Some tips on marketing your work online
There's a million and one ways to market your written work online
. Often, the lack of understanding is greater than the lack of ability (if that makes sense).
Apart from such great services as articlesbase, which, by the way, is indeed a great service, there are other ways to get attention to your stuff. It's worth arguing whether your content is worth drawing attention to, but then it also needs to be remembered that one man's stale bread is another man's golden tooth.
So, if you think you've got the right type of content to draw attention to, then let's look at specific ways you can do so.
I think, at the outset, let's get the following straight: If you market green widgets to blue widget seekers, then your sales will probably not reflect how important your product really is. If you market to the relevant crowd, then you're already on the right path. Keep to that path, and apply the same principle in finding your customers online.
Below is a list of websites where you can, with the proper implementation (and the right attitude), get your stuff in front of eyeballs. Just as a brick and mortar business needs feet, your online business needs eyes. Let's go find them!
Some starting-out tips
I like to stay on top of things when I attempt to market something. Some basic rules help me to stick to the programme and stay on course. Of course, these may or may not work for you. I'll share them anyway:
The large is made of many of the small, or something like that. What I try to remember is that, in marketing, optimisation is everything. Just as a website is made up of parts which all need to be optimised and in place, and need to relate to each other (title to meta, meta to heading, heading to text, etc.), so a marketing campaign should be too. Make sure you've got the micro down, so the macro looks good :-)
Track what you do. However small a move you make, track it. Track it all. Track flipping everything. Don't be shy to throw Google's Analytics into anything and everything you possibly can.
Use one central account to work from. This just makes it so much easier. It sounds silly, but for me, working from an assigned Google account helps me stay focused. Besides, with all their free services, it's hard to not see the benefit of using the big Google (you obviously see that I'm a fan of this company).
It's all hard work. Don't believe the "gurus" who say it's easy. They have to work hard to try and prove to you that it's not hard work. Where's the logic in that?
Facebook
Facebook offers a lot more than simply uploading pictures of your dog eating dog pellets. Yes, it's true! I promise! You don't have to be content with a bland blue worthless Facebook with updates about babies throwing up or dogs catching a Frisbee. You can harness the power of this fantastic social platform to get your products viewed. Remember, it's all about the eyeballs.
How to use Facebook for marketing
Create a page
Create a Facebook page for your product or business. This certainly is not rocket science, and affords you the chance to create a central area on Facebook for what you have to offer. A key point to remember is to put as much information about your company on the page as possible. Place your phone number, fax number, email address, web address, hair colour, colour of your eyes, everything, on there. OK, maybe not your eye and hair colour, but pretty much everything else.
There's more information about the creation of Facebook pages here:
AllFacebook Facebook Marketing Programme.
Don't annoy people on Facebook with constant updates if it's not necessary. Also, if you can take a different approach to marketing, try it. For instance, if you're selling spoons, why not have a weekly spoonerism? Think on the outer edges of the box.
Make sure your page settings are correct. The last thing you want is for people to use your page to paste their spam on. Unless your company sells spam, try to keep the page clean.
Link your Facebook page to your Twitter account (which we'll look at next). To do this, simply go to
www.facebook.com/twitter/ and select your options there. Before you connect the account, remember that you first need a Twitter account. ;-)
Twitter
Twitter is often the misunderstood little brother of Facebook. I regularly come across users claiming that they consider Twitter to be useless, or dumb, or stupid. The poor little bird endures so much scorn, it's a wonder it's still alive!
Twitter is what you make of it, to be honest. If you use Twitter to tell the world you're using the toilet (or bathroom, or whatever is most politically correct to you), then don't be surprised if people are not interested in what you have to say.
Many anti-Twitter advocates think of Twitter as a little chick; it makes a lot of noise. That could be your experience if you don't know how to use it. As with Facebook, don't over-use the service to try and get attention to your work. This simply does not work. You need to be subtle about these things. There's another word for it: yoomin. Be yoomin. If you would like to get people to notice your stuff, how about noticing their stuff? How about sharing your Twitter friends' links on Twitter? Show them some lurv. May haps, in a little while, someone will do the same for you.
And please please please stay away from those automatic Twitter follow user list builder thingies. It's just not human. You may have a Twitter follower count of tens of thousands, but they're all doing exactly the same as you: not listening.
Squidoo
Squidoo is one sweet spot to market your articles. You create an account, and start creating what's called lenses. It's fantastic! Taking a look at some of the top lenses on the site, you'll see that a lot of care is taken to create masterpieces (much like on articlesbase.com). You can also cross-promote your lenses.
As with any other service, try to interact a little with the other users. Be open to communication.
Profilactic
Profilactic claims they are helping you to "prevent an online identity crisis", and it works. You can add all your services to Profilactic, thus consolidating everything under one roof. You can add your Twitter account, Facebook account, Friendfeed, Tumblr, flipping anything! Very nice service.
Email
Email's not dead. I have no idea why some people think it is, and I have no reason to believe it's gonna die soon. I may be wrong, but for now, it's alive and kicking. Email marketing's a good thing, if done correctly. Don't spam people. That's the golden rule with email. Never spam. It is a disgusting habit. However, if your email campaign is permission-based, then you're good to go.
Making your email permission-based is easy. You simply add a box of some sort on your site (if you have one) where users can subscribe to your newsletter. Make sure, however, that you give them the option of being able to unsubscribe, else it becomes spam.
Some other important points
How important is spelling, grammar, language?
Very important. Look, no one is expecting you to write like Stephen King, but Microsoft's Word, or Sun's Open Office offers users spell checking. Use it. Also, after you've written an article, let it simmer down a bit. Don't start dishing the moment it comes out of the oven. Place it over on the window-sill, and let it cool down. Then, check through it to make sure you're happy with it. Maybe get a neighbour to taste test it. THEN serve it. You'll be surprised at how many mistakes you miss if you don't scan through your work enough.
If you cannot write, or you want your article to appear in another language, then make use of a
good language service. This'll ensure you get quality work. You still get the honours for the idea. It's just that someone else now buffs it up a little. Just taking off the edges a bit.
Etiquette
Don't be rude. OK? It's just not nice. It's unnecessary. It doesn't work in the long run. Just, don't be rude. Please?
Some tips on marketing your work online
By: Giovanni Fiore
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