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It’s Day 5, and it’s all about sharing.
In my journey as an early employee at Twitter and as the author of a book about how to use Twitter, I’ve given hundreds of presentations on how to use the platform. One of the things I’ve said approximately one billion times is the fact that is you aren’t Kanye West, you can’t just hop on Twitter and hope the world will come talking you up. You’ve got to get out there and share your content. The same can be said for blogging. (If you are Kanye West and you are reading this, feel free to skip ahead.)
You’ve got your blog up, you’ve started thinking about putting up great content, but now you’ve got to share the goods with the world.
There are two key ways to do this, and they each are equally important.
Email Newsletter
When I started blogging in 2006, I did not have an email newsletter. It took me several years to understand why this was needed, and by the time I did understand it, my knees were bruised with all the self-kicking I’d been doing.
My college friend Ramit Sethi, who runs an eight-figure blogging empire, has said that not setting up an email list earlier in the journey has cost him millions of dollars. Don’t be me. Don’t be Ramit.
GET THEE AN EMAIL LIST.
Although I’ve moved on to a more complicated email newsletter service now, I think the best service to use when you’re getting started (and one that can grow with you for a LONG time) is Aweber. It also rocks by being free at the very beginning, and super cheap when you’re just getting started. Check it out here.
Mailchimp is also one folks love. Like Aweber, it can grow with you for a very long time, and only when your blog starts getting super complicated is it time to consider moving to something else.
Once you have your email newsletter set up, put a subscribe box on your new blog so folks have a way to sign up.
Social Media
“Oh hey I worked at Twitter and I love social media.” That should probably be my boring tee shirt, as you knew this was coming. If you write great content, and don’t bother sharing it on social media, you’re like a really smart person doing a really not smart thing (insert catchy metaphor). Here are a few things to remember:
- Sign up for the main platforms, if you are living in a hole and haven’t already. To get started, Facebook and Twitter and Instagram for sure. LinkedIn and Pinterest probably. YouTube and SnapChat maybe.
- If you already have accounts, do not bother creating new accounts in the name of your blog unless you want to fully separate your personal life from your blog. Otherwise, I generally encourage people these days to concentrate as much power as possible in a few good social media accounts.
- Make sure your social media accounts have icons that show up on your blog so folks can follow you from there.
- Check to ensure that the profiles on your social media accounts include the name of your blog (and its link when you can place it), so folks can find you.
- Regularly posting of your blog content on your social media platforms is essential. Either do it manually, or consider a service where you can put in one piece of content and have it parceled out onto your different social media platforms on a schedule you like. I use Buffer. Hootsuite is another good option. (Both have free and paid versions.)
Your challenge for today?
Set up your email newsletter and place a subscribe box on your blog. Now, put your social media icons on your blog as well.
Done?
Tell me about it below!
