Last March Kristi at The Story Siren posted “My Top Ten Marketing Tips for Bloggers”. Generally speaking, Kristi reviews YA which I’m not into but I follow her because she concisely summarizes the things I learn at all of the Social Media Marketing events I attend (for my other job).
In her post Kristi gave us some great marketing tips that we each need to apply to our blogs – and, well, our lives, as well. Keep in mind that as much as we market our blogs we market ourselves more. Kristi, may say that she has no marketing knowledge but her words reflect what I hear consistently at conferences and from big-name bloggers and marketing professionals.
Here are a few of her tips:
(I’ve only given you a few so that you’ll be sure to hop on over and check out more in her original post.)
In this she is SO right. It’s called branding in the business world and you need to create a brand for yourself. This means that you need to utilize your logo, your social media accounts, your looks, the colors of your blog, your blog name to create your imagine or brand
It really does matter what everyone else is doing. You need to keep up and talk about things that are important to those around you – the ones you admire and the ones you snub. You need to
Exactly! Don’t forget that you have an audience and they’re not stupid! If you try to just ‘throw something together’ your readers will know. They’ll see that you don’t really care about the quality of your posts and stop checking out what you have to say. While it is true that you really only want readers who want to ‘listen’ to you, you need to remember that they follow you for a reason – and it’s not just because you’re there. Blog for a reason – whether it’s books, rants, or tips – and stick to that. It’s okay to change it up occasionally but keep the integrity of your brand.
You cannot expect to just gain followers. You first have to follow. You have to show others that you’re interesting and that you’re willing to put in the work. I once heard Jennifer Abernathy say that Twitter is like a cocktail party and that’s when Twitter’s use finally clicked for me. Find your use for social media and USE it!
Thank you to The Story Siren 2007-2010
I don't have a marketing plan, other than just showing up and blogging.
I think one thing I want to look into is monetizing a little. Maybe selling ad space.
Awesome advice. I love it. Thanks for sharing it.