Spoken Word New York's Nicole S. Ross: 4 Steps To Effective Blog Participation For Writers

4 Steps To Effective Blog Participation For Writers
By Nicole S. Ross
http://www.spokenwordnewyork.com/

Almost everyone these days knows what a blog is. You can’t surf the Internet for too long before you run into a blog regardless of what the topic is. Blogging is a two sided relationship, one that exists between the owner of the blog and the readers of the blog. As a writer, your goal is to participate in the blog so that the readers of the blog become aware of who you are and what it is that you do. Participating in one or more blogs is a simple, highly effective and totally free way to find real prospects on the Internet.

However, before you get started, you will need a few things to make sure that you are able to make the most of your participation. Those things, in order are:

1. A Gravatar – a gravatar, also called an avatar, is an image that follows you from site to site and always appears beside your name when you post comments on a blog. Your gravatar allows people to start to recognize you by face, which is very important if you are a writer. Studies have shown that when a person knows you by face, they feel connected to you and this is precisely what you want if you are trying to gain more exposure. Gravatars are free and only require that you have a picture of yourself to upload for use with the service. Once you upload your picture, you will be given the option to crop it and then save it. After saving it, any blog that you comment on that supports gravatars will show your face next to your comments.

2. A Destination – most of the time, when you comment on a blog, the blog owner will allow you to place a link back to a destination of your choice. For writers, this will usually be a link to your Facebook profile or another site where the user can learn more about you and what it is that you do. I do want to stress that in almost EVERY case, you will want to use your Facebook profile because it will allow them to friend request you which in turn allows you to send them messages in the future. Using a regular website link will not give you those capabilities so make sure you always use your Facebook profile unless you have a very specific reason not to.

3. A Plan – depending on the blog and the amount of readers that it has, making comments on a blog can dramatically increase your exposure to people who are looking for places to see writers perform their work. And all that you need to do is look at the articles on the site and think of them as conversations. You need to participate in as many of these conversations as is reasonably possible. To participate, you will need to read the entire article and make an intelligent and useful comment.

For example, if the blog has an article about another poet, read the article and then use your comment to congratulate the poet on the article and let them know that you will look forward to seeing more of their work in the future. If you are familiar with the poet, you could also use your comment to give other readers your recommendation of why they should take the time to check out this poet in person.

Doing this will encourage other poets to do the same for you, which not only builds a connection between you and other poets, but between you and the other readers of the blog because you are helping them separate the good from the bad when it comes to spoken word poets.

A word of caution though, NEVER use your comments for self promotion or any sort of unnecessary negativity when it comes to another person’s work. You do not want people to see you as someone that goes out of their way to tarnish another person’s reputation.

4. Consistency – being consistent means that people will start to want to hear your opinion on certain topics along with the writer of the article. It is not uncommon for blog readers to value the opinion of specific regular commentators as much as or more than the writer of the content. In many of the top blogs, the commentators are more responsible for the growth of the blog than the content writers are. The reward for being consistent is conversations and traffic. People will feel connected to you, want to know more about you and will also want to talk to you more.

I hope that everyone reading this will take these four steps and put them into action right away. Not only will they prove to be extremely valuable, but they will also put you on the road to running your own effective blog if you choose to do so.

Please visit Ms. Ross's sites:

http://SpokenWordNewYork.com

http://spoken-word-new-york.blogspot.com

http://wrensnestmarketing.com

Poetry Marketing 101: Are You Social Networking Or Social Media Marketing?

Poetry Marketing 101: Are You Social Networking Or Social Media Marketing?
By Nicole S. Ross
http://www.spokenwordnewyork.com/

Just recently I attended a poetry event and met a “professional poet” who was very confident in himself and his marketing strategy. After a long conversation about his accomplishments and how he promotes himself, I inquired as to how he promotes himself via Internet. With a charismatic smile, he confidently responds with “Facebook.” Without a website or any other form of connection to himself, he was sure that Facebook was all he needed to succeed in marketing his poetry via Internet. Which is why I felt compelled to write this article.

Marketing or promoting events on Facebook is easily the most misunderstood business process that I see on a day to day basis. Now that Facebook has over 500 million registered users, it makes sense that just about everyone with a product or service to sell has joined the party. There are dozens, if not hundreds of poets that are using Facebook to promote events in the tri-state area on a weekly basis.

The problem is that very few of these poets actually see the big picture. They think that they are doing what is called social media marketing when in reality they are simply social networking. That’s right, there is a HUGE difference between the two.

Social media marketing is when you are using social media platforms such as Facebook to find NEW prospects and eventually turn them into paying customers. Social networking is when you use social media platforms such as Facebook to talk to people that you know, such as your friends, family and maybe people that share some of the same common interests that you do. The key difference between social media marketing and social networking is that one usually produces MONEY and the other one usually produces CONVERSATIONS.

I will give you an example. If you watch any decent amount of television, you have seen a commercial where instead of the company giving their website, they say connect with us on Facebook. They do this because they understand just how powerful social media marketing is. Large companies have already figured out that Facebook has more traffic than Google. They also know that if they “connect” with you on Facebook, they get more information about you than they would if you just watched a commercial and went to their website.

Think about that for just a moment. When you watch a commercial and then go to the company’s website, they really don’t know anything about you unless you buy something from them right then. But on Facebook, when you go to a company’s fan page or request them as a friend, they generally have access to all the information that you are freely sharing in your Facebook profile.

This means they know your name, where you live, what your hobbies are and they can now send you messages to directly interact with you. They can also send you updates by simply posting useful content to their Facebook account and this content will automatically show up in your Facebook stream. THIS is why they want you to connect with them on Facebook instead of visiting their website and it makes perfect sense when you think about it.

If you are a poet, you really need to to stop and ask yourself are you social networking or social media marketing when you use Facebook. Then ask yourself if you “really” understand how to promote or market on Facebook? Just because your Facebook account has hundreds or even thousands of friends that you send messages to when you have upcoming performances or events does not mean that you know what you are doing.

You would be surprised at how many poets I see with marketing efforts that are very similar to someone that is trying to sell ice to Eskimos. What I mean by that is they are just sending their so-called marketing messages to people who basically do the same exact thing that they do. What you are supposed to be doing is sending your marketing messages to people who have shown that they are interested in seeing poetry or spoken word events in your local area. This will be very difficult for most poets because they have not figured out that this does not happen on Facebook. It happens on the search engines.

Did you know that every month tens of thousands of people use a search engine to search for spoken word events in the New York area? The simple truth is that the search engines are where you will find your prospects and potential customers – NOT Facebook. Once you let them find you, THEN you will direct them to your Facebook account so that you can easily follow-up with them and share your work and upcoming event details with them periodically as well.

I hope that this article has shed some light on the differences between social networking and social media marketing. I also hope that those of you that intend to be social media marketers realize that you need to stop wasting your time social networking and start taking steps to become a social media marketer.

Please visit Ms. Ross's sites:

http://SpokenWordNewYork.com

http://spoken-word-new-york.blogspot.com

http://wrensnestmarketing.com

Nicole S. Ross: Poetry Marketing 101 – Introduction To Marketing For Poets

Poetry Marketing 101 – Introduction To Marketing For Poets
By Nicole S. Ross
http://www.spokenwordnewyork.com/

I used to wonder why it was that some of the most talented poets have the least amount of name recognition. At that time, I thought that all they would have to do is find a way to perform at a few of the open mic’s in New York and they would surely start to build a large following of fans. I am sure that as you are reading this, you realize that this is almost never the case. I now know this too, but the question of “why” still needs to be answered. In this article, I am going to explain why poets usually have trouble marketing both themselves and their poetry.

Now before we go any further, I need to make it crystal clear that in no way, shape or form am I referring to the talent level of any of these poets. I am only talking about how the poets market themselves. With that being said, the first step here is to define the three basic types of poets when it comes to marketing, which are:

* The Hobbyist
* The Amateur
* The Professional

The Hobbyist

The hobbyist is the poet who loves poetry as a form of expression. They don’t have any aspirations of making money from their work and therefore see no reason to promote themselves or the work that they produce. Every now and then, the hobbyist will get the urge to share some of their work via their FaceBook or MySpace accounts but this is about as far as they go when it comes to marketing. Very few of the poets that are performing in the NYC metro area are hobbyists when it comes to marketing.

The Amateur Poet

The amateur poet has aspirations of somehow profiting from their work. They usually have an account at Reverb Nation, FaceBook, MySpace and even Twitter. They are also likely to have a blog hosted on either Wordpress.com or Blogger.com, also referred to as Blogspot. The amateur poet lacks a general understanding of how to position themselves in the marketplace as a professional poetry writer. They also fail to understand how to properly use sites like FaceBook, which are free to use, to find prospects that are willing to purchase their work. It should not come as a surprise when I tell you that the vast majority of amateur poets spend the bulk of their time promoting themselves and their work to other poets. Most of the poets that you will see on a nightly basis at spoken word events in New York City are amateur poets when it comes to marketing.

The Professional Poet

The professional poet knows that marketing is showing people what they are ALREADY looking for. They know that people rarely go to open mics and spoken word events to buy poetry, they go to HEAR poetry. The professional poet also knows that people that like to hear poetry will often purchase the work of their favorite poets, but they don’t do this immediately, it takes time. To streamline the time that it takes, the professional poet uses a marketing plan.

The professional poet has a defined marketing plan that starts with having their own website. They also understand that their name is their brand, and THAT is what needs to be marketed. The goal of having a website is to give potential buyers a place to find and interact with you and what it is that you have to offer. This is the primary goal of a professional poet. The professional poet understand that everything that they do should be done in an effort to increase the popularity of their brand. This means that when they perform at local open mics, they are giving a sampling of their work. When someone says, “I like your work”, they respond by thanking them and letting them know that more of their work is available on their website and then give them the address. On their website, they use an autoresponder, which allows them to send more of their work to the people who have expressed an interest in seeing more of it.

This process is very simple, but at the present time, very few people are getting it right. Think about the music industry. When your favorite artist releases a new album, you are very likely to buy it because not only do you like their music, but over the course of time, you have become very familiar with the type and quality of music that they produce. This is called TRUST.

The key to being a professional poet is understanding that your success depends on giving people an initial sample of your work, and when they express an interest in seeing more of it, you simply direct them to a pre-existing resource that allows them to develop a high level of trust with you and your work over the course of time.

It is my sincere hope that this article will give all poets a greater understanding of what it will take to successfully build your brand and profit from your work. Make sure you check back soon for my next article, which will outline a few simple ways to dramatically increase your exposure to people who are actually looking for poetry and spoken word poetry events in the tri-state area.

Please visit Ms. Ross's sites:

http://SpokenWordNewYork.com

http://spoken-word-new-york.blogspot.com

http://wrensnestmarketing.com

The Inspired Word Featured on Spoken Word New York Site

Thanks so much to Nicole S. Ross, the creator of Spoken Word New York.

Click here to read Nicole's lovely post about The Inspired Word.

Crowd Pics @ The Inspired Word - March 26, 2010

Seraph (Howard) Treadwell (l), Daysi Vasquez (r)

Jared Singer (l), Start Boogie (r)

Nicole S. Ross

Elmira Bayrasli (l), Don Lafferty (r)

Bonafide Rojas

Christopher "CJ the DJ" Guiang

From left to right: Rich Villar, Mike Geffner, John Murillo

Laura J. Smith

Marvin Mendlinger (l), John Murillo (r)