Last Monday we talked a bit about the importance of creating online content. Having an online platform is vital for marketing yourself as a professional speaker today.
As a professional speaker, you most likely have an area of expertise. So don’t just speak about it – write about it!
Start with a blog. You can sign up for a free blogging program, such as Blogger or WordPress. These blog-publishing services are simple to set up and use, and they offer design templates and linking capabilities so you can connect them to your personal website with ease.
Signing up for and starting your blog is the easy part, it’s creating content that’s more challenging. Write about what you know and write often. The more content you publish online, the more opportunities there are for people to discover you and your message.
It’s also important to make the most of the tools your blogging platform offers, for instance tagging keywords in your blog posts so that they come up in Google search results and enabling comments so that readers can comment on your ideas and so you can foster discussion.
And read blogs, too! Follow blogs written by other authorities in your area of expertise and comment on them regularly. By fostering communication with experts in your field, your blog and your ideas will get disseminated even further.
It’s so important to embrace all aspects of social media. So once your blog is up and running, make sure you’re advertising it through your other social networking platforms. Whenever you write a new blog, post a link to it on your Facebook page and ask your Twitter followers to have a look at it as well.
Inc. is an online magazine geared toward entrepreneurs and business owners, and it is replete with information about running a business, sales and marketing, and technology and innovation – all of which can be applied to the business of professional speaking. Check out this short article they recently published titled “8 Tips for Effective Social Blogging.” It’s got great advice on how to encourage interaction and feedback and on how to use applications and schedulers to streamline your blogging activity. So give it a read and start applying their tips to your blog today.
And don’t forget to check out our Speaker Resource Centre here on the Inspiring Speakers website for eBooks on every aspect of social media marketing you can think of.
Now get out there and get blogging!
