Here is the second part of my post on blogging for money. This is based om the Writer’s Digest article called “Alpha-Blog Soup”.by Gabriiela Pereira. I am going to be talking about branding and developing and expading your following.
2. .What is Your Brand?
Many writers don’t want to thimk about branding because they feel like their creative writing is a product. But without a brand it will be hard to build an audience. You prbably already have one. See what comes up when you Google yourself..
Since you already have a brand it is time to own it. Honing your brand will strengthen the impression you leave with readers. You want to put your best foot forward.
There are three parts to your brand. They are your name, image and voice.
Name
For some writers your author name and blog title will be a no-brainer. But if you use a pseudonym or have a very long name you will have to give it some thought.
So choose a name and do a quick serarch to make sure it is not the name of major criminal. If someone is using yourname.com you can add “autho”r or “books” to the domain name.to make it unique.
Image
This includes your graphics (logo. diagrams, infographics) and photography. A simple logo will do. No fancy logo necessary. You must include an author photo. Your blog visitors want to connect with a real person and a photo is the best way.
Voice
Your voice includes the tone of your posts and your presence (or lack of presence) on your blog. It includes how approachable you seem and how they feel when they visit your site. Your voice may evolve over time.
When you have as strong brand it makes it easier decide what content to share.
3. Content and Conversions
Content is everything you create. It includes “books, articles, stories, essays, poems, videos,Fresh content podcasts and even social media posts.” Fresh content will draw readers back to your site,
Remember the research you did on your audience? Now ask yourself two questions. What do ny readers want? Does my blog deliver what they want?
If you are writing content based on research you need to write in your area of expertise. But if you are writing romance fiction you could write about real life romances of you and your friends for example.
If you are a mystery writer you may want to offer puzzles to solve right along with your protagonist. If you write Shrerlock Holmes style mysteries you may want to offer logic puzzles or brain teasers.
For more examples and strategies you can download the cheat-sheet for this article at this link
The author of this article says you do not have to write every post yourself. You can be curator of great content. You can write your own original content and combine it with great content from the web.
Start out with one post per week.. You can ramp it up or tamp it down as needed.
Content only works if it converts— You want to turm fly-by-night visitors into fans and followers. So you need every post you write to do two things: “1. bring readers to your ste and 2. keep them coming back”
You can treat your blog like a magazine and have a calendar. You can plan your posts in advance and give them some structure.
Its quality not quantity that matters most. You want to incite readers to take action. Don’t be afraid to ask for action of some kind in every post. You can establish the rules for your world –your blog. If they expect you ask for an action such as sharing a post etc. if will not be a shock when you promote your book.
Build Your Following
Now you “should understand your audience, have established your brand and developed a solid content strategy.” Now you just need to keep on blogging and putting in the time.
Some posts may resonate with your readers and others fall flat. Watch the results and make adjustments accordingly.
Nurture your reader relationship and you will be “lightyears ahead of the game when the time comes to promote your book.”
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