Platform Archives - Page 26 of 28

Introverts and Online Writing with Demian Farnworth of CopyBlogger -019

October 14, 2015 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 6 Comments

In episode 18 I got to talk with Darren Rowse of Problogger and this week I’m talking with Demain Farnworth of Copyblogger. I loved this conversation where we talk about being introverts, what unique things we can bring to the table when there ISN’T anything really new, and what drives us crazy about the world we’re in right now. You can find Demian at the Rough Draft podcast, The Lede podcast, writing on Copyblogger, writing on his blog The Copybot, and on Twitter.

Here are some of my favorite posts/episodes from Demian:

Shakespeare’s 5 Rules for Making Up Words to Get Attention
The Perfect Anatomy of a Modern Web Writer
A Creative Email Trick for Becoming a Plain Spoken Writer

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 019

To listen to the podcast on iTunes, find it HERE and if you are not an iOS user, then you can listen via the Stitcher Radio app (which is free!).

Quotable

“I think the internet is particularly built for introverts.” <- AGREE!!

Big Ideas

The internet is particularly built for introverts because it requires less of the draining in-person connection and it also easier to send an email and face that possible rejection than an in-person one.
The hedgehog idea is what is your passion, what is economically viable, and can you get better at doing that passion. You want to find something you love to do and can improve.
Damian does a lot of experimenting, asking “I wonder if?” about his content. He tries things to see what traction he can get.
You have to adapt and see what works and where you go organically and find what works for YOUR audience. No two audiences are the same.
My goal is to find and deepen the relationship with people who want to follow me and go all the places I go.
You probably aren’t going to bring anything new to the table except for YOU and your voice.
The only thing that really changes over time is the filter: we take information and themes and express them through our voice and our perspective.
It’s getting easier and easier to be publishers of content, which is an exciting thing. It’s easier to create and to consume content. There are so many tools for us to do that in unique ways.
Trying some of the new formats like Periscope or Blab or podcasting is all about finding a new audience and connecting in a new way.
The downside internet can really bring out the worst in people. People read 1/10th of something and respond as though they know.

Relevant Links

Quiet by Susan Cain
How to Move Your Audience from Infatuation to Love – The Lede Podcast
Why Introverts Make Good Writers

What I Want to Know from YOU:

Are you an introvert or extrovert? How does that impact (or does it?) your creativity and your work?

*This post contains affiliate links! These give me essentially a referral fee for purchases you might make after clicking through a link at NO extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting my work!

List-Building Secrets for Success with Maritza Parra -017

October 1, 2015 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 2 Comments

When I heard Maritza Parra speak this summer on list-building at Podcast Movement, I knew I wanted to have her come on the show. You guys know how I feel about building email lists. (If you don’t, you should read this or this or this.) Maritza shared in the session how she sold her first product to a list of 800 people and made $30,000. Now you’re REALLY geared up for this interview aren’t you?

Maritza hosts the Easy Online Marketing Podcast and you can find great value on her site. I would highly recommend signing up for her email list, where you can get a freebie with SO MANY ideas for freebies that are working right now to give away as incentives for email subscribers. SO helpful!!

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 017

Quotable

“The whole point of a list is building relationships.”

Big Ideas

Give free content BEFORE asking people to op-in.
You want to move people toward taking action.
Maritza has subscriber appreciation days where she will have her readers sign up for a phone call or mini session with her so she can really connect.
Super targeted lists of very passionate people can be VERY successful. This allows you to be super specific in what you offer and lets you zero in on those pain points for your audience.
Consider doing real-life meet ups where you can connect with people in person. Have a Q&A and make notes of what things they want to know and learn.
Don’t take unsubscribes personally!
When is the best time to send something to your list? When you have something important to say, THAT’S the time.
You teach people how to treat you, so if you hesitate or second guess who you are or your product, that lets other people know they don’t have to take you seriously.
If you are giving great content, you should be able to offer paid products without feeling bad.
Add a story to what you are selling. Frame it well and as an experience.
Maritza said she has had more failures than successes, but those failures taught her more than the successes. When you fail, celebrate and try to see how you can push through.
Keep separate lists. Know why people signed up so you can speak to specific pain points.
Your freebie whole be a list-specific product, but doesn’t have to be huge. A 1-2 page PDF would be great.

Do you suffer from list-building stage fright? Don’t be afraid to email your list or sell to your list. If they signed up, there is something they want from YOU.

How to Involve Your Audience in Your Products

Involve them in the process. Ask what they want in a survey or give them two choices and have them hit reply to tell you.
Have a webinar or live training where you can say, “The results are in!” This lets them know that THEY were the driving factor.
Launching before you create your product allows you to know that you have an audience and a need for that product.

I loved this interview because it made me feel like I can do this. I can get over myself and my stage friend and email my list. I love the ways that Maritza connects with her people via phone calls and face to face.

Download a free copy of her list-building ideas!

What is YOUR big takeaway from this? Let me know in the comments!

Leveraging Facebook Groups with Biz Women Rock’s Katie Krimitsos – 016

September 23, 2015 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com 4 Comments

Before I start, I want to say a GIANT thank you to Jasmine Commerce for her song “October Sky” that she has let me use for the podcast. I LOVE her music and find myself singing hours after editing the podcast episodes. Agree? Find her music here.

Interview with Katie Krimitsos on Leveraging Facebook Groups

With Facebook pages going the way of the dinosaur (if the dinosaur were in a petting zoo where you had to pay extra to SEE the dinosaur even though you already LIKED the dinosaur), Facebook groups are rapidly gaining attention. A few months ago at Podcast Movement I heard Katie Krimitsos from Biz Women Rock share about her experience with the power of Facebook groups. Katie is one of those larger-than-life personalities who draws you in with her personality and the way she couples it with a keen business savvy. She’s brilliant and I knew I had to have her on the show.

Whether you are a writer working to establish relationships with readers, a blogger wanting to create a community around your blog, or a business-owner wanting to connect with customers on a deeper level, Facebook groups are the way to go. (Until Facebook makes groups go the way of the dinosaur, but as Katie mentions in the interview, that’s why you have an email list!) I loved getting to talk with Katie this morning and I hope you can come away with a renewed sense of how Facebook groups can work for you, no matter WHAT your purposes.

As for Katie, you can find her at the Biz Women Rock site, listen to the Biz Women Rock podcast on iTunes, or jump right into her Biz Women Rock Facebook group to see her live out what she talked about in this episode. (I’m in that group and she practices what she teaches!!)

ALSO! This is time sensitive so I want to throw it out here right now at the beginning. Katie is doing a free webinar this Friday, September 25 at 2pm EST about how to start, grow, and monetize your Facebook group. She will give an awesome free training (I did it last month!!) and offer you the last chance to buy the Facebook Groups Rock course before she has her baby girl in a few weeks! Sign up for the free training HERE.

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 016

Quotable

“Your group on Facebook, i.e. your tribe or your community, is only as good as the value you’re providing them.”

Big Ideas

Katie started an in-person community in Tampa and applied some of the principles that worked for an IRL group in an URL group.
Biz Women Rock started as a podcast and she was following the typical model of getting sponsors and growing the podcast audience.
The Facebook group came out of her desire to want to wrap her arms around her listeners. (I LOVE this description!)
Out of this group, her brand became a trusted resource and the central focus became NOT the podcast, but the community and brand as a whole as a business resource with the podcast just being ONE of these things.
Facebook may very well change up how groups work and they may not work well forever. This platform isn’t YOURS. Get email addresses!
To collect those email addresses, Katie utilizes webinars and has also used the Facebook group as the freebie or opt-in for people who sign up on her website for her email list.

Facebook Group Tips for Moderators

The group needs to be engaged for it to work. Figure out what works for each group, but asking questions you think people WANT to answer is a good way to get people talking. People love to share about themselves!
Utilize different kinds of media: video, photo, text. Videos especially can bring people into your world and helps make you relatable and approachable as the leader of the group.
You need to have this engagement and relationship before you sell to your group. It won’t BE salesy if you’re doing it well.
As the owner, YOU set the tone. Don’t be afraid to moderate and do what works for you, not just what other groups do.
Establish guidelines that will help maintain and define the culture of the group. Remind people of them.
The natural tendency is for people to want to promote their things. You want to give a space for this, but especially as your group grows, this gets spammy FAST. Consider having one share thread a week.
Spend some time seeing what people like and what people respond to.
The ultimate goal isn’t to talk at people, but to foster community. You know your group is healthy when people interact WITHOUT you.
At Podcast Movement with Katie Krimitsos and Taylor Bradford of the Boss Girl Creative Podcast. We should have known better than to stand in front of a window…

How to Sell to Your Facebook Group without Being Smarmy

Establish yourself and your brand as valuable to the group.
Pay attention to the needs of the community. Then find ways to meet those needs and provide value.
Ask people what they want and need!
People as consumers get that if you have their best interests in mind so when people love and trust your brand, you can easily show them that you’re providing value FOR them. Even if it’s also a sale for you.

This was such a great conversation with valuable insights that really do apply to ANY field that you are in, whether that’s selling handmade products, writing books, or direct sales. Create an engaged community, provide lots of FREE value, and then offered products that meet people’s needs. If this is something you want to know more about, don’t miss Katie’s webinar! If you can’t watch at that time, you can still sign up and catch the replay.

What I Want to Know from YOU

Are you using Facebook groups? If so, how is that working for you? Let me know in the comments!

Relevant Links

Your Email List Is Not Your Community <- as an email nerd, I loved reading this! Katie is right on.
5 Ways to Leverage Facebook Groups for Your Business
Make Money with Facebook Groups <- I heard the author, Abbie Unger, speak this weekend at the Blog Elevated Conference and she is right there with Katie in this community-building with Facebook groups!

How to Hone Your Writing Process & Move Past Writer’s Block -014

August 20, 2015 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Have you ever gotten stuck in your creative work? REALLY stuck?

Sometimes this comes in the form of writer’s block. Or sometimes your process gets in your own way. You keep trying to move forward and instead keep hitting a wall. This week I took reader questions and got two that fit well together dealing with the writing process and writer’s block. Let’s dive into some reader questions from the Create If Writing Facebook group and Periscope!

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 014

Penelope from @Foster2Forever asked about writing process on Periscope.

You can hear the full details on the podcast, but I always start with a vomit version. That’s a really ugly, horrible draft where I get as many words on the page as possible to shape them into something good. Then: editing. Lots and lots of editing.

As far as WHAT I write, I don’t write a lot of fiction now that my kids are little. For now, my brain on little kids (not unlike my brain on crack <-that is a GUESS because my brain hasn’t been on crack) works better with non-fiction and shorter blog posts.

Anita @blestbutstrest asked in the Facebook group about writing conferences.

I have been to a TON of conferences lately. Podcast Movement has been the best, but I’ve also been to AdventureCon (which I couldn’t remember in the episode), Declare, Re:Write, Blog Elevated, and the Houston Baptist Writer’s Conference. They are ALL good for different reasons! I’m a conference junkie, what can I say?

Thanks for listening this week and I would love to answer any questions you have about my new course or about the webinars! You can reach me at kirsten@kirstenoliphant.com

Ed Cyzewski on Hybrid Publishing – 010

June 24, 2015 by kirstenoliphant@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Special thanks to Josh Mills of Unbroken Light for the podcast music!

In these days of publishing with so many viable options, how do you decide if you should pursue commercial (traditional) publishing or publish independently? Or should you think about hybrid publishing?

(Note: There is hybrid publishing in the sense that agencies or publishers are doing a sort of half-commercial, half-indie publishing, but I am using it here in the sense of doing BOTH traditional and indie publishing.)

You will NOT get an answer for that question in this episode with Ed Cyzewski. What you WILL get is an inside look at his experience as a hybrid author. Among others, he has commercially published Coffeehouse Theology and A Christian Survival Guide as well as Pray, Write, Grow and Creating Space independently. He has an active blog and shares great content (as well as humorous quips) on Twitter. Do join his email list, if for nothing other than his pet rabbit. (You’ll see.) Go stalk him. Tell him I sent you.

Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 010

Some of My Favorite Posts from Ed:

Are Independent Authors Just Control Freaks with Issues?

Why You Should Join the Book Lovers Email List (<- MY title, not his)

When Commercial Christian Publishing Was Bad for My Soul

At a Glance

Writing about what you really care about helps you find readers who can get on the same page.
Blogs so often evolve as YOU evolve. That’s okay!
Your blog writing can be a great place for discovering what your readers want to read.
With traditional publishing, often you have a year to prove yourself and if you don’t make the sales, you can be considered damaged goods. This (clearly) comes with an enormous amount of pressure.
Even the tactics that publishers will use to promote books (WHEN they use them) won’t work for everyone.
A lot of the things that you might think will help you sell books will NOT. In Ed’s first experience, interviews in magazines, on radio spots, and media tours sold very few copies.
The secret is to be relentlessly helpful and make lasting connections.
Your email list should be about authentic connections and establishing relationships with your potential readers.
Prayer and writing often involve similar steps and can develop one another, becoming a life-giving cycle. (More on that in his book Pray, Write, Grow!)
Writing is a gift, but also a marketable skill. Carve out the writing time and keep shifting things in your life to keep the creative life up. Don’t necessarily do this by taking away your financial safety net!

Quotable and My Big Takeaway:

“You can’t afford to NOT independently publish and make all your mistakes first.”

Relevant Links

Write, Publish, Repeat by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant
Your First 1000 Copies by Tim Grahl (find his site HERE)
Falling Upward by Richard Rohr
The Examen App

What I want to know from YOU:

How did this conversation affect your desire to publish traditionally or independently? What has your experience been with either? Let me know in the comments!