Can people find you? Imagine getting an online readership of over 25k!
One of the things I have been working on this morning, due to the fact that I am now full time self employed, is the whole world of self promotion. This of course takes a myriad of forms, but what’s interesting is how there are bloggers out there that make over 25k in just WordPress followers. That number is amazing and from what I’ve seen it isn’t entirely impossible to do.
Here’s one link to kind of wet your appetite, or maybe even give you some immediate insights with identifying your target audience…
That said, I have been working with a number of newer companies and artists over the past few years and one thing that I find myself saying all too often is…
“Ahh! What are they doing!? I’m really looking for them and I can’t find them! If I can’t find them, how can there be an audience!?”
This is not a place I think you want to be.
The Social Media creator pitch
(I don’t know about you but I hate those posts out there that lead you down a garden path and then after hours of your time hit you with “I can tell you for only 49.95!” Ugh. So here we go…)
I am absolutely happy to help anyone set up there social media platforms for a competitive cost. I am not a massive Html and Java slinging pro designer who worked for Apple or Google any time recently so my costs for this would be relatively low.
However I have had success in my work, and I can easily assist someone outside of the Greater Victoria Area as well, but it will take some emailing back and forth to set up things such as a Twitter platform which typically requires a text message conformation from a unique phone number (your cell). This is because, well, I can’t afford to buy dozens of cellphones.
The nice thing about me doing it for you is that you can get on with what you do and leave the social media setup to me. As an example, I set up the entire http://www.westsoundmag.com campaign of website, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and email all in about three hours with images and content. Some of it was from the back of a friend’s car.
My background with all this came slowly, starting with my earliest music projects and just running around with posters. Posters are still in my world, but we have other people who do that sort of thing these days. Still, the basic advertising theory is essentially the same.
A show, an event or whatever that’s going on in real time isn’t about the show in itself. Any event is a reason to put the name out! With something coming you have suddenly a great reason to advertise the name and then it becomes about repetition. They say it takes about five years to really lock down a brand in people’s minds. You don’t expect anyone is going to see your poster, or whatever and suddenly take out a notepad and start jotting things down. It’s all about seeing that name one more time so that they later on say “Oh yeah! I’ve heard of them!” We move towards what is familiar. Familiar seems way more reliable and enticing then “Never heard of those guys.”
Hiring me or not is totally up to you and your project, but the main thing is to make yourself visible. Everything is converting to online activity. Despite all this tech I’m older than I look, and I have had younger folks ask if I dyed my hair this way (It’s grey). I remember when if you wanted to seem like someone who puts in initiative for work, you would show up with a resume in a shirt and tie. I have been informed more recently that no one wants you to do that. They prefer emails.
Emails!? What a different world this is! I can distinctly remember a friend in the nineties saying how if a resume and cover letter were faxed they would throw them to the, let’ just call it, “less interested” pile as fax=lazy!
But that’s the thing, and it covers everything these days. If you want to find the next bus do you use the bus schedule book? No. You google the location and it tells all. Order pizza? I don’t even know where my classic phone book is right now. I use the Yelp or Zomato App.
The point of this side trip in the direction of memory lane is that if your product can’t be found online, your product has a problem. You don’t want to spam people as that has a reverse effect of course, but you do need to at least get visible.
You know what the last thing most people will use their smartphone’s for these days?
As phones.
Telling someone to just give you a call might just have you sitting there listening to your Hootie and The Blowfish album, and that’s about it.
Cheers,
Tom
Tom's Creativity Blog 