some THRIVE on that, like Charles Ngo and Malan Darras (both of whom I read routinely read). I don’t know how much money they make, but from the looks of it, they’re not starving. Some might say that not having a product that has product market fit is a disadvantage: yet when I lived in San Jose, Silicon Valley was littered with startups with failed products (and failed dreams). I’ve learned from personal failures that in business, distribution can make or break the business. If content is king, then distribution is God almighty. Despite the lack of “competitive advantage”, affiliates do well because they learn & master the art of distribution , and that’s what they get paid for. The affiliates that do well often transition to creating their own products & service, like Jeremy and his PAR Program. 2) Pivot Quickly If you have ever done any paid marketing, you know that out of 10 things you try.. one might be a winner. Often times, people who create products first (ready fire aim) fall in love with their baby, even though it’s a Frankenstein with lizard vomit all over it. When they bring the product to market and have a rude awakening that no one wants it, they often fall into self pity and depression, and often times give up because they’ve used their 1-2 year runway on creating something that no one wants, because they create a solution to a non-existing problem. Of course, affiliates are NO stranger to this. You put your hours and hours into a campaign only to be -100% for the next 3 days. The ones that persist and keep launching campaigns are the ones that wise up, learn, and profit because they know others are making it work. 3) Learn the Art of Driving & Analyzing Traffic If you started online marketing 10-15 years ago, you probably only knew about adwords and SEO. Well, since then, there has been an EXPLOSION of traffic sources that are glad to take your money, and at much cheaper rates than say, search. Since affiliate marketers have a much tighter restriction (i.e. their pay out is determined by the advertiser, where as the advertiser can pretty much charge whatever he/she feels like to the end customer), affiliates have to learn the art of “closing the sale”. Usig pre-sell landing pages, maximizing creative CTR, multi-variate testing, channel optimization, etc etc. (i.e. “growth hacking“) If you attend any entrepreneur “academy” of some sort, none of this stuff will be ever discussed? Why? I have no idea. My guess is that they’ve never done them. But affiliates live and breathe this stuff 24×7. So what’s the analogy? Online marketer is to working out as (successful super) affiliate is to Arnold on Steroids (… before he got all loose skinned) 4) Negotiate Negotiating a payout bump for an affiliate offer can mean the world of difference, especially if your campaign is spending LOTS… only to break even. Even a $1 bump can mean endless conversions for the advertiser (and yes, there are advertisers stupid enough to kill their own golden goose). You’d be surprised how many “entrepreneurs” are so damn afraid of asking for what they deserve. Well, I’m not exempt from this. That one time I was able to generate $2k from 1 blog post (a very short consulting gig), I was going to ask a lower amount because somehow, I wasn’t sure if I was charging too much. Then, I said to myself… “how stupid”… why de-value your work & service? Remember, if you deliver value, CHARGE for value. You don’t get paid what you’re worth.. you get paid what you ASK for. 5) Outsource / Leverage Some of the most successful affiliates I’ve met are completely different from the one man shop affiliate guys. They have a team – team of designers, programmers, media buyers, and even operations people. Most entrepreneurs have a mindset of “i can do it all” and become good at nothing. (Yes, I do suffer from this and are now starting let things go.. things that I’m great at, but still hate doing). There’s only 24 hours in a day, the affiliates that make the 99% of the income know that there’s no freakin’ possible way that they can do the work of 5-10 people by yourself. Entrepreneurs fall into the trap of “do it yourself” and sometimes get pigeonholed.. or miss the “market” because they don’t have the time to look up. Super affiliates seem to understand well that the only way to grow is to grow your team. Looking for an SEO service that won’t get you banned?

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