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	Building Your Blog Into A Survivable Source Of Income Blogging is easy. Write good content and people will read it. But how do you take the next step and make it profitable? What does it take to make it your full-time gig? In their New Media Expo 2014 session, The Honest Truth About Professional Blogging: How We Lost Readers and Money During Our First Year, Amanda Brooks, Carol Cain, and Paula Pant talked about how to monetize and become profitable as a blogger. Get Started There is no perfect pattern. Make it up as you go. That’s what they did. First they started writing. A lot. About what? Find a niche you’re passionate about and you should be able to write forever. Don’t just pick something you think will be profitable. If you don’t know the topic, that will come through in your writing. You have to LOVE your topic. You can’t be an expert in something you don’t know every detail about. Pick a topic and start writing. Promote through social and build a following. Until you have content, no one is going to pay you. You have to build it and show others what you're capable of and merit getting that payday down the line. Cash In On Freebies Once you’ve been blogging and your writing starts to attract the attention of those in your topic industry, you’ll likely get offered free stuff. That’s awesome! You’ve been recognized as someone of influence and a company wants to send you their product for free, in hopes that you’ll review it and promote it for your following. While free stuff is great, you need to be careful. Don’t accept just anything. If you’re posting about products that aren’t related to your blog’s topic, your readers will not go for it and you’ll likely lose them. Not only do the products need to be related to your core focus but you need to give them honest reviews. Don’t just give them 5-stars because you got the product for free. This will only destroy your reputation and trust with your readers when they follow your bad recommendation and buy a crappy product. You can’t be afraid to say no if the product doesn’t align with what you’re focused on. Get A Real Paycheck So now you’ve got free products coming in, which give you lots of stuff to write about and reviews are a great traffic source. But how do you pay the bills? You certainly can’t pay them with free beer koozies, healthy snacks, and other freebies. It’s time to ask for actual money. This is hard the first time but it has to be done. Don’t fool yourself by thinking that after time they’ll see the value in your writing and want to pay you – it won’t happen. Why would they pay you suddenly if you’ve been working for free all this time? When a company offers you a freebie, in your reply simply ask them, “What’s your advertising budget?” The worst they can say is no and you get a free product anyways. Counter-pitch. They're pitching you. Pitch right back. You’ve asked a company to advertise and they’re looking like they will. So how much do you ask for? Don’t give them a number to start. Many times people throw out a number only to find that the advertiser very happily accepts it because they were willing to pay much more. Don’t sell yourself short. You’re valuable. It may only take a few minutes to write a great post for them but that fee isn’t just for the time spent writing that post. The fee is for the months or years you took developing your blog, developing your following, and developing your skill. Sponsored Posts Sponsored posts are another form of income for bloggers. Brands are looking to pay bloggers to post on their blogs. But be careful with your sponsored posts. If they come to you with cookie cutter content, that's an advertisement. Know Your Value – Remember what your blog is worth to you. You spent a lot of time and energy building greatness. Don’t hurt that with low quality sponsored posts. Say No If It Doesn't Fit – Don’t feel that you have to say yes just because you want to get paid. Your readers will respect that you respected them and didn’t post something that isn’t right for them. Authenticity In Your Reviews Is Key – The content on your blog needs to be genuine. Put your voice in it. It's OK to go back to them with a different idea or ask to write the post in your own voice. What’s Next? You’ve built a great blog that advertisers are paying you to be on. Now what? Grow that existing relationship. It's much easier to work with an existing relationship than finding a new client. Come to them with ideas. Companies don’t always have a lot of time to think about new and interesting ways to promote their products – they’re too busy running their own business. Feel free to pitch them new ways you can work together to bring them (and yourself) more business. The goal of every blogger is to get something out of their efforts. Be it validation, recognition, notoriety, or a ways to earn a living. For those looking to turn their work into a source of income and work for themselves, these tips can serve as a great guide to get started and make it pay. Build your blog into a great revenue source and let us know how it goes along the way. Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter. © Online Marketing Blog, 2014. | Building Your Blog Into A Survivable Source Of Income | http://www.toprankblog.com Read More » How to Make the Most of Vine's 6 Seconds #NMX Does your business utilize Vine for micro-content creation? The nascent video social network may not seem like a business-friendly target for social marketing, but there are several opportunities for engagement and retention within it. We may be conditioned to use Instagram or YouTube to tell longer video stories, but Vine's six-second limit forces marketers to truly be creative with their time. What makes a good, business-centric Vine video? Spud Hilton, Martin Jones, Jon Skogmo, Josh Entman and Richard Spalding explained the key traits in an NMX panel session. Emphasizing mobile social marketing first Vine is inherently mobile – they may have recently added a Windows client, but its foundation stems from mobile devices. That itself presents a unique opportunity for brands. Spalding noted that content created on Vine is instantaneous, spontaneous, and quickly shareable. Add the connection with Twitter, and you have a large audience at the ready. Long-form vs. short-form strategy YouTube heralded the age of long-form video content, and brands have been adapting to create high-quality videos for the platform. Vine is bucking this trend, emphasizing short-form, quickly digestible content. Hilton noted that while you only have six seconds to make your point, Vine's automatic looping function allows for exposure beyond those first six seconds. Jones noted that Vine humanizes your brand, specifically because it isn't high-quality or glossy. Content appears more spontaneous and authentic, and less forced. Encouraging experimentation The panel was adamant on Vine's B2C capabilities, although they were less confident about the network's viability with B2B companies. Still, Jones encouraged businesses to experiment with Vine's publishing style, as it is still a good way to convey who you are as a brand in short-form. The medium defines the message regardless. Don't mind the quality Many long-form online videos are expansive productions, shot in high-definition and littered with brand mentions in the endframe. You'll get none of that with Vine – and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The short timing and low quality forces brands to be creative – and in this business, creative content always triumphs over slick production. However, there are still some best practices to follow with Vine videos – and they can help separate your Vines from the rest. Entman encouraged brands to use jump cuts during filming – taking one static six-second shot doesn't help tell a story effectively. Know the audience As with many new social networks, Vine's audience trends younger – these are the next generation of content creators. However, Jones noted that business owners can leverage Vine by targeting specific personas and building deeper relationships beyond a 140-character Tweet. Re-target from other social networks Vine isn't alone in the social universe. The whole panel encouraged attendees to utilize Vine for retargeting – helping to establish an ongoing relationship with an advocate of your brand. Retarget followers with Vines, rather than banners. A six-second video carries far more power as a retargeting tool than a static web banner. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, there aren't many pitfalls with Vine content. While you may deal with a rogue tweet or an inappropriately timed status update, the only risk with Vine content is that no one will see it. That should just motivate you to keep trying — and let those six seconds tell a compelling story. How do you think your business could utilize Vine? Do you view it as more of a B2C property, or is there some benefit for the B2B crowd? Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter. © Online Marketing Blog, 2014. | How to Make the Most of Vine's 6 Seconds #NMX | http://www.toprankblog.com Read More » How UFC Is Throwing Big Blows On Social Media Big sports are big business.  There are billions of dollars to be made and no sport is growing faster than the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).  Millions of viewers worldwide tune in to watch fighters pummel each other.  Jackie Poriadjian SVP/Strategic Marketing/PR & Distribution for UFC and Dave Taylor sat down and discussed How The UFC Rocks Social at NMX 2014. The Stats Lets take a look at some of the numbers that make the UFC a true heavyweight. Largest PPV Event In The World – Bigger than the WWE, professional boxing, or any other pay-per-view event out there.  The UFC is the real king of the ring when it comes to transactional viewing events. Broadcast In 28 languages – That’s just as many as the BBC, the world’s largest broadcaster.  That’s the big reach their fighters wish they had. 5 Billion Inpressions In A Single Night – You read that right.  That’s 5 BILLION in just one night on Twitter and Facebook before UFC 168 at the end of December 2013. Over 50 Billion Impressions Over The Course Of A Single Campaign – That’s just from the campaign run during the promotion of their most recent fight.  Most of us are lucky to have even 50 people talking about us.  Even compared to other big brands that number is huge.  Heck, many big brands don’t even have 50 billion impressions total, much less in a single campaign. Over 1.6 Million Twitter Followers – And that number is just for their main account.  The UFC encourages their fighters to have their own accounts and many of them have a million or more followers too.  Their Twitter following isn’t just huge either.  They’re very active and very passionate. Over 11.5 Million Facebook ‘Likes’ – And again that’s just their main account.  They have millions more on various other UFC accounts plus fighters with millions of their own.  They’re active, passionate, and love to talk about their favorite fighters.  And if you think that Facebook killed brand pages with their recent changes to their algorithm, think again.  A picture of Anderson Silva on crutches after breaking his leg  in the most recent fight reached 100% of their 11.5 million followers. If the timing and topic is on, you can reach everyone despite what “marketing experts” claim. 500k Instagram Followers – The same day Jackie and Dave sat down to talk at NMX 2014, the UFC Instagram account hit over half a million followers and it’s not even a spot they’ve focused much effort on at this point. Looking at those numbers, it’s easy to see that there’s a ton of social talk around the UFC and it’s fighters.  And for a brand with that much activity, they spend a relatively small $500k-1 million a year on paid social promotion.  While they do some paid social advertising, they don’t do it for their events.  Their fans do the promotion for them. Management Of Millions So how do they manage all of that social chatter?  An army of social media managers right?  Nope.  Just 2 people at their headquarters to deal with messaging and managing over 15 million followers.  How do they manage their fighters and their messaging?  They don’t.  While they do give their fighters some initial social training and coaching to keep them out of trouble, they let them manage it themselves and say what they want (they’re all independent contractors technically).  Should an issue come up there is the possibility they’ll send them to sensitivity training, make them do community service or impose a fine but that has been very rare.  Their biggest challenge hasn’t been the messages their fighters post but how they respond to criticisms and comments from their followers. I’m sure we’ve all had times where we’ve had to take a step back and take a couple deep breaths before responding to someone on social media.  Now try to teach that to someone who knocks people out for a living.  Fun job huh? The UFC’s fighters take a lot of pride in the sport and want to take it to the next level.  They love interacting with their faithful fans so most are very active on Twitter and Facebook.  It’s that high level of interaction directly with their fans that has allowed the UFC to build such a large following. Feeding The Following So how can just 2 people create all the great content that people follow the UFC for on social media?  It’s not a 2 person effort alone.  The entire organizations has access to a central dropbox in which they can upload any content they create.  Pictures, video, and more are all put into a central database that allows their social managers to pull and post the best from their photographers, videographers, fighters, reporters, and other employees.  It’s a great way to always have tons of great stuff for your followers to consume. A young demographic (UFC pretty much owns the male 18-34yr old demographic when it’s on) that loves social media has helped to fuel the explosive growth of the UFC and MMA.  As the brand continues to struggle to gain more mainstream acceptance (the New York Times and others for instance doesn’t generally care to cover UFC fights), the push from social media is helping to make the UFC a main event. Do you think they have what it takes to TKO other professional sports?   m Read More »