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Exposure Leads To Profit…Not The Other Way Around

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There are a lot of marathons, but there aren’t many sprints. Making a profit is a marathon that involves getting enough exposure. The exposure leads to the profit, but too many people just want the profit right away.

The profit does not lead to the exposure. There will be some points where you will have to spend money in order to get the exposure. Getting the exposure will lead to more sales which in turn will lead to a bigger profit.

Don’t focus on finding the profit. Focus on finding the exposure that will lead to a profit.

 

How To Come Up With A Successful Social Media Strategy

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Being a power user on social media isn’t easy. It won’t be a walk in the park, but becoming a power user on social media is possible. The only way to become a power user on social media is by creating and implementing your own social media strategy. There are many components that go into the right social media strategy. Some are necessary components, others are optional, and since this is your social media strategy, you have the option to add more components to your strategy at any time.

The first component to a successful social media strategy is to decide which social network(s) you are going to use. You don’t want to be all over the place on social media because you won’t be able to focus a lot of time and effort on a social network. The best social media strategies focus on one social network that gets 80% of your time. The second social network that you want to focus on gets at least 10% of your time, but it never goes over 20%. If you have any other social networks that you want to put into the strategy, they get squeezed together.

After you identify your primary social network, it’s time to find tools for that social network. Twitter is my primary social network, and there are countless tools. I do have my favorites, but you may have others as well. Choose 5-8 tools for your social network that will help you through your journey.

After you get the tools assembled, it’s time to put them to work. Test them out, see which ones you want to continue using, and see which ones don’t work for you. The goal is to become familiar with these tools before you use your strategy to get numerous followers. You want to make sure everything is okay with all of the tools that you plan to use.

When the tools are assembled and you know which ones you want to use, it’s time to get the following. Follow people who are:

  1. Very likely to follow back.
  2. People who share common interests.

You need both A and B when you decide which people you are going to follow. There are some exceptions to A:

  1. If the person that doesn’t follow back is someone you admire.
  2. If the person that doesn’t follow back is well-known and has conversations with their followers. Talking with this person will boost your visibility.

A social media strategy is a “rinse and repeat” at it’s finest. You can’t perform the methods of your social media strategy once to get the best results. You will have to use some of the tools daily. I schedule tweets on HootSuite every day, and I check my statistics on TwitterCounter every day as well. However, after a lot of rinsing and repeating, your social media strategy will turn you into a power user.

How To Make Your Blog’s First Appearance Look Better

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First appearance is really important. Looking presentable can be the difference between getting a sale with a client in person and losing a client. A blog’s first appearance is just as important. The first appearance will decide whether the visitor goes somewhere else or subscribes to your blog.

The first way to make your blog’s first appearance look better is by choosing the right theme. It is important to choose a theme that looks professional on your blog. However, a theme is not enough to make your blog’s first appearance look better.

Having a picture of yourself or your company’s logo on your blog is essential. You will get more credibility when you put the picture on your blog (preferably the sidebar) because people will have an idea of what you look like. When people have an idea of what you look like, they are more likely to subscribe to your blog. All of the blogs with hundreds of thousands of subscribers either have a picture of the blogger or the company’s logo.

Another way to make your blog’s first appearance look better is by having a lot of pages on your blog. Have an About Me page, a Top Blog Posts page, a More Resources page, and anything else you can think of. Don’t show too many pages because your menu on the top of your blog will take up too much space. 5-10 pages will be good enough. If you want more pages, but you can’t fit them on the menu without it looking bad, take those pages off of the menu and provide links to those pages under a More Resources page.

When people like your blog’s appearance and content, they will want to follow you on social networks. Offer visitors the option to follow people with social media icons on the sidebar of your blog. I recommend using the Acx Social Media Widget in order to get all of those social media icons on your blog.

The first appearance has always been important, and it will always be important. Give your blog a spiffy appearance that makes visitors want to come back, subscribe to your blog, and share all of your posts.

 

4 Ways To Tweet More Effectively

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Twitter is the only social network that limits its users to 140 characters. Making good use of those characters is what results in more followers. Being limited to 140 characters can sometimes be a pain, especially when your tweet has 145 characters. These methods will allow you to tweet effectively and never worry about that 140 character limit.

  1. Make sure your tweets are short and to the point. Do not use wordiness in your tweets. Just say it how it is. If you are tweeting about an article you found online, tweet the title of the article with a link; nothing more, and nothing less.
  2. Tweet with Bitly links. People don’t like seeing tweets with big links. Using Bitly to shorten the URL will make the link shorter. TinyUrl is another option, but TinyUrls aren’t really tiny. They still take up a lot of characters. Bitly links are shorter, you get statistics for all of your links, and all of your links are stored under your account.
  3. Avoid big words. Most of the time, those big words lead to wordiness. If a word can be replaced with a smaller word that everyone knows the meaning of, you should make the change. People on Twitter want everything summarized like headlines on a newspaper. If you tweet as if you were writing headlines for a newspaper, you will get more attention.
  4. Tweet about one main thing over 80% of the time. If you jump around and don’t give yourself a niche, people won’t be able to identify who you are. People want to be able to identify you for something, and although a bio is good, tweets that support the bio are just as important.

Implementing The Resources

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People want all of the resources they can possibly get. The people who want to do videos want the white board, the perfect lighting, and so on. The people who use Twitter want to know about all of the tools that can enhance growth and tips as well. However, once you get those resources, implementing them proves to be a challenge worth taking.

This is where a lot of people stop. Most people don’t use what they have after they gather all of the resources. The best way to implement is by implementing little at a time. If you were given 100 tips, and you tried to implement them all in one day, it wouldn’t work.

If you implemented 10 tips every week, you would eventually implement all 100 tips. Then, you can choose for yourself which of those 100 tips are the best ones to implement. Do everything in bite sizes; don’t try to swallow the entire turkey in one gulp.

 

5 Ways To Get Out Of Writer’s Block

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Writer’s block comes around and gets everyone. Authors temporarily lose the desire to write, blog posts don’t get written, and tweets don’t get posted. Writer’s block is a problem that everyone faces, but there are ways to fix writer’s block.

  1. Get outside. The nice fresh air is going to make all of the difference. When you’re outside, don’t bring your pen, paper, or computer with you. If you go outside and continue to write, the problem is not going to be solved.
  2. Get exercise. Exercise is very motivating, and that motivation can turn into your next blog post. If you run outside, you will be able to see a lot of things in your neighborhood that you might normally miss. Anything that you can see can turn into your next blog post.
  3. You are going to have to write your way out of writer’s block. After you get the exercise in or that fresh air, it’s time to write again. If you keep on putting it off, writer’s block will last longer.
  4. Play word games. One of the words you come up with can inspire a new blog post that you can’t wait to type. If you can play with your friends, that’s even better.
  5. Read blogs and books. By reading, you will discover new ideas and turn those ideas into blog posts or a book. When I read a book, I write and schedule 5 or more blog posts on that day instead of the usual 2-3 blog posts every day.

How do you get out of writer’s block? When it comes to getting out of writer’s block, we all need all of the help we can get. Share your insight below.