Social Media Marketing Made Easy | Facebook & Twitter for Business

Best Practices for Building Reader Loyalty

Guest post by Delfin Joaquin Paris III

If you’re like me, you would prefer your blog readers to visit your site each day and read your newest posts!  The challenge is that there are thousands (if not millions) of other bloggers that would love to earn your readers’ loyalty, too!  How can you compete for their attention?

By building reader loyalty!

Below are some best practices I personally employ on my site to help my readers know that I value them and to encourage returning to my site over and over again.

1.  Go to other blogs where your readers hang out!  Think about it – if you want loyal readers, why not go to them!  If you’re not sure what other blogs your readers follow, ask!  Whenever someone comments on a post or you receive an email, write back and say, “Do you have any other blogs that you recommend I check out?”  Then, start reading those blogs!  Make friends with those bloggers and begin commenting on posts.  Their readers will see your site in the comment and visit!  Also, that blogger may ask you to write a guest post which will also draw in new traffic!

2.  Make it a policy to write everyone back who posts a comment.  Now, obviously you can’t do this if your blog starts exploding with traffic, but until then, write a comment back to each reader thanking them for writing in their thoughts!  An even better strategy is to keep the conversation going by playing off their comment.

3.  Do a video thank-you.  These days webcams are cheap and easy to use.  Make a short video thanking your readers for their loyalty and ask them to tell a friend.  There is no shame in honesty and saying, “I’d really like to find more readers just like you, so please tell your friends about this site!”  Since they are already your fans, they will go and advocate for you!

If you employ just these three simple strategies, I promise your audience will feel more connected and will return over and over again to your blog.

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Want a good laugh? Delfin Joaquin Paris III is a humor blogger and currently has the #1 spot on Google for “funny blogs”.
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Press releases don’t work, so try an approach that does

Guest post by Andreea Ayers

It’s exciting to see your product on the glossy pages of a magazine, and provides great brand exposure to new customers. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs don’t know how to get featured. I used to be one of them, but I’ve learned how to get my products the press they deserve and you can too. Here’s my story:

When I started my inspirational t-shirt company, Tees For Change, I spent nearly $500 on an online service to write and distribute a press release. They said I’d reach “tens of thousands of journalists,” but no one called.

I thought my timing was off, so I tried again the next month. This time, I hired someone to write the release, and distributed it via a very popular PR service. It cost me another $500, I received only one response, from a journalist who wanted a free sample. I sent her a shirt that day – and never heard from her again, despite my follow-up calls and emails.

This probably sounds all too familiar to you. The problem isn’t your product – it’s that press releases just don’t work!

What I learned from my experience is that I was competing with thousands of other businesses for space in the inboxes of those tens of thousands of journalists. To earn their attention and interest, I tried something new.

I purchased a media list, and created my own list of journalists and editors who were working on holiday gift guides for their publications. By reading past issues of the magazines, I learned that each one approached their gift guides with an angle:

• gifts for teens
• green gifts
• gifts under $50
• gifts for moms
• last-minute gifts

To earn the attention of the editors and journalists on my list, I wrote a pitch about my t-shirts being “gifts that give back.” My pitch told a story about my shirts that stood out from the crowd and hooked the journalists I sent it to. Over 20 editors wrote back asking for photos, samples and more information on my shirts! While not all of them ended up featuring my shirts, I made over $20,000 in sales from mentions in holiday gift guides that year. Some of the magazines that didn’t use my shirts for their gift guides contacted me later to feature them in another issue and I received even more press.

The next year I did it again, and received even more buzz. Unlike my attempts at press releases, this time journalists were calling me. I realized this was a PR strategy I could employ all year round.

Press releases can be useful, but usually only after the media is interested in your story. Busy journalists are looking for stories to tell every day, and you can help them by offering specific story ideas. Launching your Spring clothing line doesn’t make for very interesting copy, but the story of how your product gives back to your community does. I planted a tree for each tee I sold, and the story of how many trees I planted was one the media loved to tell.

If you’re ready to stop wasting money on press releases and invest time in telling your product’s story, here’s how to get started today:

1. Make a list of 10-15 magazines/blogs/TV shows you want to see your product on this year.
2. Flip through each magazine (you can do this for free at Barnes and Noble), read each blog and watch each TV show and make a list of the topics they cover so you can target your pitch to their audience.
3. Find and download each magazine’s editorial calendar, which is usually found in the advertising section of the magazine’s website. Or Google search the magazine’s name + Editorial Calendar. Find upcoming issue themes that fit your product.
4. Make a list of the contact information for each editor you want to reach. You can often find their email addresses in the masthead of the magazine, on the website’s contact us page, in the editorial calendar, or by calling the magazine directly.
5. Write a story idea for each individual magazine. For example: Your sports product for women could be great in a women’s health magazine, or for the fitness issue of a magazine for moms, but each will need their own approach.
6. Email each of your contacts with your story idea, and don’t forget to follow up one week later, and again 2 weeks later if you haven’t heard back.

Remember that magazines work 4 – 6 months in advance of the issue release date, so you should pitch products for December gift guides in the summer. And don’t forget that the winter holidays aren’t the only time for gift guides! Many magazines feature guides for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, grad gifts, Valentine’s Day and Earth Day.

By following the steps above you’ll be on your way to getting more press and better buzz than any press release can provide.

Andreea Ayers works with product-based entrepreneurs to help them grow their product line. She provides game-changing tips and strategies for wholesale, retail, publicity and marketing at www.AndreeaAyers.com and www.ProductMarketingBreakthrough.com.

Weekly Marketing Schedule for Warriors

Here are the core activities needed in the weekly marketing schedule:

1-2 emails per week

Email is the #1 medium for ALL online marketers. Use MailChimp or Aweber. The key here is to deliver real value to your email subscribers. Give them free stuff like ebooks or actionable videos. Then give your subscribers a discount off your app or service. Only after you have given your subscribers free and discounted stuff can you ask them to pay full price for your solution.

2 YouTube videos per week

Keep these videos less than 3 minutes. Use Google Keyword Tool to find topics that have potential to rank you on the first page of Goolge. Laura Roeder and others have indicated that traffic coming from YouTube converts 10 times better than random cold traffic. Make sure to create these videos on your YouTube Channel. The more likes, views, and video responses you can get the higher this video will rank on Google. For more info on YouTube videos scope out this video from Laura Roeder here.

One Guest Post or Interview per week

Guests blog posts help with exposure, credibility, and SEO. Write a great piece of content (like this) and pitch it to sites that utilize guest posters. You need to sell yourself and the content in order to get published. Including a short action video along with your guest post will increase the chances that you get published. A video interview is just as good as a guest blog post. Sites like Mixergy.com, TheRiseToTheTop , or IdeaMensch are money video interview candidates.

One give-away per week

Reach out to relevant blogs in your space and see if they would like to do a give-away contest with your app. If you are doing a SaaS product offer to give the blogger 5 One Year subscriptions. Make sure the contest includes both comments and tweets. An example of a contest I did from AppSumo can be seen here. Just copy this format.

2 Blog Posts on your site per week

Use the Google Keyword Tool research to determine blog topics to go after and attempt to rank for. Think about re-purposing content. Write about one of the topics you spoke about in your YouTube videos then include that video in your post. This way you enhance your blog post and don’t have to re-create the wheel. Use basic SEO principles in every blog post.

Tweet and Facebook everyday

Tweet and Facebook early and often. Use Hootsuite and Timely.is to automate your social network marketing. Mention and reach out to customers, friends, and experts on Twitter/Facebook. Twitter is awesome for customer service. Tweets shot out earlier in the day will have better performance and reach. At least 3 tweets and one Facebook update per day.

This schedule will help you in every aspect of your online marketing strategy but it is not perfect. Unbounce did an EPIC Free ebook focused on a 6-month Online Marketing schedule. You get it in exchange for a tweet here.

What did I miss? Please comment below and let me know!

Matt Smith is the co-founder of BusinesPirate.com. He was previously one of the BizDev guys at AppSumo and is currently getting his MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management. His current venture, Business Pirate, helps educate sales and marketing pros through online video courses. When he is not playing on the computer, he likes to exercise and eat raw fish in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.

How to Work with a Writing Coach to Grow Your Business

Guest post by Prime Sarmiento

I believe it is safe to assume that if you are reading this blog, you are an entrepreneur (or an aspiring entrepreneur) who is using the website to sell products and services, promote relationship with your customers and establish your expertise.

But whatever your business is  - personal chef, acupuncturist or  digital marketer  - you know good design alone won’t keep you in business. You also need well-written content to attract your target readers to your site and convert them into clients.

So unless you’re prepared to hire a copy writer who will charge at least 1,000 U.S. dollars to produce a sales page (and that’s just a one time fee), you’ll be ahead of the game if you have strong writing skills. To develop and polish this valuable skill, look into finding a writing coach.

Here are some pointers to help you in looking for a writing coach:

1. Determine what kind of writing project you want to complete.

List just one writing project that you wanted to finish for the longest time but for some reason have not done it. It could be an e-book, a script for a video tutorial, a press release or a series of pillar posts for your blog.

You have to stick to one project as writing coaches have different specialization. A writing coach who usually coaches memoirist and novelist may not be the coach that you want to hire if your priority project is to write a high-converting sales page.

2. Read first, decide later

I’m not talking about testimonials here or even their profile page.  But instead, read the creative products of that prospective writing coach. Does he or she have a blog or have they published a novel? Perhaps they have articles in print publications that you can find online. Read them and see if you like his or her writing style.

3. Find out if you and the writing coach share the same “vibe”

Choosing a coach is deeply personal. You won’t like being mentored by someone who you neither respect nor admire.

You and your writing coach will work together to finish an important project. So it’s better to know beforehand if the prospective coach is the right fit for you. Invite the coach for coffee and see if  the two of you share the same vibe.

Take note: if you both live in the same place and the coach refused to meet you, drop her from your list of prospects.  If she can’t spare an hour to meet a client then it’s doubtful he or she will give you the time and attention you need to critique your work or motivate you to complete your project.

If it’s not possible to meet the coach in person due to proximity, then you can talk over Skype, read and comment on his/her blogs or follow his or her tweets. Bottomline: in today’s work environment, you need not live close to your writing coach. With skype, email, blogs, even Twitter, you can check out their vibe and find a connection.

4. Set parameters and writing goals

Once you chose “the one”, both of you need to set the rules on how the two of you will work. What are the goals that you want to accomplish and how will the coach help you in attaining that goal?

Are you looking for a detailed critique or do you need someone to motivate you because you are insecure about your skills?

You also need to work on a schedule that suits both of you. Do you have to contact her every day or is a monthly update enough? Does she have to be in every step of the project (highly recommended for people who tend to procrastinate)?  If you’re quite disciplined, you can just contact her if you need to attain a certain milestone.

You also have to determine the mode of communication. Do you meet up in a café once a week, chat over the webcam, or send e-mails with each other? Choose what is the most convenient for both of you.  My coach and I chose to communicate with each other via e-mail because of the huge difference in our time zones (she is in Europe and I live in Asia so skyping isn’t feasible ).

5. Be accountable

Learning something is useless if you don’t act on it.  Your coach is there so you can be accountable to someone, gently pushing you to apply what you learned. So let’s say you are writing an e-book with ten chapters, you need to write and finish each chapter, and have each chapter critiqued. After getting a critique, be sure to apply what you learned in rewriting that chapter and writing a new chapter. Then let the coach look at both the revised and new chapters. You will then see if you improved as a writer.

As Laura Roeder teaches, when it comes to getting things done in your business, you have two choices, hire someone or learn how to do them yourself. Finding a writing coach early in your business will help tremendously with your long term growth.

Have you worked with a writing coach? How was your experience?

Prime is a journalist and freelance business blogger. She writes on learning and the craft of writing for online tutorial company  AHEAD Interactive. You can follow her writing tips and tweets at  @prime_sarmiento

How to Make Google Sing and Dance with Your Blog

Guest post by Martina Iring

More and more small business owners are blogging these days. Which makes sense because it’s such a great tool for your business.

Blogging allows you to do so much more than just sharing news and promoting events. You can use blogging to boost your credibility, create a personal connection with your audience, and answer customer questions and queries more efficiently.

As a small business owner, I love blogging and recommend it for so many reasons.

But, the number one reason I would suggest jumping on the blogging bandwagon is . . . ‘drum roll please’

Search Engine Marketing.

Many small business owners are aware that blogging is good for search engines (and if you didn’t, well, at least you learned something new today). But just publish posts, and go on their merry way, without understanding all the bits and bobs you can use to making your content search friendly.

If you’re not a techie or Internet whiz, no problem. Optimizing your blog isn’t that hard. Keep reading and I’ll teach you all the areas in your blog that you can use to serve juicy bits of content to Google and other search engines.

Categories
Blog categories allow you to organize your posts by topic and let your readers easily find the areas that are the most interesting to them. But category names should not be chosen randomly. Whenever possible use relevant keywords to name your categories.

Keyword Tags
Each blog post can be associated with keywords. Choose keywords that are related to the topic at hand. And, remember to use the same keywords in the content itself.

If you’re using WordPress and your theme does not automatically include an area for keywords and other optimization areas (we’ll be getting in a bit), Laura and I both recommend the free plugin All in One SEO Pack.

Meta Description
This area allows you to include a description of your post. Create the description, using your keywords of course. Are we sensing a theme here, yet?

Title Tag
The title tag area gives you some flexibility to be creative. I often like to create post titles that are fun and interesting. It makes people want to read on, right?

For example, I titled one of my posts – The greedy email collector. What would be the practical, search friendly title for that post? Common email marketing mistakes or something along those lines would do. I can keep my more interesting title on my blog and use the more practical one in the title tag.

For more tips on naming your blog posts and how to blend creativity with practicality, check out this post on writing titles for your blog posts.

Photos
Did you know that search engines can read the file names of your photos? If you’re using a photo or two in a post, use a relevant keyword for the file name when you save it to your computer.

Text Links
Within your each blog post, you have the opportunity to include links to other content in your blog. Whether you’re referencing your product, service, or a topic that you discussed in another blog post, use keyword rich anchor text to create the link. This gives search engines even more information about the content of that page.

Instead of saying: Read more about my services here try a keyword focused text link, such as Read more about my small business accounting services.

Can you see the difference?

Having a blog is an important way to get your business moving up on search rankings. And now you know how to make the most out of search engine optimization.

Martina Iring is an online marketing consultant who works with small business owners and entrepreneurs overwhelmed with all that web stuff. She’s on a mission to help the little guys make sense of Internet marketing, teaching small biz owners how being online is not only profitable, but enjoyable! Her blog, Small Business Bliss, offers up gobs of free marketing info and doses of inspiration just for little biz owners. Get your free website improvement guide here.

How To Use a Flowplayer WordPress Plugin To Show Any Video In WordPress

In this video you’ll learn…

• How to add your videos to a self-hosted WordPress site using Flowplayer
• Where to house large videos on the web
• How to install and set up the FV WordPress Flowplayer plugin
• Why we love Amazon S3 for housing videos

Read the Transcript ▼

Follow Your Passion and Keep Your Day Job

Guest post by Anne Samoilov

There’s lots of talk online about quitting your day job and following your passion. How do you start a business and manage having a day job? When can you quit? How do you make both work?

How do you follow your passion, start that business, live your dream life all while spending the bulk of your day at a J.O.B.?  How do you get started on your own dreams when you’ve got a full-time commitment and responsibility to your family?

I know this struggle well. I’ve never really fit into a normal job environment.  I always seemed to have something else developing on the side.  I wrote, produced and recorded a 5 song cd.  I got certified to teach pilates.  I wrote screenplays and teleplays.  I worked on short films.  I’ve always had passions brewing on the side.

Each one gave me the “why” I was working at the day job.  But in the past – even knowing my why never quite satisfied me.

When I started to work for Laura all of that changed.

I won’t lie – my initial interest in working for Laura was simple.

Think about how much I will learn just by being in her business. Think about the opportunity to see how a real successful business runs. My brain was in a meltdown. I was so excited for the potential learning.

But as I dove in and really LOVED what I did and do for her, I realized 4 things.

Get ready, because here are 5 ways you can happily keep your day job AND pursue your passion.

1. Take Ownership.

Let your job become your business.  You don’t work for the company. You own a piece of it. Don’t be shy, start functioning immediately as if you are the owner of the company.  Everything you do benefits you and your company. So take it.

This was the biggest, most natural thing I did when I started working with Laura. Notice I say with. I’m very careful with the language when describing what I do at LKR. I work with her. In fact, I task her with everything she has to do, so some days…she works for me.  And she even apologizes when she doesn’t get things finished on time.  Taking ownership of my role in the company has made the work I do as important as the projects I do myself off Roeder-time.  And the great thing is…I don’t have to do it alone when I’m working with LKR. It’s me, Sarah, Myreen, Stacey, and Jules too! I’ve got a complete support team.

2.  Learn from success and failures.

So you’ve taken ownership, now look at what works and doesn’t work in your company.  Start implementing similar procedures or systems in your own business.  If you manage a team of people, perhaps you know now what should and shouldn’t be outsourced.  If your company uses social media to promote itself, does that work? Do they get more leads on Facebook or Twitter?

Use your day job as your testing ground for your own business. There is SO much to learn from the running of every single business.  Even if your dream is to have your own crochet and weaving business, I bet you can learn a thing or two about operating that business from your more corporate environment.

For me – I see what works with Laura’s business and I think of unique ways to implement them into my own.  Sometimes it’s not a fit for me, but just watching the constant testing and decision making, I have something to start with — for my own work.  Recently, I released my first ebook and decided to do what I call a Backwards Launch.  For me it was more important to have an actual product on my site before I started guest posting.  I didn’t want to do a 3 video launch..it didn’t feel right for me.

Now, was that the right thing to do? Maybe not, but learning from Laura, I looked at my goals and knew that having the book on my site for sale was the most important marker that I’d completed something for my own business.

3. Remind yourself that your day job is your financial backer.

Use your income from your day job to hire an assistant, to outsource your product creation or design, to fund your trip to conferences that will help you network.

Let’s get real, it’s a lot easier to join a busy, thriving, growing business than it is to start your own.  Laura’s business has roots and I love that I’m a part of it’s growth. But don’t let that fool you, I’m also working so that I can afford the graphic designer for my ebook or to have a little extra money for business coaching and of course to afford my daughter’s preschool!

4.  Use your job to keep you clued in to the world around you.

Your ideal customers might be in the office next door or your next accountability partner might be your best friend at work.  Staying connected with real people is important.  Many of you are starting online businesses and believe me it can feel very surreal to be working all day at home and then to go out into the world. You feel like a bit of a weirdo trying to be social and interact with actual humans.

Real people keep you grounded. It’s that simple.

5. Keep your time management skills sharp.

Having a day job means you are required to work a certain number of hours a day.  It gives you structure.

Create your overall schedule – your day job is a huge chunk of that but will remind you that you need to schedule work time, down time, creation time, email time.  Think about your entire day from start to finish and schedule out when you’ll work on work and when you’ll work on your own work.

Keeping your work ethic strong will come in handy if you decide to quit your job to start your business (but I don’t think you have to….).

Work will keep you structured, thinking clearly and really give you a leg up on other creative entrepreneurs that run around from idea to idea.  Believe it or not – this structure is also giving you just the right amount of white space.

I’ll admit I’m lucky to be working a job I’m passionate about while also developing and building my own business and projects.  But I believe you can do it too.

I’d love to hear from you now. How would you change the way you work if you knew it was actually supporting your dreams and passions? Would you struggle through it, enduring each day like you were being tortured? Or would you embrace each day, knowing it was bringing you closer to your goals?

Anne Samoilov is the author of the White Space Solution, blogs about productivity & personal growth at AnneSamoilov.com, and is the Project Manager of LKR.

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Fall Reboot – The Great Q&A Webinar

Is your business ready to get a fresh start this fall, but you still have some nagging questions that are holding you back?

Then register to this no-holds-barred, all Q&A FREE webinar!

I’m going to “lightning round” as many questions as I can in one hour.

How to Make Yourself Look Udderly Ridiculous

Guest post by Jennifer B. Bernstein

Yes, that’s a typo in the title.

I first encountered this incorrect spelling of “utter” in a student essay on the “udder destruction” of a character. For days, I was clutching my breasts and feeling pity for cows.

Some student typos are really amusing, and—unless you’ve got a dominatrix for an English professor—it’s unlikely that one of them will lead to an F.

But mistakes in your corporate communications—even just one or two of them—are an altogether different story. They’re no laughing matter. Mistakes destroy consumer confidence and cause you to lose sales.

Think you’re immune from such errors? Think again.

Lately, I’ve been exploring a lot of websites. I’m branching out beyond the ivory towers of academia in order to launch a series of online programs for college and high school students, and I want to see how other entrepreneurs are presenting themselves. So after reading posts on Laura’s blog and watching Marie Forleo’s Q & A Tuesday videos, I often check out people’s comments and their sites.

Guess what? Even though I’m not in official editing mode, I find a lot of mistakes.

3 Glaring Mistakes

“Start woking with an expert.”

“We promote heath and wellness.”

“I create professionally-written cover letters.”

No, the solopreneur in the first example isn’t selling innovative wok services. She’s presenting herself as an experienced administrative assistant. The company referenced in the second example offers diagnostic screening services—not a Heath bar fortified with blue-green algae. Now, the last mistake might not seem as obvious as the others, but it’s still a common blooper. Let me explain, so you don’t make the same kind of error.

Rule: Use a hyphen when joining 2 or more words that serve as an adjective before a noun, but don’t use one when joining –ly adverbs.

Examples: Laura Roeder is a well-respected expert on social media marketing. Michelle Vargas is the woman behind Marie’s professionally shot videos.

#1 Reason Mistakes Cost You Clients

Quite simply, they destroy the “Know, Like, and Trust” factor you’ve worked so hard to cultivate. . .even if your service or product seems to have nothing to do with writing.

Consider this. The authors of the mistakes are from diverse fields: corporate administration, medicine, and communications. Nevertheless, their clients are all looking for someone who’s capable of ensuring that nothing—not even the smallest detail—is overlooked. They need an assistant they can trust to correctly enter information into their systems, want to know the practice can properly label and screen the vials of blood they’ve drawn, and must feel confident that the writer can get rid of the mistakes they can’t catch themselves.

Underneath it all, the same thing is true of your clients. If they notice you don’t catch (or don’t hire someone to catch) seemingly small things like typos, how are they going to be able to trust you with bigger, more significant tasks?

4 Ways to Avoid Looking Utterly Ridiculous

1. Create a checklist. If you’re like most of my clients, you already know that you tend to mess up in certain areas, so create a separate document where you can jot down your trouble zones, write out the rule, and include both correct and incorrect examples from your own writing. Print out your checklist and refer back to it every time you write something.

2. Proofread! Print out your copy and get some distance from it. When proofreading, it’s vital to be in an alert state, so you might need several short sessions. Put the point of your pencil beneath each word and read your copy very s-l-o-w-l-y. If you read at your normal speed, your mind is apt to do things like insert words that aren’t actually on the page. Go the extra mile by double-checking words in the dictionary. (My favorite is www.merriam-webster.com.) Enter the necessary changes, print out the document, and read it once more.

3. Use the best free online resources. There’s no shortage of free online advice, but some of it is wrong! If you want trustworthy, easy-to-understand information about things like grammar and punctuation, I recommend The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL): http://owl.english.purdue.edu.

4. Invest in an online reference work. Right now, I’m loving the AP Stylebook Online, which I use when editing and writing for the BB&T Charleston Wine + Food Festival®. For $25 a year, you get this amazing resource, which is easy to search and includes comprehensive information on punctuation, grammar, and spelling as well as social media guidelines and more. Check it out at www.apstylebook.com.

Have any great tips or resources? Post them in the comments. I’m always curious!

Need some FREE advice? See below for details.

Jennifer B. Bernstein is a professional editor and writer, an award-winning literary scholar, and the creator of Get Yourself Into College™ and Create Your Amazingly Successful Life!™–a series of live and online programs for high school and college students as well as recent graduates. To book your FREE 10-minute review of one of your pages, sign up at http://jenniferbbernstein.com/editing-writing.

12 Ways to Leverage Social Media & Grow Your Business in 12 Months

Guest post by Kyra Williams

My name is Kyra Williams, The Get in Shape Girl. In April of 2010, I was laid off from my job as an admin. I received a severance and had a few months to ponder my next move. I was and am in love with fitness and being healthy.

Back as a college student? Not so much. I was out of shape, unhealthy, and most importantly unhappy. I did what most girls did and counted calories, burned more than I consumed and waited. After moving to Boston, I found a gym called CATZ and it introduced me to new heights in my personal fitness. Off I was, spending more time working out, eating right, and learning all I could about being healthy.

That’s when I decided to become a personal trainer. I obtained my NASM certification and went to work for a gym and started a blog, I also started a Facebook Like Page, YouTube Channel and Twitter account. I was unsure about what to do with all of them but with some studying and watching of others, I just started writing and recording videos and I let the chips fall where they may.

It turns out, I wasn’t the only girl who ran into difficulties with getting healthier and I quickly started to get fans and viewers of my blog — 10 a day, 20 a day, 100 a day, 500 a day, 1000 a day and so on. Same with my Facebook Page and I am now approaching 3000 Likes!

Here are the 12 Steps I followed and how you can do it too.

1. Who are you? What are you writing about? This is your niche. You should be writing to your niche and also be a part of your niche to prove your passion for the topic.
2. Who is your audience? I was writing to people who wanted to live a healthier lifestyle and wanted to share ideas and success stories.
3. HAVE Patience – This is not going to happen overnight. It is going to take time to get a following. Be comfortable with the having approx 50 or so fans after the first month. Treat followers and fans with great respect and get to know THEM.
4. Provide Valuable Content – Only re-posting recipes or others content is not going to get a following. Write from the heart, write posts that will help, inspire, heal and motivate.
5. It is not about YOU – Being a blogger is about serving the community in which you occupy, not promoting yourself (that will come organically). Do as much as you can for others with no expectations besides knowing you may have helped someone.
6. Have a free item to give away. Having consistent viewership is great but it is a one way street. (They come to you) Creating a free report or a newsletter will get people to sign up to your email list and you now can reach them with your content, programs, or services. Mine was www.thegetinshapebooty.com
7. Do some Pro-Bono work – Not only good for your karma, this will help you build social currency. I have a personal training site. Before we launched it, we gave away free memberships to get the community engaged. Those people were also required to provide photos, testimonials, and leave positive feedback on their social media pages.
8. Show you CARE – When I was getting started I would write a thank you email to everyone who signed up for my free give-a-way just introducing myself and asking how I could help.
9. Follow up –People need reminders that you can help them; Also be consistent with your blog, failing to write a post for a couple weeks will kill your viewership before it gets going.
10. Do Free Challenges to get community involvement – I have created a free challenge for people on my Facebook page and people I am involved with on many different forums.
11. Ask your audience what they want, don’t assume you know – You are probably at a level of knowledge for your niche that is ahead of your viewers. Don’t assume they are there with you. If they are asking for the basic of basic steps, make sure to show them how!
12. Find people you want to be like and follow them! Get involved on their page, provide great content and posts and let them know you are also an authority figure in that space. Doing it once won’t cut it. Be a regular on their page helping THEIR viewers remain engaged. I bet you they will make their way over to your site in time!

I hope you will take the time to read this a few times and implement these steps as they have worked for me. April of 2010, I had no fans, viewers, a fan page, a blog, or a direction on where I was going to take this. Here is your blueprint.

Kyra is a certified personal trainer and nutritional specialist helping people across their world become healthier versions of themselves. To find out more about her and get some free tips go to www.thegetinshapeworkoutplan.com.