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How to Get More Followers on Social Media

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Want to know how to get more followers on social media? I’ve got you covered. This posts is the third in a series on Why Your Audience Isn’t Growing. You should also read Why Your Social Media Isn’t Growing to see mistakes you might be making!

One of the biggest questions that people have about social media is how to get followers. No matter how many you currently have, we all seem to want to get MORE followers. And more. We can never have enough!!

I especially know what it feels like to be just starting out where you have under 1000 followers. I remember my first year on Twitter with something like 300 followers, feeling like I would never grow.

Getting followers feels like an impossible task. You need more followers so that you have some kind of social proof, so that more people will follow you, but no one will follow you without more followers. And I have found it to be true that once you pass a certain benchmark of at least a thousand people, it gets easier to grow.

Getting followers is kind of like a chicken and egg problem.

So let’s talk about how you get more followers on social media, especially when you are just starting out OR when you are stuck.

Note: This post contains affiliate links! That means at no extra cost to you, I will receive a commission if you purchase something through some of the links I share. 

Listen to How to Get More Followers on Social Media


You can listen right here or on iTunes, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. Or keep reading below!

Want to know how to get more followers on social media? Try these simple tips and tools.

HOW TO GET MORE FOLLOWERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Before we even get into the specifics of how, I want to talk about the WHY. Specifically YOUR why. If you are not super clear on your why, you are going to struggle to grow your social media presence, your blog, and your audience.

Your WHY is your purpose. My background is in writing, so I like to think of it as your theme. A theme isn’t the beginning-middle-end of a story, but the ideas that run throughout, tying the story together.

For an example, my WHY is that I want to help writers and bloggers build an online platform without being smarmy. I love helping people connect with their perfect audience online, using all the tools and strategies that smart marketers use, but without the icky salesy tactics.

Knowing my WHY means that if I have a post idea that doesn’t fit into that overarching purpose, I don’t write it. Or I write it in a guest post somewhere else. Or on my other blog.

If you aren’t clear on your why or the audience you serve, you are going to really struggle!

Take some time to write out a clear statement of purpose. This should include who you serve, how you serve them, and what is unique to you.

HOW TO GET FOLLOWERS THROUGH CONTENT

Once you have your why in place, you can both create and curate content that fits under the umbrella of your why. In the second post of this series I talked about curating content, which is essentially the way that you share other people’s content on social media. I want to go even deeper on this idea of sharing relevant content.

Consider your perfect audience (see my series on how to find your perfect audience) when you are coming up with content ideas to create. In the same way, think about your target audience when you are choosing Tweets to Retweet or pins to share on Pinterest.

Ask yourself: Does this serve my perfect audience? 

When you share awesome content (your own and others), a really cool thing happens. People start to see you as an authority.

You become their go-to for news, trends, and resources. You save them the time so they don’t have to research all the latest trends or news. Sharing quality content will help you get more followers that are truly interested in you. That’s why it’s really important to share relevant content.

PRO TIP: On Facebook in particular, you need to not only consider the topic, but the kind of content. If you keep sharing viral videos because they get great reach, but you don’t CREATE video, this may hurt you in the long run. When you share your blog posts as links, your page is used to doing well with video, so the reach may diminish for link posts. An active page doesn’t help you if it’s active for video, but you are trying to drive traffic to a blog.

Examples of People Sharing Consistent Quality Content

Here are a few of my favorite creator/curators in different niches:

The Sell More Books Show – Each week Bryan Cohen and Jim Kukral share five big newsworthy items and three tips related to book writing and marketing, especially in the indie space. I want to know what’s going on, so I follow their podcast, follow them on Twitter, and like their Facebook page so hopefully I won’t miss anything.

Jenn’s Trends – Jenn Herman has a blog focused on social media, specifically Instagram. Even though I’ve temporarily told Instagram, “it’s not me, it’s you,” I can count on her to share big news I need to know about social media. I joined her Facebook group to keep up with what she’s sharing about social media.

Social Media Examiner – While this seems like a no-brainer because this is a hugely established site, I love Michael Stelzner’s curiosity and passion for social media. (You can hear this particularly through his podcast, where he seems genuinely excited and interested in the guests.)

HOW TO GET FOLLOWERS THROUGH CONTENT-SHARING TOOLS

Sharing consistent quality content is HARD. Especially when you are also creating content too. I really rock at creating content. I love it. Give me content creation all. day. long.

And while I shared in my post on why your blog isn’t growing that it’s not just about promotion, YOU HAVE TO PROMOTE your awesome content. If you are trying to curate good content from other people as well (which you should do), then you have even more posts to share and schedule. Promotion is a lot of work, so you’ll want some tools to help with that.

Note: Don’t forget that you can’t JUST promote. You have to engage with people as well! Read the previous post in this series for ideas. 

So what tools can help you get followers on social media through content sharing?

My favorite tools to share quality content-

Quuu – (Facebook & Twitter) This app will generate and autopost relevant content to your Twitter or Facebook feeds for you. Like most apps, you can use some features with the free version and then upgrade.

I honestly don’t LOVE pushing out content that I haven’t seen first. But they have a great vetting process for the posts that they take, so you will get great content!

Quuu Promote – This is a paid part of Quuu where you can submit posts to go in the Quuu feed. I’ve seen really great results from putting my posts in here. This means that when other people sign up for Quuu and autopost links, YOUR links go in the pool to be shared on a particular topic.

This has resulted in a good amount of traffic and also shown me what content is working well. Check out these two posts, both about email marketing. (For reference, another promoted post I did had 17 clicks from only 80 shares, as compared to the 300-something shares for only 8 clicks.) They don’t accept posts automatically, but look through each.

how-to-use-quuu-promote
Check out the difference in clicks with these two Quuu Promote posts!

Promo Republic – I love this social sharing tool because it comes with templates and stock photos that you can edit (think: Canva), but you don’t have to LEAVE the platform to share them. Instead, you create them right there, write your text for a post, then choose to share on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram (reminder, not autoschedule, since Insta doesn’t allow that).

They share trends that may help you come up with post ideas and you can create a queue of content that will post at optimal times. Get this on AppSumo for a limited time with my referral code (that gives me credit at no extra cost to you) HERE. 

Tailwind – I love this app for Pinterest! (It also does Instagram, but I don’t use it for that.) It has one of the easiest scheduling dashboards I’ve used. You can click a button to shuffle them all, choose the best time slots you want per day, how many shares per day, and even join tribes of other Pinterest users to promote each other’s content. If you use my affiliate link, you’ll get a free month to try it out!

Hootsuite – I have been using Hootsuite maybe longer than any other social tool! It’s very similar to Buffer, which a lot of people like, but because I have never seen a reason to switch! Choose which one works for you. You can manage up to three accounts with Hootsuite’s free plan, including Facebook (page, group, or profile), LinkedIn, and Twitter.

I create Twitter lists within Hootsuite and then can easily go in and schedule content on a weekly basis. (Though I’ve been HORRIBLE about this lately.) It clears the clutter when you just want to pop in and see what’s going on over on Twitter. This makes it easier to get in, engage and schedule, then get out without getting lost.

Iconosquare – Iconosquare is NOT a social scheduling platform and is strictly for Instagram. But it’s a really helpful tool to manage your followers and to see what content people engage with so that you can create more of the same. You can even track details like which hashtags performed well for you. As with most tools, you can get more when you pay.

Social Jukebox – This is a great tool to create a content library (or “jukebox”) of evergreen content that get shared again and again over time.

RecurPost – Similar to Social Jukebox, this tool will let you schedule posts to share again and again. If you don’t want to pay for Edgar or SmarterQueue, you can use these two together to get the max number of posts without paying.

PRO TIP: Remember to share your own posts with as much gusto and passion as you share other people’s posts. This tip comes by way of Paula Rollo of Beauty Through Imperfection and her Facebook Group, Actionable Blogging Tips.

This is why I don’t always love autoshare. I tested Crowdfire’s autoshare feature and chose blogging, social media, and writing as tags. NOT POLITICS. You never know what might end up being shared!!

HOW TO GET MORE FOLLOWERS THROUGH FOLLOW FOR FOLLOW

I know that in the past year, the idea of getting followers by following people brings out the eye rolls. Especially on Instagram, people talk about getting 300 new followers in a day, then losing 294 two days later. (True story.) That’s a LOT of people doing it wrong.  

The BEST way to follow people to get followers on Instagram and Twitter is to follow people you are actually interested in, interact with them in a way that isn’t smarmy (ex: DON’T follow, then tweet at them telling them you followed and asking them to follow back), and then in a few weeks or month, unfollow the people who aren’t following you back UNLESS they are stellar content creators and you want to keep following. 

Give this practice a little more of a personal touch and a little more time to see it actually work for you.

A Note on Facebook

I have not mentioned much about growing a Facebook page here. There are a few reasons for this. First, this can be one of the harder platforms to grow. Because of the way the Facebook algorithm works, people often won’t see your content. Even huge pages have very little reach on posts. I’ll talk more about this in a separate post, because it’s a HUGE topic.

HOW TO GET MORE FOLLOWERS…SPARINGLY

Facebook groups – Many blogger Facebook groups have threads on a weekly or daily basis where you can link to your social profiles and then follow everyone and have them follow you. You really want TARGETED followers, so these don’t always work well. But depending on your goals or while you’re trying to get past that social proof number, this may really help.

Giveaways – You can definitely grow quickly and with big results using giveaways. But you are more than likely going to end up with people who don’t care about you or your content. Particularly if you are giving away money or a gift card to a store. Try to be more targeted to your audience and give a great prize, but one that is specific to writers or moms or your audience.

Ads – You can run Facebook ads to get likes for your page, but this is something I would do sparingly. Facebook seems to drop your reach right after you pay for things to make you think you NEED to pay for things. So, realize this is an option in the ads manager, but don’t rely on this.

Remember the Context When You Are Trying to Get Followers!

If you are trying to get more followers on social media, don’t forget your overall purpose. Think of the kinds of followers you really want and the long-term goals.

Consider all these tips in conjunction with the reasons your social media isn’t growing, particularly thinking about the idea that you need to be SOCIAL.

What are YOUR tips for getting more followers on social media? Share in the comments!

 

Why Your Social Media Isn’t Growing

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Today’s post is all about why your social media isn’t growing. As in, why you can’t seem to grow your social media followers. It’s the second in a series called Why Your Audience Isn’t Growing. You can click to read the first post, Why Your Blog Isn’t Growing.

Social media can be one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal…but it can also be the most frustrating. It takes a lot of time, can feel like a part-time job, and sometimes doesn’t seem to bring in results.

If you are one of the many people stuck wondering why your social media isn’t growing, I’ve got some explanations and some tips for what you might do differently.

Listen to Episode 108 – Why Your Social Media Isn’t Growing


Keep scrolling to read the post! You can also subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, I Heart Radio, your favorite podcast app, or find the audio on YouTube.

WHY YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T GROWING

Here are three reasons why your social media isn’t growing.

You Aren’t Sharing Relevant Content

Back when I first started using Twitter and Facebook, I’d been blogging for a few years. But I NEVER shared my own blog posts.

Why? Because NO ONE DID. These social media platforms evolved to be a good place for promotion, but they didn’t start that way. Now many people use them ONLY for link-sharing. (More on that in the next point.)

Part of growing your blog IS utilizing the power of you social platforms. (But your blog still won’t grow without fixing the three mistakes we talked about in the first part of the series!) We should be sharing links on our Twitter profile, our Facebook page, on Instagram, and wherever you hang out online.

But if that’s ALL you are doing, you aren’t going to grow your followers on social media. Which means in turn that you won’t have as much traffic to your blog. You do NOT want someone to come to your profile and find that every post or even every other post is your own.

The Fix

If you really want to grow your social media platforms, you need to be a curator of content, not just a creator. Being a good curator means that you are picking and choosing things to share as a kind of collection or gallery. People often talk about the 80/20 rule: 80% of what you share should be from other people and 20% from your own content.

Ask yourself what kind of content would COMPLEMENT your own.

  • What links would add to the conversation you’re starting with what you write?
  • What other people are creating quality content in your space?
  • What words of encouragement or news do your people need?

Consider how you can curate a collection of links and posts that will reach your target audience. Share your own, but share links from other sources MORE.

You Aren’t Being Social

Social media isn’t always the best name for Facebook or Twitter or Google Plus or Instagram anymore. It’s often more like Self Media. You promote yourself. And, if you aren’t actually being social, you’re only talking to yourself.

If you aren’t having actual conversations with people on social media, you aren’t being social. This happens a lot when people automate their social shares. They use tools to send out links automatically so they never have to actually go ON Twitter or LinkedIn.

It also happens when people try the follow-unfollow method of growth. This looks like following a bunch of people and then unfollowing them the next day or week. (Um, that’s just smarmy, PERIOD.Stop.) 

Clearly, if you are automating everything, you CANNOT be social. Without showing up and talking to other people, you will not grow your social following.

The Fix

Automation is great (see this post on the difference between scheduling and automation), but you need to have conversations. You must be social.

This means that in addition to scheduling and automating content, you must actually show up on those platforms and engage. Here are a few ideas for how this can look:

  • Reply personally to people who share, like, or comment on your posts.
  • When you follow someone, check out their profile and comment to them about something in their profile that stood out to you. (If nothing stands out to you in their profile, why are you following them??)
  • Instead of just dropping links on your Facebook page, go live and answer questions or engage with your fans.
  • Join Twitter chats where you can talk to as many as a few hundred people in an hour.
  • Try an Instagram hop where people on a particular day join in on a hashtag like #itssimplytuesday from Emily P. Freeman or #fridayintroductions from Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan.

This is not rocket science. It isn’t hard to do. But it also takes a bit more time and investment. Life would be wonderful if we could just step back and automate everything…but then we wouldn’t really make connections or increase engagement.

You Aren’t Laser Focused

One of the reasons your social media isn’t growing is that you are trying too many things at once. You are on five platforms, trying to manage all of them at the same time.

Each platform has its own quirks, social media sizes, audience, and best practices for how often to post. (See my post on Seriously Simple Social for more and a free guide!) Unless you’ve been doing this for years or have an assistant helping you out, it can be near impossible to manage all of the platforms well.

I also see people often having one post from a social platform automatically post to all the others. So if I’m following someone on Instagram, I might see their post there first. Then I see it on their Facebook page. Then I see it on Twitter. Then I see it on their Facebook profile.

Each platform has its own nuances. You aren’t going to get a ton of Instagram OR Facebook followers when you automate your Instagram images to post on Facebook. You’ll look silly when you have 11 hashtags on Facebook or you tag people and it doesn’t work because the original tag was on Twitter, not Facebook.

Don’t cross the streams! It is more work, but even changing a few things about your post (image size, hashtags or NO hashtags, description length, etc) can help it do well on EACH platform.

The Fix

Start with a focus. You may want to make sure you secure your name on several of the big platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest for sure) before someone else gets it, but you don’t have to be fully active on all of them.

Pick 1-2 platforms you really like where your ideal people also hang out. Consider an overarching strategy for the kind of content you’ll post and how often. Set an alarm or set aside time daily or weekly to engage with people on that platform. Master the kinds of images and posts that do well there. (Again, get my Seriously Simple Social Guide for that!)

When you are really rocking 1-2 platforms and are in your groove, consider adding another. But don’t try to be in all the places at one time. You will have a hard time posting quality content on many platforms and

You Are Participating in Too Many Share Groups

Wait– shouldn’t we be using Facebook groups to grow? Yes. Ish. Facebook groups are great for connecting with other bloggers and getting our content out there! But share groups may be holding back authentic growth.

The kinds of groups I mean are those where content creators can post their links in daily or weekly threads. Then they are required to follow or like or share or comment on the other links in the thread.

While this SEEMS like a good idea, it’s really not. It might boost your numbers a bit. It might give you some social proof when one post has 20 comments. (Note: whenever I see a post now with more than a handful of comments–ESPECIALLY if it’s a newer post–I always assume these are from one of these share threads.) The problem with these groups is that you aren’t actually finding your target audience.

Instead of connecting with that busy mom or that just-starting-out author, you are connecting with another blogger. Who, outside of the group requirements, is NOT likely to become a superfan. If you are trying to work with brands, they have grown wise to this (especially about Instagram pods) and they are NOT happy.

It’s one thing to have a small group where you support each other and share content. (Like the content curation I just wrote about.) Follow-for-follow threads are another thing altogether. Required follow and share groups do not result in authentic engagement from your target audience. Period.

The Fix

Be wise in the kinds of groups you join and what kind of threads you participate in. Ask yourself what you are REALLY gaining from your participation.

  • Is the group made up of your target audience?
  • Will other people in the group help get your content IN FRONT OF your target audience?
  • Is the content you are required to share relevant and good for curation?

These groups are popular because they give a FEELING of success. Doesn’t it feel nice when you have a bunch of comments on a post? Don’t you love seeing other people share your content? If the groups you are in result in real engagement from your idea people, that’s GREAT. If they don’t, or if they require that you share content you otherwise wouldn’t, it’s time to rethink.

Can't seem to grow? These four reasons share why your social media isn't growing and what you can do about it.

Though many of these fixes are a bit more time intensive and require more of YOU, that’s the cost of real social media growth. A lot of the tactics people teach out there are just that: tactics. They are not a strategy. And they are not about engaged, authentic growth.

If you’re looking for the main reason why your social media isn’t growing, it’s likely because you aren’t investing enough of yourself. You are automating in order to create a Self Media that’s all about your links and not about real engagement or serving your audience.

What are YOUR struggles with social media? Have you seen some of these reasons in your own social media?

 

Tips for Building Traffic

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With a crowded internet filled with blogs and podcasts and websites to browse, it can be really difficult to stand out. Today on the podcast I’m bringing you tips for building traffic! I’m also going to share why I don’t think traffic is the bee’s knees (as in, my main goal is NOT to build traffic).

As a quick note, I am spending a whole MONTH talking about traffic in my paid membership community. We’ll have exclusive interviews and resources and a guide to traffic. If you want to see what this exclusive community and training is all about, you can try your first month for $1! You’ll have access to hours of video trainings and join our private Facebook group, plus get weekly email check-ins from me. Check the Create If Community Membership!

Listen to Episode 105 – Tips for Building Traffic

Tips for Building Traffic

When we talk about traffic, we are talking about how many visitors you have on your blog, usually measured monthly. There is a difference between pageviews and unique monthly views, but for now, I’m talking about pageviews.

(If you REALLY want to know, pageviews are the number of times your site literally loaded and unique users separates out multiple visits from the same people, so you’ll get a more accurate number of how many different people are reading your stuff. Sessions are kind of in-between– the same user could have two different sessions and view six total pages, resulting in two sessions, one user, and six pagviews. Read this great breakdown here!) 

Traffic from 2007 to 2017

In the old days of blogging, you wrote blog posts and people came. I like to think of this as Field of Dreams blogging: if you blog it, they will come.

When I started in 2007, that’s how it worked. People found me. I didn’t seek them out, and I certainly didn’t promote my blog. Social media wasn’t really used for self-promotion back then.

2017 is a different world. If you write a blog post, hit publish, and do nothing else, chances are that maybe like 10 people might read your post. No one will just “find” it (unless you do a great job with SEO). Few people will share it (unless you first share it yourself). These days, you have to WORK to get traffic.

Tips for Building Traffic in 2017

There are two main ways that you can build traffic to your site.

  1. Get found by utilizing SEO best practices. This means optimizing your post with keywords so that search engines like Google or Bing and even platforms like Pinterest (which is really a visual search engine) will suggest your post. (Pinterest is considered social media, but I’ll get into why I put it in this category. Keep reading.)
  2. Bring people to you by promoting on social media. This means actually pushing your link out over social media so that other people will see it, click to read, and maybe even share.

The best idea is to use a combination of these two methods. When you have your SEO working for you, after the initial setup, you can expect to have traffic continue, no matter what you do. It’s passive, long-term traffic. (Not to say that you shouldn’t do updates or that you can’t strengthen your game.)

Combine great SEO with promotions on social media, where you will see short-term spikes of traffic. It’s great to diversify your traffic sources so that you can have a more secure foundation in case something major shifts or an algorithm kills off your traffic.

As for Pinterest, it is considered a social media platform, but there is very little social anything happening there. Pinterest has continued to shift into a visual search engine. I have had several pins that continued to drive hundreds and thousands of pageviews a day even when I pinned them one time, YEARS ago. Yes, I do pin daily. But the traffic from Pinterest acts more like search engine traffic– it comes passively over time and is impacted by keywords and search.

How can you grow the traffic you currently have?

In theory, this is simple. Choose #1 & #2 (or, ideally, both) and work on your game. In practice, this is obviously not as easy as it sounds. SEO is more of a long game, which means that you can put things in place now and hopefully see some increases in the coming months. But the benefit is that after you set up SEO, it keeps going.

Social media is more of a short game that will result in temporary traffic spikes. I’ve had a post go “viral” on Facebook that resulted in 50k pageviews in a few days. But then it dropped to 2k and then 500 and then…nothing.

Social media is something you need to do once and then do again and then do again. In fact, a lot of people will say that you should spend 20% creating content and 80% PROMOTING. Yikes.

But what is the purpose of building traffic? 

If you are building an ads-based monetization strategy, straight-up traffic is what you want. Numbers = $$$. But it takes a LOT of traffic to make a significant impact. For reference, one of my sites gets between 10k-20k pageviews per month and I get about $200 or less in ads revenue.

Traffic is fragile. So if you are building on straight traffic and straight ads-based revenue, you are building something delicate. One algorithm change and everything shatters.

So it’s important to think about how to capture traffic and what you want those visitor so DO on your site. My biggest recommendation is (surprise, surprise): EMAIL. The most permanent way that you can connect is by getting people on your list. Email is also a third, not as often talked area in terms of building traffic.

You also may want them to read more posts, check out your about page, or generally hang out for a while. So you can work on optimizing your site in a way that encourages reading, clicking around, and signing up for your email list. It makes #5 on Neil Patel’s great list of ways to build traffic!

Make sure as you think about ways to build traffic that you are thinking about WHY. You need a purpose. You want people to DO something. At the least, try to connect in a more permanent way with your readers by getting them on your email list.

Try these tips for building traffic utilizing a long and short game to keep traffic diversified.

Some Practical Tips for Building Traffic

This is NOT an exhaustive list, but a few things that have been working for me in 2017. Also! I want to make a big note that in these things that are working, not ALL of them are about building traffic to my site. Many of the things I’m doing are about sending people to a landing page for my email list.

So…why am I including them? 

The reality is that whether you are asking someone to click to a blog page or a landing page for email, these tips ask people to click through to something. And these tips are working right now to get people clicking. I am simply focusing on my list right now and making that a priority over blog traffic.

Again…WHY?

As I mentioned before, traffic is fragile. It can be awesome, and there is something powerful about having millions of pageviews a month. I have friends doing that and they are making more than full-time incomes on their blogs through ads and sponsored posts and other revenue streams. Since my main revenue streams are NOT related to ads or sponsored posts, I utilize my email list primarily to build relationships and offer products and services that fit their needs. Yes, I’d like to build my blog traffic. But it’s not my main thing.

Utilize timely or time sensitive things. I did an experiment with social media over the last month. I scheduled out daily posts to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn advertising one of my big freebies, Seriously Simple Social. I found that I got less than 50 in total for the month. Meanwhile, I held a webinar and started signups for Summer School, a 6-week free class I’m holding this summer. In just a few days, I more than doubled the other signups. Even though these were events with email signups, you could try something similar by promoting timely blog posts– like my boredom busters for kids, which I promote more heavily at the beginning of summer.

Post to popular Facebook pages.  I’ve seen the power of large Facebook pages sharing your posts. See this list of pages who allow or encourage sharing HERE. Basically, you can post on their page wall, where the post isn’t super visible to regular visitors, but the page owner will see it. If it’s a good fit, they will share it themselves on their page so it IS visible. When I had that 50k pageviews in a few days, it was from several large pages sharing my post.

Post with GREAT DESCRIPTIONS to Facebook group share threads. If you are a member of 1 million Facebook groups like I am, you’ll know that there is usually a no-promo policy. This keeps everyone in the group from posting their blog links 100 times a day. (As a group owner, trust me that I delete a billion of these every day.) There is often a thread once a week where you can share your links. Many people miss this opportunity by just literally pasting a link in that thread. The people who see the most engagement and clicks are those who put a description and actually talk about their link and give a mini pitch.

Get excited about your own content. This is a tip from Paula Rollo of Beauty Through Imperfection. (She shared it in her Quick Blog Tips Group, which you should join!) She pointed out that often when we promote other content, we gush and give a great testimonial for why people should read. Then, for our own content, we say something like “Read my latest post.” We can tell people our content is great without being smarmy. I know it’s often hard to talk nicely about ourselves and it can feel…off. But if you believe in your own content (and you should), then give people a reason to read!

There are TONS more tips for building traffic, but these are a few specific actions that are helping me see results!

Want to up your blogging game this summer? Join me for Summer School!

You can choose to focus on SEO, Blogging, or Building Your List (or all three!) after you register. You don’t want to miss these classes, which start on June 15!Join us for Summer School! Choose from three (or choose all three!) free classes that run for 6 weeks, starting June 15.

 

Must Know Publishing Tips with Honoree Corder

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There are so many ways to publish a book these days that when it comes to publishing tips, it seems okay to say: choose what works best for you! But it’s great to trust those who have found success before us. Honoree Corder just released her FIFTIETH book and shares practical launch strategies, whether you should use a hybrid publisher, and more publishing tips in this episode! Read more or listen below!

Listen to Episode 104 – Should You Try Hybrid Publishing for Your Book with Honoree Corder

 

Connect with Honoree

Official bio: Honorée Corder is the author of dozens of books, including You Must Write a Book, The Prosperous Writer book series, Vision to Reality, Business Dating, The Successful Single Mom book series, If Divorce is a Game, These are the Rules, and The Divorced Phoenix. She is also Hal Elrod’s business partner in The Miracle Morning book series. Honorée coaches business professionals, writers, and aspiring non-fiction authors who want to publish their books to bestseller status, create a platform, and develop multiple streams of income. She also does all sorts of other magical things, and her badassery is legendary. You can find out more at HonoreeCorder.com.

This post contains affiliate links!

Must-Know Publishing Tips with Honoree Corder

Tips for Your Launch Strategy

  • Start building your list from the time you consider writing a book. It’s the one thing you need for short-term and long-term success.
  • Each book launch may look different. It depends on the outcome.
  • The launch starts 2-3 or even 6 weeks before the book with the formation of an advanced reader team. This will be made up of your ideal readers, not just friends or random people who say yes.

PRO TIP: Make sure your ideal reader team is targeted to the audience who would be likely to actually BUY your book because of interest. Not just friends or your mom. Probably NOT your mom. When these people buy your book, it can skew your also-boughts underneath the sale area on Amazon, which means that your book may not get shown to the right audience!

  • You can gift a free advance copy to your reader team, but also ask them to buy and review and explain WHY it matters.
  • If people cannot afford your book, consider how they might help you out in another way.

Should You Try Hybrid Publishing?

For a moment, let’s define the terms. Traditional publishing is when you have one of the big five publishers or a small press publish your book. They pay you an advance and royalties if you sell more copies than the cost of the advance.

Indie publishing is the new term for what we used to call self publishing. It means that the author takes control for all aspects of the book (though often this means hiring an editor, a cover designer, etc) and publishes the book without an outside publisher.

Hybrid authors is a term NOT to be confused with hybrid publishing. These authors may have some traditionally published books and some indie books.

Hybrid publishing is when a company asks for an upfront payment from authors in exchange for publishing, printing, distributing, or other aspects of the publishing process. The contracts and terms vary.

Why Hybrid Publishing Might Not Be the Best (or a Good) Choice

There are horror stories. Many. I hear them all the time from authors who paid thousands of dollars to get hundreds of copies of their book that may or may not even look professional. At best, you may end up with a book that has been formatted and have a cover designed…both things that you could do yourself or pay someone to do for MUCH less.

For more warnings on companies to avoid, here is a great site! Hat tip to Elle Mott for this one!

But one of the big points to consider is WHAT ELSE COULD YOU DO WITH THE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY? (Or even less.) You could hire a top cover designer, editor, and even pay for Facebook ads or AMS ads for less than you would pay a hybrid publisher.

Other Publishing Tips for Authors

  • For non-fiction authors, consider how you can intentionally network. (See Business Dating.) Find 11 other professionals who serve the same client or ideal reader, but are not your competition. Then you can support each other and share clients. Intentionally seek them out. Then if you REALLY like them and connect well, ask for referrals. Practical tip: offer them copies of your book.
  • For fiction authors, consider making a square cover that you’d be using for ACX (audiobooks) and have your followers and readers change their profile image to your book cover on launch day or as they finish the book. Consider having stamps made with this same image and use them to send mail.
  • Ask yourself if you could spend your money in a wiser way.
  • But don’t think about trying to be CHEAP. Consider the way you send money as an investment. Your covers will be helping you sell books and bring in money for YEARS.
  • Hire a professional copywriter or invest time to learn this. A cover gets people’s attention. Copy converts people into buyers.
  • You must write a book. Even if it’s ONLY for your family and the people that follow you.

Can I just say that I LOVE that Honoree burned her own books? There is something freeing there. And humorous.

Links from the episode:

You Must Write a Book 

Amazon’s Media Breakfast Honoree attended

The Prosperous Writer’s Guide to Finding Readers

These must know publishing tips will help you work better and see more ROI from the time and money you spend to publish your books!

Tips for a Successful Launch with Jenny Melrose

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Whether it’s a podcast or a blog or a book or a course, launching can make or break you. Break is a LITTLE extreme, but your spirit can definitely feel broken after a not-so-hot launch! According to Jenny Melrose of the Influencer Entrepreneur podcast, it’s all about the strategy. In this episode we are going deep to learn tips for a successful launch!

And don’t miss a live workshop with Jenny (and me!) on May 24 at 9am CST where she’s going to teach us how to run a successful challenge– a key component to her launching success. Register HERE!

Listen to Episode 103 – Tips for a Successful Launch

Connect with Jenny Melrose

The Influencer Entrepreneur Podcast

Jenny Melrose dot com

The Melrose Family

 

Tips for a Successful Launch with Jenny Melrose

There are so many kinds of launches. You can launch tons of different products, first of all, and then you can choose to launch just to your list or do a joint venture (JV) launch with someone else. You can launch with affiliates. You can use ads. You can have open and closed cart or evergreen. You can use webinars. You can go on podcasts as a guest. YOU CAN DO ALL THE THINGS.

But what really works? 

It will vary depending on what you’re launching and what your goals are, but here are some great tips for a successful launch from Jenny Melrose, who has done a number of launches for different products and in different ways.

Learn practical tips for a successful launch with Jenny Melrose.

If you Build It, They WON’T Come

I’ve busted the Field of Dreams myth with books, blogs, and even podcasts that I thought would naturally bring in the right audience in DROVES because they were quality. Nope.

Without a strategic plan, your launch is not likely to be a huge success. It seems obvious, but I think most of us have done this at least one time. Do NOT build a book or product that you assume everyone will want and find without strategic planning.

Note: If you have something you truly love and want to build it for the sheer love of it, go for it! Just realize that this is not the most strategic path for launching success. 

Launch with Challenges

Jenny creates evergreen challenges so people can come as they want to. The challenges up engagement, give people a taste for the content and quick wins that make them feel successful.

To promote her challenges, Jenny utilized Facebook groups, but not in a smarmy way. (Read my full post on how to not be smarmy in Facebook groups.) She searched for questions that people were asking related to her challenge, answered the question as fully as she could, then let the person know she had a challenge and invited them in a no-strings-attached kind of way. After some time of this, even group owners started tagging her as the expert when people had questions related to her topic.

The purpose of the challenge is to show them that the next step is your product, whether that’s your tripwire or your bigger course or product. You don’t overwhelm with information, but give just what people can handle in a 5-10 day period.

Evergreen challenges connect to evergreen products or that add people into a group in your email list that you target with a related launch. Another option is to have a live challenge that runs during the launch of a course where every person in the challenge starts and ends the challenge on the same day.

Another place to use this same kind of strategy is Quora. See this post from Teachable for ideas!

Use a Tripwire Product

Jenny recommends using a tripwire product, one that’s less than $20.This could be an ebook or a video training that’s evergreen. Many people fear selling too much, but this early introduction to an affordable price gets people primed as customers. Once people have given you money once for a product, they are much more likely to give you their money again (assuming you’re creating quality content).

Work Backwards with Aligned Products

Start with what your final product will be and work backwards to the smaller, tripwire product, and then to the challenge (or other kind of funnel you’ll be using to attract people). For an evergreen launch, you can pitch your larger product sometime after the time after the challenge (or email series) ends.

Evergreen or Open-and-Closed Cart?

Jenny has found better results with the open-and-closed cart, where there is a limited time for the sale. This urgency results in more conversions. People (like me!!!) wait often until just before the cart closes to make that decision. Other people know going into a webinar that they are planning to buy something.

When Launches Aren’t Working

The first failure you have can really keep you from doing more (read about my failed launch and thoughts on this), but you should consider where you can fix things.

  • Were you using a strategy?
  • What could you tighten up?
  • Can you ask your audience?
  • What tweaks and changes affected the sales from one launch to the next?
  • Were you in front of your audience enough?

Jenny found that doing more Facebook lives and webinars really helped with her launches. People don’t expect Facebook live videos to be perfect, so you can put less pressure on yourself. Instead, they help people see the REAL you and are often winsome and attractive to people because they see the real person behind the product. Being authentic builds trust.

Jenny’s Big Tips for a Successful Launch

  • Find a way to engage with your audience as soon as possible, whether through a challenge, welcome sequence, or live videos in a group
  • Remember people purchase because of the WHY (see the link to Simon Sinek below), so show them YOUR why

Links mentioned in the interview: 

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