May 21, 2012

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Guest Post: Are You Taking Advantage of Social Media the “Write” Way?

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By Kaity Nakagoshi

Just as writing for the web requires different tactics than writing for print, writing for social media is different than writing for the web. Writers need to evaluate their style and approach when writing for social media in order to meet the unique needs of this medium.

Know Your Audience
One of the biggest ways in which social media writing differs from web writing is the fact that you are writing for specific people, not for algorithms. Even though web writing is generally crafted to appeal to people, it must also take into account how to best attract attention from search engines and how to stand out in search results. With social media, the emphasis is on building conversations and relationships, not page rank. Content has to appeal to specific individuals, not aggregate groups, and must be written in a way that encourages sharing.

So-Me Writing for Dummies
While talented writers can produce content for just about any medium, to be a successful social media writer, it helps if you’re a sociable person. The same qualities that make you successful in social settings will help you with social media. Below are some helpful tips.

  • Be yourself. With social media, it’s best to be authentic. People generally respond most to those whom they perceive as being genuine. Regardless of whether they agree or disagree with you, by being yourself, you will at least reveal your personality which helps start conversation.
  • Don’t worry about building a platform or a brand. People gravitate towards social media for interaction and connection, not to receive broadcast marketing messages or to simply follow carefully crafted statements. Make them feel that they have a personal connection with you.
  • Participate in conversations. Social media is about listening and responding to others, not just talking about yourself. Building an audience is artificial; letting one gather around you is organic.
  • Share what you love. Don’t limit yourself to posting content revolving around a limited subject matter. Share things across a variety of topics that entertain, engage, or excite you, but be sparing about sharing things that irritate or anger you.

Perfect Match
Writers are particularly suited to use social media because it relies on the ability to write compelling and interesting content. It’s all about the words. Most writers are also natural storytellers, a skill that meshes perfectly with this medium. Social media can also help relieve some of the isolation many writers face. Writing is a solitary occupation and social media can help connect you to potential clients, industry leaders, other writers, and readers.

Speaking of readers, most writers don’t have the opportunity to meet their readers, much less to find out what they like or don’t like, but they can do just that with social media. Engaging with readers can be fulfilling on a personal level, can increase audience retention, and can help you as the writer come up with new content ideas.

Victim of Your Own Success
Despite all of the positive aspects of social media, writers should be cautious about falling victim to common social media pitfalls, such as:

  • Distraction. Social media should supplement and support your writing life, not supplant it. If you’re spending more time on social media than you are on your writing, you probably need to re-evaluate your priorities and goals.
  • Over sharing. While you’re encouraged to share details of your personal and writing life, there is a line that you shouldn’t cross. Sharing uncomfortable personal details, the uninteresting minutiae of everyday life, or gloating about your successes (or rivals’ failures) can backfire and drive followers away.
  • Arguments, sour grapes, and unbridled criticism. Social media is not the place to start or engage in public squabbles or to air your dissatisfactions with your career, fellow writers, the industry, or life in general. Similarly, you shouldn’t use it to blast other writers’ work. Just like in the offline world, you should strive to maintain your professionalism online.

Making the “Write” Connections
Social media can be an incredibly effective tool and rewarding experience for writers who are looking to not only market themselves and their work, but to establish genuine connections with other people. Social media can also help you stay informed on developing trends and monitor longer term trends. For writers, it also makes for an excellent research resource. By tapping into the collective knowledge and experience in your network, writers can quickly gain new perspectives, contacts, suggested reading, reviews on products, and an array of other information. It’s a great way to connect with other writers, creatives, readers, and industry insiders, helping you take your career to the next level while meeting people and making friends along the way.

This article was written by Kaity Nakagoshi and provided by University Alliance, on behalf of the University of San Francisco’s online program.  They offer a variety of professional certification opportunities, including a master certificate in internet marketing and a specialized certificate in advanced social media training. To find out additional information please visit: http://www.usanfranonline.com.

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Guest Post: 5 Online Communities for Writers

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By Kimberly Wilson

You’ve been wracking your brain for story ideas for hours. You have a host of half-baked ideas written in a notebook, but what you really want is someone to use as a soundboard for your ideas. You want to test the merit of your ideas, but you’re probably isolated in your room, on a computer, with no one to turn to. So what can you do?

You probably already know the answer: go online! Writers looking for guidance and solidarity among their peers should find no shortage of resources in the vast writing communities that specialize in topics ranging from fan fiction to professional publishing. These online resources serve as community-based social and professional hubs where writers and players in the writing industry can vent their troubles, discuss technical and grammatical issues, and brainstorm for inspiration. Below are just four great resources for writers.

  1. Inkpop
    Inkpop is a dynamic writing community dedicated to authors of young adult fiction. Started by the infamous publishing house Harper Collins, Inkpop seeks to attract and unite newfound talent in young fiction. When you first log onto the site, you’ll notice a series of ‘Top Pick’ fiction works featured for your perusal. Works get a ‘Top Pick’ rating if they get enough positive feedback from the Inkpop community, who deem the book worth the time of a publisher. You yourself can edit posted works on Inkpop and contribute to the ongoing conversation about what makes quality young adult fiction.
  2. Book Country
    For writers who love producing and reading genre fiction, Book Country Book Country is the place to be. The site functions as an open forum for writers of Romance, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Mystery genres who can publish their work and review the work of their peers. Also, users on Book Country can browse entire works for free. Book Country isn’t as concerned with selling its users works, its more focused on getting talented writers the exposure they deserve in a competitive literary atmosphere. Search for top users by the category or look at high contributors and peer reviewers. Book Country also has a space entirely dedicated to discussions about the writing industry, with a forum hosting topics from getting an agent to shopping your book to various publishers. In other words, Book Country is a writer’s resource.
  3. Writer’s Café
    Writer’s Café , like Book Country, is caters to both serious and amateur writers. Hundreds of forum posts offer advice on topics ranging from character development to punctuation. New users will find forum members to be consistently helpful and substantive in their criticism and advice regarding writing. In addition to the site’s extensive forum, users can peruse the posted works of other writers for inspiration or guidance. New users are encouraged to post their own work regardless of its completion so other writers can assess its strengths and weaknesses.
  4. Goodreads
    Goodreads is an online reading community geared towards writers looking for inspirational reading material or fellow bibliophiles with similar reading interests. Unlike other social networks geared towards reading and writing, the important part of a profile on Goodreads isn’t in the personal information of the user, but in their book list. Every user in Goodreads lists and rates all the books they’ve read in an effort to build up a reliable book-rating and recommending site that avid readers and writers can depend on. Users can further specify their reading tastes by listing books that interest them those that they intend to read. Use the comprehensive rating system to either search for books that might cater to your tastes or seek out reading groups of like-minded individuals. Goodreads connects similarly-read users, suggesting potential books, reading groups, and individual users based on your reading tastes. A writer searching for compatriots with whom to discuss the writings of authors from Herman Melville to John Grisham will find ample company on this site. For its wealth of book reviews and writer’s book groups, the site is as invaluable a resource for writers as it is for casual readers.
  5. Absolute Write
    Writers of any background or speciality (freelance, fiction, songwriting, screenwriting, etc.) can seek out writing peers at Absolute Write. This online writing community houses a diverse group of writing professionals and enthusiasts who can yearn to address the writing issues of anyone who has a question on the subject. The site’s extension forum caters not only to fiction writers, but to copywriters, freelances, and nonfiction writers as well. They even have threads dedicated to proper letter-writing and advice on how to craft attractive cover letters. For a thorough, friendly, and substantive writing community, you can’t go wrong with Absolute Write.

Your turn! Do you participate in online writing communities? What would you add to this list?

Kimberly Wilson is from accredited online colleges, where she writes on topics including career, education, student life, college life, home improvement, and time management. 

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Freelancers: 5 Ways to Generate Client Leads and Increase Web Traffic

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By Mike Law

You love your freelance website. It’s visually striking and easy to navigate. The content is fresh and informative. You’ve got the latest search engine optimization techniques working for you night and day. So why isn’t the site generating the return traffic or client leads that you’d hoped for?

Assuming your site is truly as rocking as you believe it to be, it may just need a good jumpstart. For sure, it takes time to attract attention, build an audience and convert customers. But nothing says you can’t help speed the process along. In fact, it’d be foolhardy not to. Check out these five great ways to kick-start a steady flow of traffic to your site and solicit more leads for your freelance business.

  1. Offer a Free Special Report
    These days you can hardly visit a website without some pop-up appearing, urging you to download a free special report stuffed with juicy tips and information. The pop-ups may be irritating, but the concept behind them is smart. Offering visitors free, valuable information in a 5-10 page report is an effective way of attracting potential clients to your site. Why? A couple of reasons. A free report gives prospective clients a reason to visit your site. Use the special report as a lure at networking events, during cold calls, or in direct and email marketing campaigns. Even if your target isn’t in the market for your services at the time, the information the report offers could be tempting enough to persuade prospectives to come to your site to download it. While they’re there, just maybe they’ll take a closer look at your portfolio and services – and remember you the next time they need someone with your expertise.Special reports can also establish you as an expert in a particular field. Let’s say you’re a web designer specializing in building sites for personal injury lawyers. If you produce a report highly targeted to your audience (e.g., “10 Web Designs Personal Injury Lawyers Should Avoid at All Costs,”) you can come to be known as the web designer for personal injury lawyers. Prospective clients will begin to seek you out on the basis of your expertise.
  2. Add an E-Course to Your Site
    With the advent of autoresponder services such as MailChimp and KickStartCart, e-courses have become increasingly popular. An e-course is an online learning course in which you’d share tips and techniques on a particular topic with your target audience. Most courses are conducted via email. Interested persons could sign up for the course on your site by entering their email address into a form, and the autoresponder service would begin to send them a sequence of emails (your lessons) for a predetermined length of time.Like a special report, an e-course serves as an excellent reason for prospective clients to visit your site and can solidify your position as an expert in your field. But it has one major additional advantage. Because an e-course can extend over a long period of time –anywhere from several days to several months – you have a great opportunity to build a relationship with the participants of the course. Familiarity breeds business, goes the old marketing saw, and your former students may become your future clients. Moreover, if you encourage interaction and feedback from the participants, you’ll get a clearer understanding of the topics your general audience would like to learn about and discuss.
  3. Conduct a Survey
    Another way to encourage readers to visit your website is by conducting a survey or taking a poll. Surveys and polls are an outstanding way to discover the content that interests your audience, the effectiveness of your site, or gain insights into an issue that affects your audience. For example, if you’re a freelance photographer who covers weddings, you might conduct a survey of engaged couples or newlyweds on big turnoffs when it comes to a wedding photographer. You could score a few clients from conducting the survey alone. However, the real potential to pull in client leads lies in publishing the survey results. You could publish the results on your blog, sure. But you could also provide the results in a short special report, which would be available for download on your site or via email. This, of course, would allow you to reap the benefits that come with offering a free report.Moreover, if the sample size is large enough and the findings sufficiently intriguing, you could even write an press release highlighting your conclusions. Send your press release to relevant magazine editors, journalists and bloggers, and just maybe the survey results – and your site – will receive a mention in a widely-read publication. You’d be golden.Check out sites such as SurveyMonkey or PollDaddy for learning more about how to set up an online or email poll.
  4. Host a Webinar
    Not big on writing content to give away? No problem. Consider hosting a webinar to attract readers and share your knowledge. A webinar is a web-based seminar or conference. Participants from anywhere in the world can dial into the call, listen to your presentation, watch visuals you’ve prepared, and even ask questions. Think of it as a live version of a special report or e-course.The advantage of a webinar is that it provides a great opportunity to be interactive with your audience in real-time. Keep this in mind when you structure the presentation. Don’t just be a talking head: pick a web conferencing platform that includes “chat” or “show of hands” features so that you can effect a true exchange with your audience. You’ll want to start a lively conversation that participants will continue thinking about (and tweeting about) after the webinar ends. Popular webinar hosting systems include GotoWebinar, ReadyTalk and WebEx.To get a good turnout for your webinar, begin promoting it about a month in advance. Start a countdown on your blog, use social media, write a guest post, and issue a press release. After the webinar is over, use your web hosting platform to distribute a feedback form to participants. This will not only help you assess the success of the webinar, it’ll keep people thinking about you.
  5. Offer a Discount
    Dare I even suggest this? I do. Whether or not to offer a discount is a very controversial topic among freelancers. On the plus side, it’s a fail-safe way of drawing prospective clients to your site. Everyone wants a good deal. On the negative side, it can devalue the service you provide, causing prospective clients to believe that your work is worth less than actually it is. It can also transmit a vibe of desperation, which can cause low-balling types to come crawling out of the woodwork.In the end, I believe little harm can arise from extending a “limited-time only” discount to jumpstart your business and increase site traffic. But be careful: you don’t want to become the freelance version of Rugs-O-Rama. Make sure your clients understand your regular price and the unique opportunity of the discount offer. And don’t worry about losing clients when you return to your regular price. If you produce consistent, high-quality work, a good client will understand your true value.

Headshot of Mike LawMichael Law has extensive experience as a freelance journalist and online marketer, and has worked with a number of leading Sydney companies ranging from online marketing agencies to compensation lawyers. If you’d like to get in touch, you can send Mike an email.

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Guest Post: 3 Ways to Get Out of a Blogging Slump

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By Maria Rainier

As with any career or hobby, there are going to be times as a blogger that you hit a wall and just can’t seem to come up with something new to write about. Creative slumps happen to the best of us. One of the most difficult aspects of blogging is coming up with something new, interesting, and creative to write about each day.

Creativity can be a very difficult thing to cultivate from thin air (particularly when it is our job to do so). While creative slumps are a common occurrence among bloggers, it is nonetheless a hindrance to our blogging success. There are many tricks and tips of the trade that can help bloggers find new motivation and enthusiasm for their writing. Rather than sitting and staring at a blank word document on your computer screen, hoping that inspiration will strike, try these three tips to get out of that writing slump.

Revisit Old Topics

One of the best ways to discover something new to write about for your blog is by revisiting your old posts. Sift through your blog and find a few entries that were particularly popular among your readers or held particular interest for you and re-read them. By revisiting these old posts a new spark may ignite for something along the same topic. If you are not immediately inspired by reading over your old posts, you can consider doing a revisit post. If your views on the topic have changed, you can write on that same topic from your new point of view. This is a great way to get your readers more involved with your blog. If you pick an old post that got a lot of attention initially, you can invite those same readers to discuss your new point of view on the subject this time around.

Take a Break

Everyone needs a break every now and then. If you find yourself in a serious creative slump, it may be that you are just a little burnt out. Try taking a break. Take a few hours to go do something new. Go for a walk, a bike ride, a short day trip to a new place, or even write for something new other than your blog. All of these things can help rejuvenate your interest in your own writing and lead you to new and exciting ideas. Obviously, one of the best ways to find new inspiration is by going and doing or seeing something completely new. Take a yoga class at your local gym or go for a hike in the mountains. Something new may be just the thing you need to find that energy for your blogging again.

Check Out Your Competition

Keeping up with your competition is essential for any type of business. When you find yourself in an inspiration slump, go to your competitor’s blogs. Find out what the latest trend is in your blogging niche and see if it is something that you would wish to contribute to. Of course, you don’t want to directly take your competitors’ ideas, but referencing their articles and then adding your own voice to the conversation is a great way to attract new readers. You can attract the readers of your competitor’s blog to your site just by discussing the competitor’s blog post. Getting ideas and inspiration from your competition is usually very successful. However, even if nothing exciting comes to you after glancing through other blogs on the web, staying in tune with your niche is very important in general.
Author Bio:

Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education where she writes about education, online colleges, online degrees etc. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

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