Category: PR for small business

• You’ve waited weeks or even months for your guest post to be published. The post goes live, you tweet it out once and wait. And wait some more.Taps foot. Twiddles thumbs. Still nothing. Disappointment creeps in.

  I’m active in a lot of Facebook business groups, and often hear grumbling about guest posting opportunities that didn’t quite go as expected. Sure, maybe you didn’t get 100 new subscribers or an immediate booking, but this is a marathon not a sprint.

  Each guest post, on its own, isn’t going to amount to a lot. The real power comes in the momentum of guest posting and the body of work you’ll build over time.

  But enough with managing expectations. Your sweet words are out in the universe, so now what?

  Remember all that hard work and hustle it took to get the opportunity in the first place? Time to summon it up and get ready to promote the ever lovin’ out of that guest post.

  This is all on you. You can’t wait for people to find it. And definitely do not wait for the blog it’s running on to promote it. It’s your content, so own it and create a plan for promoting it.

  Let’s break out the “how” promoting your awesomesauce content on publishing day and for months after that!

  Your Guest Post is LIVE – Sharing is the Name of the Game 
  Today’s the day and your little slice of genius has been shared with the world. Don’t drop the ball now and let your guest post go unnoticed. It’s time to share, loud and proud what you’ve been up to:

  • Share Guest Posts with Your List. In your next regular communication with your list share your latest guest posts. This builds you up as an expert with a little bit of old fashioned third party credibility. If appropriate, you could also ask them to share the content to their networks.
  • Share on Your Social Networks. Share it widely – vary your intro to it, pull out different things as most appropriate for the platform. Be sure to cover off all of the ones you are active on.
  • Share an Excerpt on your Blog. Just an excerpt with a link back to the original content. Do not post the entire article, because Google has a hate on for duplicate content.
  • Ask Friends and Supporters to Share the Content. Ask for people to share it when appropriate. It’s amazing what can happen when you simply ask. Write the tweet or post for them to make it dead easy for them to share it.
  • Post in Groups. If you are active in Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn groups, you can share the content there as a resource for the other members. If you are going to go this route, make sure you don’t only show up to shamelessly plug yourself.

  A few other things you want to make sure you have on the radar for when the post goes live:

  • Monitor and Respond to Comments. Responding to comments and being active with those engaging with your post is one of the key areas that many guest bloggers miss. This is just good follow-through and helps add to your credibility. Plus, the blog owner will notice if you do or don’t do this.
  • Track Results. In the days following the post, you want to track sign ups to your list, referral traffic and other key metrics. Don’t get too stuck on the numbers, this is more to give you a snapshot, numbers don’t always tell the whole story.

  Ongoing Promotion – Recycling Guest Post Content for Months to Come 
  The true value of any guest post (or media coverage) is what you do with it in the long-term. The majority of the content shared in guest posts is evergreen meaning it has a long shelf-life.

  Here’s some ways to keep your guest post content front and centre for months to come:

  • Use it to Answer Questions. Seek out opportunities to answer questions on your areas of expertise in Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn Groups. Find industry forums or communities to participate in. Your guest post becomes a quick way to answer questions as they arise.
  • Keep on Sharing. As you plan your social media content, add tweets and posts about older guest posts. Think “from the archives” or “you may have missed”. Add something new when you share it to dress it up, or highlight something you think is timely.

  Are you ready to get out there and promote your guest posts? If you have one coming up, create a checklist so you can make the most of it.

Love it. Hate it. Writing is an all too necessary reality when it comes to guest posting. No matter how your feel you’ll need to embrace it wholeheartedly.

That said, it doesn’t have to be a chore. There are some specific things you can do to make your writing comfortable and fun. I know for me, much of the stress around writing comes from being strapped for time and then “having” to write something.

Inspiration doesn’t always strike on a schedule…

Batch it, Baby

By doing solid research and writing pitches, you’ve got a lot of the hard stuff out of the way. So, it’s just a matter of making time to write the post.

Writing is one of those things where you need to get in the groove. So if you can, but aside time every week for writing your guest posts. If you are pitching on an ongoing basis you’ll quickly have a couple to write each week.  By batching them this way you can save time and energy.

Set up shop somewhere that inspires you or at a time of day that you find super productive.  If you get distracted turn off the Internet to help you stay on task.  Just do what you need to do to get the post written and ready to share with the world.

Creating Compelling and Complete Content 

Sure you’ve got your pitch as a starting point, but when you sit down to write, there’s a few things you do not want to miss as part of the writing process.

First stop, SEOville.  That’s right, time to talk keywords:

• Title: If possible include them in your title for the piece, as close to the beginning of the title as possible.  If you want to learn more about great titles, check out Using Titles Effectively on ProBlogger.

• Body Copy: Use your keywords throughout your copy but avoid using too many links, particularly back to your web site. This is a complicated issue and really needs its own post, but the bottom line is to not add a whole pile of links back to your web site in the post. If you are interested, you can check out this article from PC World on all the Google ins and outs on backlinks.

Now that we’ve got that pesky SEO stuff out of the way, here are some additional things you need to check as you write your post:

• Tone: Avoid sounding like a professor. Yes, you want to write with authority, but you want to approach it from the place of “hey, I’ve totally been there” instead of “yo, I’m all-knowing”.

• Research: Ensure you back up what you are writing as much as possible. It’s not about your opinion but an industry best practice or proven tactic. That’s where statistics, quotes and other things come in handy.

• Be Specific: Deliver content that readers can take action from instead of talking in generalities. What do you want them to walk away and be able to do?

• Create Original Content: Whatever you do, do not simply take another blog post you’ve written and slap a new title on it. Google wants original content and you want to serve your desination blog well with quality content not something you grabbed out of the recycle bin.

Edit Like a Pro or At Least Like You Mean It 

Once you have a finished piece, get ready for editing. This is where you should spend the bulk of your time.  The goal is to cut, tighten and improve your copy time and time again. So, last minute Lucy, this is why you do not want to write your guest post the night before the deadline, okay?

For your editing, if you can, trade off with friend or someone with a keen set of eyes. Recruit your VA or business BFF to get them to review and make changes.  A second set of eyes is always a good idea as sloppy mistakes can quickly kill your post if you submit it that way.

Self-editing is always a challenge, so try one of these tried and true editing tricks:

• Read your text backwards. It’s a great way to find spelling or grammar mistakes.

• Print it up and read it in hardcopy. It’s easier to see mistakes offline.

• Read out loud. Does it sound like something you’d actually say? Does it make sense?

Finally, once you’ve written and edited, if you can give the post a day or two to mellow so you can come back to it with a new perspective. This is the perfect way to ensure you can chop sections that aren’t relevant and spiffy things up as you aren’t as attached the product. It’s no longer the masterpiece you just wrote but that post you are working on so you can definitely polish it up.  Good luck!

 

If you’ve done your research and taken the time to write a pitch that is targeted to the audience, you should be confident about sending your pitch.  I get all the mental stuff that goes with pitching, because after 15 years of pitching the media, I still get a feeling in my gut.   It’s a cocktail of excitement with a sprinkling of the “what ifs”.

The good news for you is that we are doing this pitch on email, so really you only have a few possible outcomes:

1. They like the pitch and say yes.

2. They like your pitch and forget to respond to you.

3. They don’t think it’s a fit and delete it.

Not so scary now is it? You can totally deal with being deleted.  No pain in that one.  You won’t even know about it.

Notice I didn’t say anything about being yelled at or publicly called out? If you’ve followed along with the past few posts, you are going to be pitching the right way. I’ve got you covered. So no fear of ending up on the Bad Pitch Blog or being the subject of Ash Ambridge’s ire.

Before You Hit Send on the Pitch – The Top Five Check List

So, you’ve got your pitch, you are nearly ready to hit send, so here’s your last minute checklist to ensure you don’t come off looking like the freakin’ amateur hour. Hard to look like an expert when you make rookie mistakes, right?

1. No Dear Editor. Make sure you are pitching the right person and using their name.  Do everything you can to find the name instead of just sending them to “hi editor”.  Double check spelling and names.

2. Review Guidelines. Do a quick review on any guidelines they may have to ensure your pitch complies.

3. Have a Clear Subject Line.  This is not the time to get all cute and clever. Be clear with your subject line using something like Idea for Guest Post or Proposed Guest Post for X Site.

4. Proof It.  Double, triple, and quadruple check that your pitch is correct and complete.  Typos are a deal breaker.

5. Send More than the Pitch. Remember you want to send an intro, your pitch, your two line bio and a couple writing samples. Make it simple for them to say yes to your guest post.

Are you ready to hit send? Do it, you’ve got nothing to lose and expert status to gain. Deep breath and go!

If they don’t get right back to you, do not despair. How many unread emails do you have in your inbox. Exactly! Your pitch probably hasn’t been read or was missed. After a week or two, go back and follow-up to see if they are interested. The key is to be gentle.  Usually then they will get back to you with a yay or nay.

If they don’t get back to you, feel free to recycle the pitch for another target. Whatever you do just don’t threaten to do this in your follow-up pitch, because that’s like stomping your feet because you are pissy. Not cool.

The key to great guest post pitching is to be professional and patient. And just know that not every single pitch will be a success. It’s all part of the game.

 

Once you’ve done your homework and figured out where to guest post, now you’ll need to start working on your pitches.

Before you start sending pitches, you may want to spend sometime connecting with the people you are going to pitch.  Start by following them on Twitter, engaging on their blog by commenting and getting on their email list.

The goal, if possible, is to make yourself a “known” entity before you land in their inbox.

 In doing this, be genuine, because fakery and B.S. can be smelled a mile away. And then your guest post efforts are going nowhere fast.

Think of dating – people know when people are desperate, right. Total turnoff! If you were meeting Ryan Gosling, would you go all fan girl, or would you play it cool?  Experts add value, but they don’t go all fan girl.

Remember, good relationships are built over time and are based on trust.  Being helpful, knowledgable and of service can go a long way to helping your business in the long-term.

Be Unique – Create Stories that Sell 

As part of your preparation you should have developed specific stories for you guest posting. So before you  start writing your pitch,  do a full search on the blog/site you are targeting and make sure they have not had this story appear on their site before.   If they have, find an approach that will make it fresh and new.  Create a story you can sell.

If the blog has already done this topic to death, they are going to delete your pitch as you aren’t saying anything new.  True experts have something new and interesting to say, so take your expert status seriously.

Elements of Your Successful Pitch

For each of your desired targets, you will want to prepare:

• Title of your post

• Summary paragraph outlining the key points for your story

• Short two line bio that jives with their site

• Links to your best writing samples

The bulk of your time should be spent on creating a short and impactful summary paragraph that sells your story.  Remember, you want to establish the issue and outline what you are going to talk about in your story. Keep pitches short, short, short. (Seriously, I mean short!)

People skim over emails, so you are going to lose the blogger/editor if you send an epic pitch.  If they want more detail, they will ask for it.

Your bio should be short and to the point as well. Give them enough to know that you are qualified to write on the topic you are pitching and have experience in your field. Two lines maximum.

More than anything, pitching is about providing everything they need so they know they can trust you to execute and you are legit. Before you send that pitch, consider things from the decision maker’s point of view – is your pitch correct and complete, are you credible, are you professional? If you can cross those things off the list, you’ll greatly increase your chances of success.

Are you ready to start guest posting?

Before you can really get going, you’ll need to channel your inner super spy so you can sleuth out some seriously sassy guest posting targets.

This is probably going to be one of the most time consuming phases of the guest posting process, but it will be well worth it.

Are you ready to get all bad ass like Sydney Bristow? (Yep, I was just waiting to drop in an Alias reference.)

Where Should I Guest Post?

A lot of marketing experts and blogging gurus will tell you to only go after “authority” sites with lots of traffic.  Solid advice because you totally want the maximum number of eyeballs on that post and driving traffic back to your site.

But it is also misleading, as you are often going to need to a certain level of credibility in your niche to be accepted to post on these sites. Not to mention, a smaller, highly focused site can go a long way to helping you reach customers in your sweet spot.

If you are just starting out and have never had a guest post published, focusing only on higher authority sites is likely going to be a recipe for frustration. Insert banging head against desk here.

Smart entrepreneurs like you don’t have time for that. You need to be making progress and building up a body of work for your “as seen on” page.

Start with some smaller, more targeted sites ones and then work on pitching the big kahunas.   This gives you time to learn the guest posting process and avoid rookie mistakes. I’m all for the stretch goal, but you don’t want to choke on your first big mission, right?

Already been guest posting for a while? This means you have published posts you can share when you are pitching, so look for targets where you can play a little bigger. Maybe a more general site in your area of expertise or even a higher tier business site.

Keeping Track of Opportunities

Before you jump in, you want to create a place to keep track of any and all opportunities you find. Create a spreadsheet and include details such as site address, contact, link, guidelines, page rank, Alexa rank, any story ideas you have and notes.

How Do I Find Guest Posting Opportunities?

There’s many ways to go about researching opportunities, but my favorite way to find guest post opportunities is to reverse engineer the process. Find top bloggers in your target market and go to their media pages and see where they have guest posted.   Check out where your competitors have been guest posting. By using this approach you’ll save yourself a lot of research as you’ll know most of those sites are open to guest posting.

Another sure-fire way to find them is Google. Use the main search and the blog search function and then topics you want to write about as your keywords.  Simple.

Try using a few different tactics to seek out your information such as:

• Questions – how to, why, what

• Tips – tips for, five easy steps for, three tips for, top 10

• Common Search Terms – use variations on common search terms people would use searching for information on this topic. For example, for guest blog posting, I may search for blogs focusing on PR, marketing, online marketing, blogging, search. Think of all the adjacent areas.

Also, you want to go back to your story ideas from the storytelling worksheet. Do you have an idea outside of your niche that you feel passionate about and want to pitch? Look for specific targets using your story ideas. Perhaps you want to write about tips for working moms, as most of your clients are busy moms.  So you’ll use search terms related to working moms like work/life balance, mom blogs, and more.

Next Steps: Determining Your Top Five

You’ve done all the hard work, so now you want to pick five of your targets that you’ll work on preparing pitches for.  The rest of the targets you can file and save for later as you don’t want to create a situation where you pitch 10 at once and spend two straight weeks writing guest posts. (Unless you have time for that, but I’m guessing you likely don’t as you have a business to run.)

Great research will help you feel much more confidence about the pitching process, so time spent before your start pitching is time well-spent.

There are probably a million and one reasons why you should be guest blog posting, many of which we had a heart to heart about in this post.

I’m willing to bet there’s a billion more reasons why you’ve not already started.  I totally get it. Many of them are legit like what on earth would I pitch? How do I pitch so I don’t become the object of a nasty tweet or even worse, blog post railing against bad pitching?

Totally legit. You want to go pro, so let’s lay some groundwork so you can get going already.

Start at the beginning – before you can pitch, before you can write a post, you need a story.  And not just one your mama wants to read.

It needs to connect with real trends, issues, fears, while not being the same old, same old.

Your story doesn’t need to be revolutionary. But it does need to offer something unique.

That’s why you actually need to do a bit of planning now before you get into the weeds of pitching and posting.

Pulling Your Story Together with Grace and Style  

When it comes to PR in general, this is where a freak out is most apt to occur. It’s totally natural and entirely expected.

Storytelling is a process.  That’s why corporations spend thousands and sometimes millions of dollars on things like strategic corporate messaging and brand strategy. These are some fancy terms for learning how to create and tell stories.

Stories are what people engage with and attach to. Powerful, powerful, stuff, which is why you can’t skip this step.

But let’s get back to reality where you aren’t spending a cool million to hammer out your story. Back here in reality, let’s work through what may have you close to the edge. (I have Grandmaster Flash rolling through my head at this moment. I wonder if I can use a funk/disco reference every blog post.)

Here’s the three most common freak outs along with some practicalities so you can tell a kickin’ story with grace and style:

Freak Out #1: I Have No Story

If this is your deal, we need to talk. Take a deep breath.

Go back to the beginning.

Questions to Ask:  Why did you start your business? What do you do? Who do you serve?

Work through those points and you’ll start to see your story taking shape. This should not be the whole story, but gives you some clues as to where you should be heading. Read on for more on how to build from there.

Freak Out #2: What Do You Mean It’s Not New or Unique?

Know you aren’t alone, because this is probably one of the most common ones when it comes to storytelling. As an entrepreneur, we live in a bubble where we live, breathe and literally eat our own brand and value.

The result is the possibility of being so far up our own, ahem, derrieres, that we don’t really know what is going on around us. We don’t realize that our most common stories are O.V.E.R.

As you map out your story, do some homework to make sure your big idea hasn’t already been done to death or so two years ago.   Google it and then Google it some more.

Does every story you tell need to be 100% new? Definitely not, but it should be unique in some way.

Questions to Ask: What’s your unique take on this? What makes this different? What do you do better than anyone else? And what do your customers tell you?

Freak Out #3: I Have Story Overload

This may seem like a “good” problem to have, but this is a challenge as when you have too many stories it can be a clear signl that your business or ideal customer is too broad. The key for story development for your guest posting is to have laser-like focus.

Questions to Ask: What specific niche or even sub niche do I focus on? What specific types of people are my ideal customer? Who are my clients today and what type of media do they consume? What ideas resonate with them?

Your goal here is to pick two or three specific areas to focus on or types of ideal customers.

Take the rest of your ideas and park the other ideas in the “later” category.  That will give you freedom to get super clear on what stories will be impactful and timely for your customers.

Preparing to Tell Your Story 

Storytelling may not come naturally to you, but know that the stronger your brand and clarity around what you  do, things will be so much easier.  At the end of this you should have some broad story angles along with some audiences determined.  Write them out. Save them so you have them ready for when you start writing pitches.

Trust me, you want to nail this piece down so that you are able to figure out your next step…where should I guest post?  The pain of nailing this all down now will help you save time later and make you into a star that much faster.

 

Oh guest posting. The object of much discussion and even more stress by many an entrepreneur.

Pretty much every online course I’ve taken in the last year covers guest posting as a must-do marketing tactic.

It’s on the radar in a big way. But, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of fear when it comes to guest posting.

Fear of wasting time. Fear of doing it wrong. Fear of not being good enough.

Get over it. Guest posts are good for you and even better for your biz.

Time to get out of denial and get to work.  What’s the alternative?

Instead, you’ll toil inside your business and hope that people show up.  Hide out on your own blog and wait for the traffic.  Stay safe in your bubble.

Good luck with that.

Guest Posting Isn’t Some Jacked Up Scheme

Not convinced yet?  Then I want to share something with you.

Guest posting is not a crazy scheme that Internet marketers cooked up in some jacked up mastermind. It’s a legit tactic that PR people have been using for decades, even before the birth of the interwebs. Back in olden times we called them contributed articles, pitched them, wrote them, sent them off to magazine and waited months for them to be printed. (Oh PR olden days I do not miss you! That’s a post for another day.)

The Straight Goods: Why You NEED to do This

Guest posting is a strategy recommended over and over again because it bloody well works. Corporations have implemented  it as a key part of media relations programs.  It works, it serves many goals and is super cost effective.

Got a laptop? Got ideas? You are good to go with guest posting. It truly is that simple.

Here’s the lowdown on why you should be doing guest posts:

• reaching new prospects

• street cred/social proof

• building your list

• traffic to your site

• building reputation as an expert

• preparing you for mainstream media

• improving your writing skills

Should I go on?  Few marketing/PR tactics are going to deliver this much awareness and credibility with so little time or money invested.