Marc's Blog

Content Writing and Marketing Services

Does The Length Of A Blog Post Matter?

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One of the big questions of blogging is whether the length of a blog post matters or not. Do longer blog posts necessarily equate to more shares and subscribers? The answer is no. That does not mean a long blog post is going to result in less shares and subscribers either.

The length of a blog post does not matter. The amount of time it takes to make your point does matter. Some blog posts are less than 50 words long because that’s how long it took for the writer to make his point. Some blog posts are over 1,000 words long because that’s how long the writer needs to make his point.

In addition to making a point, blog posts should also reinforce that point with examples or more information. “More information” can range from a few sentences to a few paragraphs. Examples can range from one example to over 10 examples.

Going back to the question, the length of a blog post does not matter. What your targeted readers get out of your blog post is what matters. If a targeted reader understands the point you are trying to make, then you did a good job.

 

Defining The Best

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#1 finger

The best people are not always the people that everyone looks up to. The best people are not the people who everyone knows for something. There can be more than one best person. Where that person is the best at is what matters.

There are many niches with specialized functions. Some niches are big while others are subniches. Millions of people are competing in some niches while thousands of people are competing in other niches. The best people are the people who are well-known in their niche for doing something incredible.

When most people think of the best person, they think that translates to the perfect person. That’s wrong in every way imaginable. The perfect people are not the ones we hear much from because every part of their business needs to be perfect before the launch. Every product needs to be perfect before the launch. Every service needs to be perfect before they are offered. In a great painting, the perfectionists notice the small yellow dot at the corner of painting that everyone else does not notice. The yellow dot may not supposed to be there, but that does not make the painting worse (unless the yellow dot is really big and noticeable. Then that’s a problem).

The best people in one niche are not the best people in another niche. Seth Godin is the best person in the marketing niche, but he is not the best person in the farming niche. The people who are the superstars of their niches only matter to the people in those niches. If someone isn’t into music, that person does not care about any of the songs or singers in that niche. Musicians and singers do have big followings, but there are some people who are not into any of that.

The size of your audience depends on other people’s opinions and how well you do in your niche. Other people’s opinions results in some niches being more popular than others. Football has a bigger following than Falconry. That does not mean Falconry is a bad sport. That just means Football has a bigger turnout during the games. It’s easy to understand how much people enjoy watching Football when you see the cost per commercial during the Super Bowl.

How well you do in your niche depends on whether or not you become the best of your niche. Becoming the best of your niche will allow you to grab most of the audience because people always look to the #1 guy or gal for advice. If you want to know how to score more free throws, would you go to the person in high school for advice, or would you go to Michael Jordan? The high school student might be easier to get to than Jordan, but if both of them were standing next to each other, and you could only choose one of them, who would you choose?

Doing well in your niche is more important than your audience size. The only way to get a bulk of the audience to listen to you is by being the best in your niche. Being the best in your niche gives you a strong voice that other people dream of having.

 

How To Build A Following From Day 1 And Get Over 1,000 Followers In The First 2 Weeks

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new twitter user

The most challenging task for anyone new to any social network is building a following from Day 1. On the first day, people are quick to look at the celebrities with over a million followers and people with over 100,000 followers saying to themselves, “This must be easy. There are over 100 million people on Twitter. If only 0.1% of the people on Twitter followed me, I would have 100,000 followers.”

The problem is that getting there is not easy. It either involves at least a year of gaining followers and building connections or spending a lot of money to buy fake followers (not recommended, people get caught).

In order to build a following from Day 1, you need to ask all of your friends out there to follow you. Some people will be able to get 20 extra followers this way while other people can get to 100 followers. Now that you have some people following you, find people in your niche and connect with them. Follow the people you talk to, and make sure those people’s following/follower numbers indicate that they are likely to follow you back. If used well, this method can easily get you 100-200 followers in a span of two weeks.

After that, use a third-party tool to get some kind of point currency for every person you follow. When I had less than 1,000 followers on Twitter, I would be on Twiends every day following other people. I would follow 100 people and end up getting 100 followers every day. These followers were not targeted, but nevertheless, some of them would interact with me.

In order to get your first 1,000 followers in 2 weeks, you would need to gain 72 followers every day. That seems like a big number for beginners, but by being active on Twiends and telling your friends to follow you on your social networks, you will be able to get your first 1,000 followers in 2 weeks. You should not rely on these tactics to get you to your first 100,000 followers or even your first 3,000 followers. However, having 1,000 followers gives you something to stand by on this big web of ours. The more you stand out, the more you are going to get noticed, and having over 1,000 followers is a great way to stand out.

Just make sure you never resolve to buying fake followers and that you interact with the followers that you have.

 

How To Get Prepared For Your Video

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Whether you are doing a YouTube video or a video for a training course, you need to be prepared for that video before you click the record button. People often miss this step, and as their videos progress, it becomes obvious that their performance was off the cuff. Speaking off the cuff in a video makes people look unprofessional. In order to be prepared for a video, follow these steps:

  1. Know what your video is going to be about. Don’t change the topic of the video while you are in the middle of recording it.
  2. Give yourself some bullet points. These bullet points are main ideas that you need to talk about in the video. Giving yourself these bullet points will allow you to talk about everything you want to cover. An off the cuff video tends to leave important information out of the video.
  3. Have these bullet points in front of you while recording. Memorizing all of the bullet points and their order will take up too much time. The easier option is to have a script in front of you while you are recording the video. Make sure that the people watching the video cannot see the script. Another thing you want to do is put the script at eye level so you are not looking up or down too many times in order to see what the script says.

Those are the steps to prepare for your video. Preparing for a video in this manner will also result in longer videos. In the beginning, many of my videos were off the cuff, but now I have created numerous videos that are not off the cuff. By taking 5-10 minutes to prepare myself for my videos, I have been able to create longer videos and talk about everything that I wanted to talk about.

Preparing does take up time, but it will ultimately save you a lot of time and retakes.

 

Why The Self Employed Need To Be On LinkedIn

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linkedin connections

For a very long time, I saw LinkedIn as a way for people without jobs to connect with others in an attempt to get a job. I ultimately ignored LinkedIn because I was not in search for a job. My goal was and still is to be self-employed so I can set my own hours and have a vacation anytime I would like.

However, I soon learned that LinkedIn is more than a place for hopefuls to get the job they want. LinkedIn, like all social networks, is a place where you can connect with other people in your niche. Although there are job offers on LinkedIn, it is like any other social network where connections can lead to more subscribers and sales. Days after I decided to give LinkedIn a try, someone contacted me on LinkedIn saying they bought my book, How To Be Successful On Twitter. Sure enough, I saw another sale for my book. I am not aware of whether or not that person found me on another social network before they found me on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn has allowed me to interact with the people in my niche.

Another great reason to use LinkedIn is that you can connect specific people in your niche who live in specific parts of the world. I can follow bloggers and social media experts who live in New York. I can follow other people in New York who would help my gain more exposure. There are people who I would have never connected with if it hadn’t been for LinkedIn.

There are people who see LinkedIn as a social network exclusively for job hunters and companies looking for applicants. However, LinkedIn is something more than that. LinkedIn allows you to connect with other people, and finding them is made easy with LinkedIn’s search engine. If you aren’t already, give LinkedIn a try just like I did and see what it can do for you.

 

One Simple Tip To Come Up With More Things To Write About

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One of the problems many bloggers face is writer’s block. I have talked about combatting writer’s block before, but I recently stumbled across a simple way to come up with more things to write about.

A big mistake a lot of bloggers make is to simply think of an idea, and start writing about that idea as soon as they think about it. For the first time ever, I was able to write and schedule 10 blog posts on the same day. I did not do this by thinking of an idea and writing about it as soon as possible.

What I did instead was think of an idea, write the title for that blog post, and then tried to think of another idea. I ended up thinking of 10 different ideas for blog posts. Instead of rushing into writing one of my blog posts, I thought of 10 different ideas first. Then, I wrote all 10 of those blog posts in 1 day.

In order to think of more things to write about, you can’t simply think of one idea and write about it. You need to think of multiple ideas first and then write about those ideas one at a time. By following this method, you will be able to find more things to write about so you have less encounters with writer’s block.