Category: Guest Posts

Ideas for Overcoming Writer’s Fatigue

Post author By Norma Poore - Managing Editor
Post date February 19, 2022
No Comments on Ideas for Overcoming Writer’s Fatigue

Do you ever feel like you just can’t write another word? That no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to get inspired? This is a common problem for writers, known as writer’s fatigue.

When you’re feeling burnt out or exhausted, it can be hard to produce quality content. In this article, we will discuss ways to overcome writer’s fatigue and begin writing from a place of inspiration again.

Set Smaller Goals

When you’re feeling burnt out, it can be helpful to set smaller goals rather than try to force yourself to write an entire article or chapter. Maybe try setting a goal for 500 words instead of 1000 or splitting up your writing project into several smaller tasks.

Another way to set smaller goals is by creating a daily writing practice. Set aside some time to write every day, even if it’s only for 15 minutes or so. By doing this, you’ll gradually get back into the habit of writing regularly, and you’ll be more likely to complete larger writing projects down the road.

Give Your Eyes and Brain a Break

When you’re feeling exhausted, it’s often helpful to take a break from your computer screen and your physical writing materials. Spend some time away from your work, whether that means taking a walk outside or reading for pleasure. This can help refresh your mind and give you a new perspective on your writing project.

Eye strain can play a significant role in a writer’s fatigue. If you spend hours every day staring at your computer screen, it could be contributing to your exhaustion. Try setting aside some time for non-screen activities, such as reading from an actual book or magazine or drawing and painting outside of the digital environment.

Change Your Environment

Sometimes all you need is a change of scenery to get out of your writing slump. If you’re working from home, try going to a coffee shop or library for a few hours. If you have an office at work, take your laptop outside and sit in the sun for a while. Or, if you live in a noisy city, try finding a quiet spot to write outdoors.

By changing your environment, you’re able to coax yourself into feeling more inspired to write. This is because you’re not stuck in the same conditions that may have contributed to your writer’s fatigue in the first place.

Use Mind Mapping Techniques

When you’re feeling overwhelmed or stuck, mind mapping can be a great way to generate new ideas. This involves writing down a central topic in the middle of a piece of paper and then brainstorming related sub-topics around it. Then, you can keep branching out from there until you’ve generated plenty of new ideas for your writing project.

This technique can also help you get unstuck when you’re midway through a project. If you feel like you’ve hit a roadblock, try doing a quick mind map on the problem that’s preventing you from moving forward. This often helps to generate fresh ideas and solutions.

Exercise More Often

Exercising is not only good for your physical health, but it’s also great for your mental well-being. When you’re feeling exhausted, it can be helpful to get moving and take a break from sitting at your desk all day. A moderate amount of exercise can help you feel more refreshed and energized, making you more productive when you eventually return to writing.

Try combining your exercise with writing by walking or running while carrying around a pen and notepad. You can also find quiet places outdoors to write in, such as parks or beaches.

Connect With Other Writers

One of the best ways to overcome writer’s fatigue is connecting with other writers. This can be done in various ways, such as online writing communities, local writing workshops, or simply talking with friends who are also passionate about writing.

By sharing your experiences and advice with others, you can gain a new perspective on your writing struggles. You can also find inspiration and motivation from those around you, which can help you get back into a productive mindset.

In Summary

These are just a few ideas for overcoming writer’s fatigue. What works for you may vary depending on your circumstances, but the most important thing is to find what helps you stay inspired and motivated to write, even when you don’t feel like it. So get creative and experiment with different techniques until you find what works best for you.

Amanda Winstead, a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Tags mind mapping, mindset, set small goals

Guest Posts

Building Your Social Media Profile as a Writer: 5 Steps

Post author By Norma Poore - Managing Editor
Post date February 18, 2022
No Comments on Building Your Social Media Profile as a Writer: 5 Steps

Why Does It Matter?

If you’re serious about building a long-term career as a social media writer, building a robust and attention-grabbing profile is a must. With more than 80% of the U.S. population having a social networking profile, you are gaining access to a huge market of prospective customers. It would be remiss of you to miss the opportunity of reaching out to them.

It is important that you establish your presence to connect with new audiences, identify new ideas, and generate interest in your services. You also need to do this in a way that ensures your privacy and protects sensitive data. Below are the 5 key steps that will propel you to a great start.

Step 1: Choosing Your Audience

It may seem obvious, but you really need to start by determining whom you will be targeting with your profile, messaging, and services. That depends on several factors, such as your language proficiency, writing skills, past performance, type of services, etc. Whatever the combination of factors, be purposeful and strategic in your choice.

The above decision will shape your style of communication, content, and selection of services. It will also help you identify areas for your professional improvement. This audience includes your potential customers, so you need to be aware of their likes and dislikes, needs and whims, and strengths and idiosyncrasies.

Step 2: Choosing Your Username and Image

This is another building block in setting up your profile. It is worth spending quite a bit of time choosing your username, as it is a bad idea to change it afterward. It should be easy to remember and be reflective of your area of work and services.

It also needs to read and sound well. If you are targeting non-English-speaking audiences, make sure that your username does not have undesirable connotations in the respective languages or induce some awkward associations.

Pick a nice photo of yourself. You should choose professional attire. Smile! No one likes to work with a gloomy face. Be creative with your background. If possible, make it thematically linked to your work or services.

Step 3: Selecting and Structuring Content

Next is the subject matter. This is what your business or services are about. Include data about your skills, accomplishments, and types of services.

Put together a work plan with milestones, deadlines, and types of posts to track progress. If you are an Undercover Writer, you need to keep reaching out to your audience in a systematic manner.

Make sure you take note of the feedback you get, even if unpleasant or unsolicited. It will help you adjust substance, and fine-tune your targeting strategies. If possible, pick a friend or a colleague whom you will be using as your sounding board to test ideas.

Step 4: Enhancing Your Network

Don’t be artificial and avoid looking phony. Be genuine, honest, and forthcoming. Not only would your customers want to find a top-grade professional, but they would also want to get to know you as a person.

Be fun to work with without compromising your professional approach to work. Nothing beats an advanced work ethic when it comes to attracting and working with good customers on a long-term basis.

Also, think about building relationships rather than just a network of followers or customers. Many platforms, such as LinkedIn, allow you to connect with people in the same trade. Start with the people you know, and gradually expand to those whom you would like to know and those you need to know.

Step 5: Safety & Security

Finally, none of the above makes much sense if you set up your profile in a way that compromises your privacy or the security of any sensitive or personally identifiable data. While you need to communicate actively, frequently, and substantively, make sure you do not offer the kind of information that can potentially put you in harm’s way. This may include your bank details, various identity-related numbers, pass codes, and the like.

You should exercise the same degree of prudence when posting on social media. Choose your words, sentences, and images wisely. If you work for a company, make sure you are familiar with company policies to avoid unwittingly breaching any of those. Avoid linking up with any suspicious contacts or accepting invites from dubious sources.

Bringing It Together

The need for creative writers is unlikely to diminish in the years to come. As a writer, you are tapping into a huge market where there is no room for mediocrity and slack. An imposing social media profile is your business card with which you enter that market.

Be methodical about your approach to developing your profile. Clarity of purpose and your audience also matter. Build your network and keep honing your skills to establish a reputation of a reliable, hard-working, and fun-to-work-with professional who can cater to varying needs of customers with his or her A-game.

Jessica Fender is a professional writer and educational blogger at Is Accurate. Jessica enjoys sharing her ideas to make writing and learning fun. She is also featured on Forbes, AMA Boston, HR Exchange Network . You can connect with her Twitter | LinkedIn

Tags build a platform, build your audience, content

Guest Posts

10 Effective Marketing Strategies for Authors

Post author By Norma Poore - Managing Editor
Post date February 9, 2022
No Comments on 10 Effective Marketing Strategies for Authors

____________________________________________________________________________

It has become difficult to stand out in this competitive era, especially for small entrepreneurs, like authors. Therefore, you need to come up with unique marketing strategies if you want to stay ahead of competitors.

Although the traditional ways of marketing a book is still important, merging that with new strategies helps you reach a broader range of audiences. Not only this, understanding the 5 Ps of marketing will help you better shape your business strategy.

10 Effective Marketing Strategies

1. Pair Your Strategy With Google Ads

Google Ads is one of the effective online marketing channels. Although it may be a bit expensive, it is competitive, and once you master this platform, you can get a lot of benefits. Also, keep in mind that doing your on-page SEO perfectly, will give you the relevant search results to stimulate traffic.

2. Explore Content Marketing

You should generate relevant content that showcases what your book is about and answer any queries or dilemmas you think might come up.. Then, spread the content through a wide range of channels online. This way of content marketing is a powerful tactic to direct traffic from varied sources.

However, content marketing requires patience, as the results will take time to evolve. Therefore, don’t forget to leverage content marketing for the sustainable growth of visitors and readers of your books in the long term.

3. Partner With Publishers

Authors need to reach out to more publishers for expansion by partnering with other ventures, like anthologies and other collaborative works. This is a powerful way of marketing your writing or services as you promote yourself and your books. Moreover, leveraging pragmatic marketing becomes important here as it allows you to relate with not only your readers but with other publishers’ audiences as well.

4. Use Social Media

Most of your target audiences are on distinctive social channels. In addition, most of your target audience is utilizing social media for customer support. Therefore, your books need to be showcased on all the significant social platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Therefore, you have to ensure that you devote effort and time to the growth of your social media audience. Several smart marketing professionals invest a lot of time and money toward developing their social media presence.

5. Create Facebook Ads

Facebook advertising is an effective social media strategy that your book can benefit from immensely. In addition, Facebook is an affordable platform to reach out virtually to a wide audience.

You can set Facebook ads to target your particular set of consumers based on their location, online behavior, sex, age, etc. Facebook Ads Manager will lead you through creating, running, and testing various ad tests so that you can see which ad formula is getting the attention of your readers and audience.

6. Promote On Ecommerce Platforms

eCommerce sites such as Flipkart and Amazon have a huge number of your target audience. Therefore, you must explore marketing opportunities offered by these sites. Even big companies allow limited-time discounts to their members on these sites.

You can efficiently target your readers. As a result, it encourages brand awareness amongst the audience, grows manifold, and new readers come exploring your newly launched books.

7. Email marketing

An email marketing campaign is essential to your cold outreach marketing strategy. Since customers get numerous emails per day from marketers, you should make a plan that stands out from the rest and transform your leads into followers and buyers of your book.

First, your emails should be customized for all recipients along with a responsive and device-friendly design.

Today, with the help of automation, it has become easier to create an effective email drip campaign and send emails to numerous people with ease.

8. Start Writing Blogs

Blogging is one of the most effective ways to engage your audience. Now you must be wondering why? Because writing blogs is a great way to showcase your expertise and produce leads. Blogs are intriguing because they involve interesting topics and let viewers see what you write about and that you care about your audience. When they feel connected to you and encouraged about their particular problems, they also feel special and fulfilled.

9. Podcasts

Podcasts are a great way to gain insight into books and spread information on other aspects of your writing business. The content you or a business representative highlight in a podcast is another way to share your entertainment or encouragement with your followers. The best part about a podcast is that you can make use of other people’s audiences while still marketing your business. You further get affirmation from various audiences and build your online authority.

10. Launch a referral program

Referral marketing, also known as word of mouth (WOM), is one of the most powerful forms of marketing. Referral marketing statistics show around 92% of consumers worldwide believe referrals from their peers. A referral program is where businesses incentivize people to refer their products or services to others – a particular type of promotion. Simultaneously, referral programs facilitate you to recognize its loyal customers to do word of mouth for your book.

Conclusion

In today’s time, there are a lot of marketing strategies that you can leverage for your business. In this post, we have enlisted some of the best strategies that are affordable and proven business tactics. Further, word of mouth is an organic way to drive new customers to your products and services.

Shivani Goyal is a content writer at InviteReferrals, which provides referral software that allows businesses to attract new customers from existing customers through referral campaigns.

You can find Shivani on social media. Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin | Instagram

Tags marketing for writers, marketing plan, marketing strategies

Guest Posts

How to Financially Stay Afloat Between Writing Projects

Post author By Norma Poore - Managing Editor
Post date December 17, 2021
No Comments on How to Financially Stay Afloat Between Writing Projects

Surviving a writing slump can be challenging. Getting paid by the word or the project hardly equates to a steady flow of income.

This means it’s important for writers to properly manage their finances in order to ensure that they’re ready to stay financially afloat in between writing projects. Here are a few tips and tools that you can use to set yourself up to survive during your next dry spell.

Start with a Budget

A budget is ground zero for healthy finances. It allows you to grasp the state of your finances at any given moment.

At its most basic, a budget is simply a statement that adds up your various forms of income and contrasts it against your expenses. This can help you assess things such as:

Your fixed expenses: These are costs like your rent or car payment that you know will happen on a regular basis.
Your variable expenses: These are expenses such as eating out or going to the movies that can change from one month to the next.
Your ability to save: Subtracting your expenses from your income can show you if you have any extra income to squirrel away for a rainy day (more on that in a minute).
Your debt: A budget reveals how much money you owe and how well you’re working toward paying it off.

A budget serves as a window into your current financial status. By maintaining a budget, you equip yourself with the knowledge to prepare for any financial slumps that may occur in the future.

Find Professional Help to Get Things Set Up

If you’re concerned that your budgeting skills won’t be on the same level as your writing abilities, you’re not alone. There are millions of contractors who are left to figure out their finances on their own.

Fortunately, there are ways that you can get help. One of these is by hiring an accountant. This may seem like something that only large corporations have access to, but the rising demand for accounting professionals doesn’t just apply to those crunching numbers for big companies.

There are many accountants and financial advisors who are, themselves, working on a contract basis. They can be hired, usually for a very modest fee, to help with things like taxes and other financial services.

If you’re worried that your budget is sub-par, consider finding an accountant or adviser to help you out. If you hire them to do your taxes, you may even be able to ask for their input on your budget without any extra charge.

Build Up an Emergency Fund

Once you have a solid budget in place, you can begin actively preparing for your next financial slow season. This should revolve around building up an emergency fund.

An emergency fund, also known as a “rainy day fund,” is simply a lump of money that you have set aside and ready to help if your finances fall short at any given moment. This can happen for a variety of reasons.

For instance, the most obvious issue a contractor can face is running low on work. As you look for more jobs, it can take weeks and even months to get those paychecks rolling in again.

But even if you have solid clients providing a steady flow of work, your income may struggle for external reasons.

A good example of this is the coronavirus pandemic. When that began, many businesses cut their marketing and content budgets short as they scrambled to make ends meet. This led to less work for many of their freelancers.

While the pandemic isn’t likely to repeat any time soon, an economic crisis in one form or another is certainly likely. In fact, there have been 32 different economic recessions since 1850. That means every five years, on average, the economy has gone through a severe crisis.

Having an emergency fund in place can help you weather any financial shortcomings, whether they come from your own work or an outside issue.

Staying Financially Afloat During the Slow Seasons

Writing is an incredibly fulfilling lifestyle. However, as is the case with all professions, it comes with its ups and downs. As a writer, it’s important to be ready for any significant vacillations in your income.

Keeping an updated budget is an important starting point for this preparation. So is finding professional advice that you can trust. Once those pieces are in place, you can work to create an emergency fund that can help you stay afloat whenever your income doesn’t quite meet your living expenses.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. After years of writing and research in college, she’s turned her focus on blogging and enjoys giving other writers and readers perspectives from her experience. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Tags budget for writing, guest post, writing, writing advice

Guest Posts

6 Broad Character types to include in your fiction draft

Post author By Norma Poore - Managing Editor
Post date December 9, 2021
No Comments on 6 Broad Character types to include in your fiction draft

It’s no secret that a captivating assortment of character types is at the heart of any story ever written or told. Simply scanning through your favorite stories—whether film, novel, or mythical—can reveal a plethora of compelling characters.

In this article, you will learn about the six broad character types employed in fiction by writers throughout the past and today, as well as examples from notable works.

Following these broad character types doesn’t prevent you from experimenting, nor does it render your work cliché, but having a broad awareness of character types is a useful resource when writing your first draft of fiction.

Let’s get started, shall we?

1. Protagonist

We all have an intuitive sense of who the hero is in a story. This character is the center of attention, and the plot revolves around them. No other character in the novel has our sympathies as much as this one.

The story is usually told from the POV of the main character. However, the story may be told by someone close to the protagonist, like Dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes stories or Ellis “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman) in the film, The Shawshank Redemption.

Multiple protagonists may appear from time to time. For instance, Romeo and Juliet, Bad Boys, and Rush Hour, there is not one protagonist but two.

Caution is advised, especially if this is your writing project. It’s difficult to create multiple characters for whom your audience cares equally.

Protagonist examples: Luke Skywalker (Star Wars), Woody (Toy Story), Frodo Baggins (The Lord of the Rings).

2. Antagonist

This one is quite simple. The antagonist is the character who opposes your protagonist in a story. Throughout the story, the antagonist will generate conflict or mayhem for the protagonist. The antagonist and protagonist often clash, which drives the story.

A typical rule of thumb is that the antagonist must be significantly more powerful than the protagonist. The hero must overcome formidable odds.

Antagonist examples: Darth Vader (Star Wars), Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter), Agent Smith (The Matrix).

3. Foil

Now comes a tricky one. A foil character must be the polar opposite of your protagonist. While they frequently have a rivalry, the foil is not the primary antagonist. A foil character must have opposing personality traits. If the main character is a cynic, the foil would be an idealist. Introverted; extroverted. Lovable; nasty.

The foil character exists to emphasize our protagonist’s characteristics via contrast, giving us a better picture of who they truly are. For example, without Draco Malfoy to contrast Harry, readers may not have recognized Harry’s courageous and caring personality. The conflict between these two characters can also be a microcosm or metaphor for the conflict in the story as a whole.

Examples of protagonists and their foils: Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter), Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock (Star Trek).

4. Deuteragonist

A deuteragonist is a character who serves as the protagonist’s deputy. Even though they aren’t the main character, they are a close second. The storyline does not focus on them, but they are essential to the main character’s journey throughout the novel.

They’re frequently seen with the protagonist, offering guidance, planning against their foes, and generally providing a hand.

You might call them a sidekick, but this term suggests that they aren’t as important as the main character, which isn’t the case. It would be impossible for the protagonist to continue his or her journey without a deuteragonist.

Deuteragonist examples: Ron and Hermione (Harry Potter), Samwise Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings), Dr. Watson (Sherlock Holmes), Han Solo (Star Wars).

5. Love Interest

The love interest is the object of the protagonist’s desire. Romance of some kind appears in nearly every story. Depending on the genre, it might be the main plot, a subplot, or a short mention.

Whatever the situation may be, a love interest can allow a valuable character arc in any narrative. If presented well, the love interest always reveals the protagonist’s strengths and vulnerabilities. It may either be a force for good or a hindrance in the way of the protagonist’s main objective.

Similar to your main protagonist, an overly flawless love interest would come off as phony to your audience. There should be some flaws in a decent love affair to keep the reader engaged.

Also, stay away from writing your love interest as a gimmick or distraction. The love interest should speak to the protagonist’s character arc and challenge him or her to evolve in terms of the protagonist’s inner journey.

Love interest examples: Daisy Buchanan (The Great Gatsby), Ginny Weasley (Harry Potter), Rachel Dawes (The Dark Knight).

6. Tertiary Characters

Tertiary implies third in rank. However, it does not imply that they follow after the protagonist and deuteragonist. They are minor characters that have a few interactions with the protagonist, but they don’t do much for the story as a whole.

A few tertiaries are nevertheless required in a story since they are always present in regular life. A security guard at work, a barista you see once a day, your boss, or a random person sitting next to you in class or on the bus. As a result, without a few tertiaries, even the most realistic fictional plot would be incomplete.

Tertiary examples: Padma and Parvati Patil in Harry Potter, Nazi commanders and inmates in Schindler’s List, Nebuchadnezzar crew members in The Matrix.

Now It’s Up To You

We’ve discussed six broad character types, but the only limit to how they can be developed is your imagination.

Have fun experimenting and discovering what makes your protagonist unique. Get creative with their individual attributes and flaws and make their conflict with the antagonist something your readers have never seen before.

Find original ways for them to contrast with the foil and the deuteragonist, relate to the love interest, and interact with the tertiary characters.These character types aren’t guidelines but a spark to ignite your creativity. So get writing!

Nicholas Rubright is a communications specialist at writer.com. In his free time, Nicholas enjoys playing guitar, writing music, and building cool things on the internet.

Social Media: Linkedin

Tags 6 broad character types, fiction draft, guest posts

Guest Posts

Should You Have an Author Website Before Publishing?

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date October 22, 2021
No Comments on Should You Have an Author Website Before Publishing?

Websites are part and parcel of the modern professional lifestyle. This is especially true for anyone working on their own, whether they’re a contractor, an entrepreneur …or an author.

An author website gives you an online presence for your professional pursuits. It also serves as a central location for your online activity.

The question is, do you need a website before you even get published? The short answer is yes. Here are a few of the reasons why.

A Website Sets the Tone

First and foremost, a website gives you direction, entrepreneurially speaking. Remember, just because you can write doesn’t mean you’ll automatically become a published author. You also need to spend time honing the business side of the operation — and that starts with a solid website.

An author website gives you a chance to set the tone for who you are to the rest of the reading world. It provides purpose and gives your personal brand a clear identity.

With that in mind, don’t just cobble together anything and let it sit up on the web unattended to. Make sure that your website is a strong representation of who you are. Let it serve as ground zero for your online identity.

This is why it’s often recommended that you self-host your website. While you don’t need to pour endless funds into creating an online masterpiece, owning your content is an integral part of maintaining full influence and control over your online persona.

That said, if you can’t afford to self-host for now, you can always start with a free service. Just make plans to migrate to your own site as soon as you can afford it.

A Website is Functional

Along with defining your personal brand, a website is also an extremely functional piece of your authorial collateral. It can help with numerous logistical elements on the business side of the equation.

Remember, your author website is, in effect, a website for your personal business. Since it’s your business website, you want to be sure that you make it the right way.

The good news is that, at least at first, you primarily need your site for information. In other words, you aren’t running a complex e-commerce store. Instead, make sure to include other critical pieces of information, like an “About Me” page, a “Contact Me” page, and a blog.

A good, serviceable website can help you look more professional. It can also be a great way to attract the eye of an agent or impress a publisher down the road.

A Website is Marketing

A website can also be a great way to market yourself. This applies to everything from your site’s URL to your blog and email lists.

For instance, you can use a blog to attract the attention of the kind of readers that you’re writing for. If the idea of coming up with even more content for a blog sounds overwhelming, don’t get discouraged. You can add to a blog occasionally with short update posts and can even manage your blog from your phone using apps like Evernote and Grammarly.

Other elements, like an email list, run themselves. All you have to do is set up a sign-up form on your home page and let the emails come rolling in. The best part is that many email providers allow small entrepreneurs to have free email lists until they reach a certain threshold. This means you can accumulate emails from followers and you won’t have to pay until you actually have some momentum.

Setting the Stage for Future Success

At the end of the day, creating an author website after you’ve achieved success is akin to putting the cart before the horse. It isn’t going to help you get anywhere.

Instead, take the time to create a modest (i.e. not too expensive or large-scale) website that can serve as your base of operations as you launch your authoring career.

So, take some time to consider your options. Will you go for a self-hosting site right off the bat or will you start with something free? How will you make sure your site is accessible to the people who need to access it? What will your voice, tone, color scheme, and overall personal brand look like?

Once you’ve answered these questions, get to work on your site in the name of a successful, published future.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for dynamic content. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Tags author brand, Author Websites, branding, guest post, platform

Guest Posts

7 Great Reasons To Specialize in a Writing Product, Not a Niche

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date October 9, 2021
No Comments on 7 Great Reasons To Specialize in a Writing Product, Not a Niche

Freelance writing isn’t always the easiest way to make a living. Moving from project to project demands concentration, adaptability, and an abundance of stamina. There is however one important element that many people overlook. The difference between finding your niche and making the decision to focus on a writing product.

The term “writing product” refers to a very distinct sub-category of writing.

A few examples are:

SEO (search engine optimization): writing content to increase web traffic
Short ad copy: writing for promotional purposes (e.g.: slogans)
Resume writing: creating resumes

Specializing in writing products demands many of the same skills used in any writing field. But it also involves intimate knowledge of formats and industry-specific information and vocabulary. Writers who specialize in products have the advantage of perfecting their craft while appealing to a very particular target market.

Why Should You Specialize?

That old saying “Jack of all trades, master of none” is certainly something to ponder when your livelihood is writing.

To be an expert—a master—in your field, your only option is to specialize. Finding your niche is a move in the right direction. But unless you settle on one specific writing product, freelance writing may be a hard and unrewarding road to walk.

So, what are the benefits of writing product specialization?

1. Refine And Hone Your Skills

If as a writer, you’re having to use different styles from job to job, it’s very easy to lose focus, resulting in mediocre pieces that don’t impress anyone.

Different products require different and distinct approaches. By sticking to one in particular it’s possible to perfect your skills and become an expert in your chosen field. Writing resumes demands a very different approach from SEO or contract writing. Likewise, specializing in SEO requires a totally different mindset to writing generic blog content.

When choosing your specific path, it’s best to pick something that interests you—and that you’re reasonably good at. It’s very rewarding to work your way up to being an expert in your field.

2. Withstand Market Fluctuations

Many professionals suffer when the economy takes a downturn. But by specializing in a product rather than a niche, you can ride the dips far more successfully.

In rocky financial times, people will be more careful in their spending habits. However, if you’ve built up a solid reputation, clients will still have confidence in your ability to produce excellent work.

The past couple of years have seen many people lose their jobs. As a result, there has been an influx of people trying to make a living with freelance work—including writing. This might suggest that there’ll be less work available, but customers are far more likely to stick with already established writers.

3. Work Efficiently

Dedicating yourself to one specific writing product not only hones your skills, it allows you to work faster and more efficiently too.

Switching between styles might be good if you want to practice multitasking, but that often comes at the expense of your productivity. When you focus on a single writing product, you don’t need to perform mental gymnastics between tasks or projects. This momentum can set you up for a well-organized system in which jobs are streamlined.

Having a clear idea of your daily work schedule and where your focus is needed most allows you to move through tasks with ease.

4. Simplify Your Marketing

Marketing your business, skills, and services is a massive part of success in the freelance field. Ineffective marketing leads to few clients, which in turn leads to low income and the unpleasant task of trying to find work elsewhere.

Simplifying your marketing strategy is a huge help in attracting more clients. Focusing on a particular product makes that far easier to achieve.

These days, marketing is spread across a few platforms:

Your website
Business pages on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
Business cards

The fact that you need to maintain more than one online profile makes it hard to compile a clear portfolio containing many different styles. Focusing on one product makes creating marketing material much simpler.

5. Get Client Referrals – And More High Profile Clients

When clients realize that you’re highly skilled in a particular writing product, they’re far more likely to promote you through word-of-mouth. This is an excellent method in growing your business and building a comprehensive network of returning customers.

Another bonus of word-of-mouth referrals is the potential to reach high-profile clients who are willing to pay an attractive rate. Often, high-profile clients don’t advertise jobs, they rely on recommendations instead.

6. Find Work Opportunities Easily

Focusing on a specific category of writing allows you to search for more work opportunities while avoiding the effort of wading through hundreds of job ads.

If you know that your area of expertise is writing short ad copy, then you can streamline job searches to get appropriate results every time.

You’ll also find it far easier to set your rates if you focus on one product. This makes quoting clients quicker and easier, and it streamlines your invoicing process, too.

7. Build Your Reputation

Cultivating your reputation is easier when your specialty is one particular product, rather than several different ones.

Enhancing your skill set, marketing strategically, and building up a client base are vitally important in establishing a reputation for reliability and quality work.

Work Your Way Up

Before you decide what your focus is, think ahead and ask yourself a few questions about your ambitions. If you can commit to your chosen specialization, you can become a successful product writer with a bright freelancing future.

Wordplay ninja, article alchemist, and knowledge inquisitor. Melanie Robles is an experienced freelance writer and editor covering a variety of topics. When she’s not consumed by the creative vortex, she spends her time exploring new fields of knowledge to broaden her horizon.

Tags advice for writers, Freelance Writing, Niche, specialization, writing product

Guest Posts

Why You Should Try Email Marketing

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date October 2, 2021
No Comments on Why You Should Try Email Marketing

Email marketing is a tried and true practice in the marketing space and has been for a long time. This practice is used to attract and generate a list of potential customers. While some think it is a dead practice, it is hard to ignore its relevance. It is a cost-effective strategy that can lay a framework for an entire campaign or business plan.

Email marketing is an umbrella term for two main categories of emails. Cold emails are prospecting emails to help introduce your business and engage the reader. Warm Emails are Marketing emails designed to build relationships with contacts and increase website traffic and conversions.

The use of marketing automation goes hand in hand with an effective email campaign. Understanding the benefits of using emails and using marketing automation in your campaigns will give you an edge against your competitors.

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is an important part of digital marketing, especially when it comes to emails. Marketing automation is the use of software to automate repetitive tasks with email marketing campaigns. The process of marketing automation usually begins when the customer provides their contact information when purchasing a project or signing up for a newsletter/updates.

The implementation of marketing automation can help capture new leads, turn leads into customers, and help potential clients develop an affinity for the brand. You can tailor which emails are sent to which clients based on if they put items in their cart, or if they continuously spend more time on one page than another. This personalization that can be created by marketing automation helps your potential customers through the buying process all autonomously.

The Benefits of Using Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns can have a lot of valuable benefits for your business. They allow you to easily communicate with a large audience and make sure everyone on your list gets updated on your business. It also gives you the ability to personalize your emails with the individual names so they are more likely to open their emails. Like previously mentioned, when used with marketing automation you can tailor your emails based on what page they spend time on.

Email marketing has a great ROI (return on investment). For every $1 you spend, email generates a $42 return on average. The ROI is one of email marketing’s biggest advantages, and that return is only growing as time goes on.

The importance of quality

The source of the email campaign is the quality of the email you are sending. If you are sending an email that is poorly worded and does not have a strong call to action your campaign will yield negative results. You want to make sure that you are providing relevant content for the reader. Having a strong/compelling subject line with beneficial content only increases your chances of converting prospective clients or buyers.

Working in content from your website into your emails is also a great way to keep your brand cohesive through your various networks. You can benefit from natural link growth and brand visibility from having a strong and consistent brand narrative in your email campaigns.

Off to the Races

Now that you have an idea of how email marketing campaigns work, it is time to go on and start your own! Using carefully crafted emails and a little bit of help from marketing automation you can create a very strong email campaign to get your name out there and convert prospects into sales.

A true digital nomad, Emma Davis spends her time writing and traveling the globe in pursuit of her next great adventure. From travel guides to career advice, she hopes to help readers see the world as she experiences it—helping others craft a life where they can work hard and play often.

Tags digital marketing, email list, email marketing, marketing for writers

Guest Posts

5 Effective Ways To Promote Your Book on Social Media

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date September 28, 2021
No Comments on 5 Effective Ways To Promote Your Book on Social Media

Ever since the lockdown of 2020, there has been a flux of self-published authors all over social media promoting their publications. Nowadays, it is so much easier to make the dream of being a published author a reality without ever hiring anyone to assist in the process.

From pen to paper, to paperback printing, to promoting and finally selling, here are five effective ways to promote your book on social media:

1. Post pictures with book blurb on all platforms

2. Promote a contest on all platforms giving the book away

3. Create a website and social media pages dedicated to the book

4. Go live and read a chapter from your book and do a Q&A

5. Grow your niche network

Being self-published also means you are your book’s biggest fan and promoter. Ensuring you have reached as many fans and potential customers is the next important step in getting your work noticed. Keeping reading for effective ways to promote your book on social media.

1. Post Pictures on Social Media

It is all about pictures when it comes to social platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Investing in a good photo software app can really bring your book photos to the next level. Make sure to have a title that pops and a book cover that speaks for itself. Get a little more creative and showcase yourself holding the book or a group of friends lounging on the beach enjoying a read. Whatever the photo is, make sure to add links in the description and hashtag till your fingers bleed!

2. Have a Book Contest Giveaway

Everyone loves free stuff, and what better way to get your book out there than having a fun giveaway contest. You can generate a buzz about your book using social media to post blurbs or parts of chapters in the book and get participants eager for more. Creating a contest that involves a theme in the book, for example, cupcakes, get people involved like the first five people to comment on their favorite cupcake, get a free e-book, or the 100^th person to like the post about my book gets a free copy.

Some good contest ideas include:

Random winner generator app
Scavenger hunt – winner gets a free book
Go live first X people get the first chapter free
Hashtag contest- the person with the best hashtag for the book wins

Writing An Email Blast

When promoting a book for marketing, most authors will use contacts on their already existing email list and do an email blast showcasing a personal statement from the book and details on when and where it will be available. Choosing to have a professional, like a write my paper website, is a really easy way to hire a writer at affordable prices to take the pressure off of coming up with content for marketing your book in an email.

3. Create a Dedicated Website and Social Media Platform

People often try to mix their personal platforms with their professional ones, and the problem with that is everything gets combined, and a lot can get lost. It is important when branding yourself as an author that your work has its own separate website and dedicated social media platforms. This way, customers know exactly where to go to get all they need about your product and not be inundated with pictures from a birthday party you went to last weekend.

Some items you may want to have on your website can include:

Links to social media
YouTube channel link – for any live streams of reading the book
Customer review tab for new reviews and old
Blog – let readers know what is new and upcoming

4. Go Live on Social Media Platforms

Going live on any social media platform is the best way to get your book promoted by far. Promote a go-live session where you read a chapter of your book out loud and then do a Q & A session with viewers at the end. This will allow your customers and supporters to get a glimpse into the book’s energy and some insider viewpoints on burning questions readers may have.

5. Grow Your Niche Network

Promoting your book to other authors in the same niche category is a great way to efficiently build a network that will work for you. Whatever niche your book may be, for example, thriller, murder mystery, sci-fi, and the list goes on, make sure you utilize social media to build a network of like-minded authors. Their people will talk to your people, and those people will talk to other people, and before you know it, the link for your book has been passed around a bunch of times throughout all social media platforms.

Summary

Social media is free; it is easy to navigate and just as easy to use for marketing just about anything. It can be the thing that boosts your book to be a bestseller or the tool that helps get your book noticed by legit book publishing companies.

Jessica Fender is a professional writer and educational blogger at Writeload. Jessica enjoys sharing her ideas to make writing and learning fun.

Tags book promotion, guest post, marketing strategies, social media

Guest Posts Magazine and Freelance

A helpful tool for bloggers – SEO, Marketing, Content Creation Tools

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date September 14, 2021
No Comments on A helpful tool for bloggers – SEO, Marketing, Content Creation Tools

Online tools are providing tons of help to bloggers in every aspect. Starting from research, creativity, content creation, proofreading and SEO marketing, you have plenty of tools indexed on the web to help you become a successful blogger. Starting a new blog has become religiously important, thanks to the advancement in technology and the launch of online tools. This post will tell you about some of the most important and helpful tools for bloggers!

Helpful Tools for bloggers to try in 2021

Out of hundreds of online blogging tools listed on the web, we have handpicked the most effective ones:

HubSpot – Blog Topic Generator

The most important thing in blogging is you have to provide your visitors with informative and interesting content. This can only happen if you have fresh and authentic ideas. This blog topic generator is a famous tool that can help you find multiple topics related to your niche. You have to provide the noun or the keyword against which you are targeting your blog. Getting unique and interesting ideas is very easy with this helpful tool.

Google Docs – Blog writing tool

When it comes to writing content, you must subscribe with the best tool which can provide you options and features for beautifying the text. You must know that if the blog structure is not clear and optimized, it will be rejected no matter how informative it is. Using online tools like Google docs or MS word, you can create blog content with proper formatting. You can add headings, subheadings and bullet points in the blog content with these tools.

Grammarly

In blogging, you have to make sure that the quality of your content is up to the highest mark. You cannot afford to make any silly mistakes in your blog content if you don’t want to lose the interest of the organic traffic. We would like you to know that using online proofreading tools like Grammarly can help you find mistakes and remove them from your work in less than minutes. For enhancing the quality of the blogs, you would surely need Grammarly.

PlagiarismChecker.co

Plagiarism is an intolerable offence in blog writing. If your content has plagiarism, you will lose the interest and trust of the search engine and the organic traffic interested in your site. To check plagiarism, you need a reliable plagiarism checker tool. The plagiarismchecker.co is a designated resource that can help you check for plagiarism in your blog posts. The plagiarism detector tool cannot only scan your newly created content for duplication errors, but it can also scan your complete blog website and find out if someone is stealing from you. A plagiarism check is very important for a blogger, so you should never avoid or take it easy.

ReverseImageSearch.org

Images are also considered to be an important part of a blog post. Without an image, a blog post would look boring and unappealing for the common visitor. Images are important because images are more understandable than text. The human mind understands and accepts visual information sixty thousand times quicker than it perceives text. The reverseimagesearch.org is a search platform that is powered by the RIS technique. This image search utility can help you find relevant and royalty-free images for your blogs, and that too without any formalities and added expense.

Ahref

Ahref is a very powerful platform that you can use for free for two weeks. The main purpose of Ahref is to help you audit your blog site for different aspects. If you want to see your blog site rank in Google’s highest positions, you need Ahref. It would help you get information about the keywords you should use in your content and help you make a thorough competitive analysis of the sites working on the same niche as yours. If you want to get the right keywords or find out details about the directory links on your blogs, you should try out Ahref. Backlinks are very important when it comes to affiliate and SEO based marketing.

Live Chat

This is another important tool for a blogger. Having a live chat on your blog would help you communicate with your audience in a better way. If you want to understand your readers, then you should connect with them on live chat. You can get feedback about your blog posts and find out what they would like to read about. Create blog content according to the target audience’s requirements!

Paraphrasing Tool – SmallSEOTools

Paraphrasing tools are online software programs that can help you rewrite the content into unique and human-friendly content. You must know that you have to constantly create and update your old content in blogging so that readers can stay engaged with you. The online paraphrasing tools can help you rewrite and revise your old content in a new style. Instead of creating new content, you can use the spinner tools to revive your old and appreciated posts. The paraphrasing tool is also used to remove plagiarism from the content!

These are some of the best and most helpful tools that bloggers can use from all across the globe!

Amelia John is a digital marketer and a writer who has introduced various modern strategies in her published articles. She is also co-author of various famous digital marketing books. Amelia was born and raised in New York. She was a bookseller before moving to children’s publishing and worked for Knowledge Creators Company as a creative writer. She wrote a number of articles and blogs for teens and children on the adequate use of technology while working in that company. Amelia is famous for her great knowledge about the modern innovations that can be depicted in her writing.

Tags blogging advice, blogging tips, marketing strategies, SEO

Guest Posts

A Writer’s Guide to Crafting the Perfect Resume

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date September 5, 2021
No Comments on A Writer’s Guide to Crafting the Perfect Resume

When you’re a professional writer, your resume is going to look a bit different. It’s not enough to share your history and qualifications if you want to stand out from the competition – and, with over 44,000 writers in the U.S. alone, you definitely want to stand out.

Whether you’re a freelancer, academic writer, journalist, or creative writer, having a perfect resume is key. It can help you convince a client to work with you or land you a job that will flourish into a long-term career.

Even if you have an existing resume, it might be time to change it up or update it, especially if you’re planning a career change. For example, if you’ve been a creative writer who wants to become an English teacher, you’ll need to update your credentials and certifications. But, even if you’re producing a resume for the first time, making sure it’s as up-to-date as possible is still key.

Those traditional resume inclusions are important, but you should also focus on showcasing your writing skills. That often means including a portfolio.

Not sure how to get started or how to revamp your resume? Let’s start with a simple guide that can give you the information you need to get a step ahead.

Make Your Resume as Professional as Your Writing

Most potential employers only look at a resume for 6-7 seconds. As a writer, that’s how long you have to show them who you are and what you can do. Grammatical errors and misspelled words are big red flags in any resume. But, if you’re applying to be a writer, they’re even bigger problems.

Simply put? The grammar on your resume, from top to bottom, should be perfect.

You might be so used to writing a certain way that you overlook some common grammatical errors. It’s important to remind yourself of what they are and how they can impact your image. Some of the most cringe-worthy resume grammatical errors include:

Misuse of apostrophes
Mismatched verb tenses
Incorrect homonyms
Using too much of the passive voice

If you’re changing careers, such as to an English teacher, as mentioned previously, proving you can lead by example is tantamount. A well-prepared English teacher who’s responsible for educating students on grammar and writing, advanced or otherwise, should have a thoroughly edited resume to present to the administration during the interview process.

Think of your resume as your first impression. Many people make the mistake of throwing them together too quickly or sticking to a template without checking things over. By avoiding grammatical errors, you’ll prove from the start that you’re talented in your field, and an employer or client can count on you for quality work.

The Importance of a Portfolio

Showing off your professionalism and poise in a resume is only half the battle. You’re not applying to be a cog in the machine of a big company. There is only one you who can write the way you do, and you must be able to show that when handing someone your resume.

That requires a portfolio.

While many industries like resumes that are only one page and easy to read (and your basic resume should be), the writing world is different. It’s one thing to have experience and accolades. But, if your writing doesn’t match up to what a client or company is looking for, you’re not going to get hired.

The purpose of a writing portfolio is to have all of your best pieces in one organized location. It should be in an attractive format that makes it easy and enjoyable for someone to read, so it shows off your skills and flexibility to show what your writing looks like.

If you want your portfolio to stand out, one of the cleanest ways to offer it to potential employers is to set it up online. Sites like Clippings.me and Pressfolios make it easy to upload any pieces you’ve written in an organized, easy-to-navigate way.

Even if you’re newer to the writing world and don’t have a lot of experience, you can still build up a portfolio by writing for things like:

A school/church newsletter
Writing contests
Blogs and magazine submissions

Even if your work isn’t professionally published, you can still include it in your portfolio to give a potential client or employer an idea of your style.

The perfect resume and portfolio are equally important when it comes to landing a writing gig or full-time job. Keep these suggestions in mind as you work on your resume, and you’ll be more likely to dig into a long, successful writing career.

Tags guest post, resume, resume writing

Guest Posts

Practical Tips to Kickstart Your Freelance Writing Career

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date September 5, 2021
No Comments on Practical Tips to Kickstart Your Freelance Writing Career

So, you want to learn how to be a freelance writer? Freelancing is a great option to keep yourself supported as a college student. If you’re exploring work post-graduation, you know how little American grads get paid starting out. This is why many motivated individuals have started turning to freelance to generate extra income and earn money off of skills they developed in school.

In this article, we walk you through the basics to succeed in the writing gig industry.

Seek Out Training

Don’t worry, you don’t have to have an English degree (although ideal) to qualify as a writer. A degree or diploma in related fields such as psychology, journalism, and sociology helps immensely, as studying the arts builds up the critical skills needed for writing. If you don’t have the time or money to get a degree, look up online certificate courses to build your skills. As long as you can write well and demonstrate reasonable skill through your writing samples, we promise you that a university degree (or lack thereof) won’t be an issue.

Attract Clients

You’ve got the training, now what? Begin by looking up industry-specific sites like Problogger and Freelance Writing Jobs. Check out job boards (this list by Elna Cain is super handy) that post daily, well-paid gigs. You can also always put your services up for hire on marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork. This reduces your headache significantly, as clients will come to you rather than the other way round.

Take On a Few Starter Jobs

Everyone has to start somewhere, right? To build up the credibility you require to land well-paying gigs, you need to begin with low-paying jobs to generate feedback. We won’t glamorize this – starter jobs aren’t fun, and you’ll be doing a lot without much ROI. But once you’ve laid the groundwork with a few jobs, you’ll have work samples to show future clients. And a writing portfolio is the hot ticket to graduating to better-paying gigs in the industry!

As you begin writing, be sure to create a business entity for long-term success. An Employer Identification Number, or Tax ID Number, is what the IRS uses to track your payroll taxes and identify your business. Be sure to pay attention to your IRS EIN filing so that you’re set up for a stress-free tax time (both for federal and annual taxes).

The beauty of this business is – anyone can become a freelance writer. While degrees and past qualifications certainly help, freelance jobs are open to pretty much any individual who can show off their stellar writing skills. And it’s profitable too! Use writing as the tool to transform your income (and life) today!

As a former banker, Jim McKinley uses his background and skills to provide advice and valuable resources to anyone who needs help with their financial literacy. In his spare time, Jim spends time with his family and his dogs and he maintains his website Money with Jim.

Tags career advice, freelance, Freelance Writing, self-employed, writing career

Guest Posts

9 Top Blogging Trends for Building an Audience in 2021

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date August 11, 2021
No Comments on 9 Top Blogging Trends for Building an Audience in 2021

Blogging is one of the foolproof ways of building a good audience. It isn’t easy though, considering that it takes quite a lot of time and work just to even keep your blog alive.

Nonetheless, the good news is that if you’ve managed to build an engaged and responsive audience that you can connect with at one click of your mouse, you already have the best chances of hitting your business goals. Now, if you’ve built an audience and you fully understand them, you can set on providing value for them.

This way, you build authority in your space and create trust with your audience. Authority and trust with your audience will be a valuable tool in your arsenal if you have products to promote or you just want to stand out as a subject matter expert.

But is Blogging still a Thing in 2021?

For most people who are considering beginning blogging, a relatively popular question some of them constantly ask is ‘is blogging still relevant?’ If you’re also worried about whether blogging is still a thing, then you could be in for some surprise.

Blogging is still relevant and profitable in 2021 because a whopping 77 percent of internet users still refer to blogs as their preferred source of information 2021. The only snag is that blogging trends change pretty quickly, and something valuable five years ago may no longer be relevant today.

Therefore, to still remain relevant, it is prudent that you be proactive and willing to implement the new trends in blogging. Here are the 9 top blogging trends you can use to build a valuable audience in 2021.

I. Quality of your Blog Trumps Everything

The first step to building a valuable audience in 2021 is to ensure that you provide them with quality. According to this Growth Badger survey, top bloggers rely on good content, engaging headlines and intro, SEO, email list subscribers, social media presence, and blog name and URL to be able to still dominate in 2021.

If you have been blogging for some time, you probably already know about this. In providing quality, you should ensure that your web content resonates with the reader.

They should find it useful based on factors like; accuracy, comprehension, ease to skim through, in-depth, and original. The bottom line is to provide the quality your audience is craving and then present your content nicely.

II. Common Topics are not Really Interesting

For many beginner bloggers, some of the things you may want to write about when you get into blogging are the topics you find interesting. In some cases, some of these topics are pretty common.

An advantage of writing about something common and interesting to you is that you pretty much already have tons of information about that topic. The problem with this approach is that it may not allow you to stand out in the crowd, and the competition could also be pretty stiff.

This doesn’t imply that you should only go for the most complicated of niches, as this may also be draining in the long run. Your best bet, in this case, would be to be very specific when creating your niche.

If, for instance, you wanted to start a fashion blog, you can choose to write about sewing patterns or fabrics. Make use of that approach for any niche you wish to blog on and build popularity with it.

III. Video Content is more valuable than Ever

If you’re a blogging enthusiast, you must have noticed that several bloggers are beginning to incorporate video content in their work more. The standout advantage of video content is that it preserves your time, increases engagement with your audience. Besides, your audience can easily retain that information.

This is realistic considering that readers can retain 95 percent of the message you present to them when watching it than when they read it in text. Interestingly, video content will also benefit your SEO ranking. Several Content Management Systems (CMS) such as AgilityCMS allow you to embed interesting YouTube videos into your posts, so this is something worth trying.

IV. Frequency of Blogging Counts

If data from HubSpot are anything to go by, you can generate 3.5X more traffic when you blog 16 times every month than if you blog just four times every month. This may seem like a huge workload, but it really shouldn’t.

You can achieve this by creating realistic goals you can achieve and basically aim at publishing at least one blog post daily. If you may struggle to crank more content, you may want to consider hiring a blog writing service.

If you’re studying and you struggle to create enough time for your blogging and studying, you may also want to look for a research paper writing service to handle your essays. This way, you will be able to concentrate on one important thing at a time.

V. Use of Featured Snippets

Snippets have been appearing on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) content since way back in 2017. Today, savvy bloggers use the featured snippets as a valuable tool for increasing their visibility on the search engines, driving clicks, and building authority.

According to the reports of college paper reviews, if things remain the same, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if this trend goes through or peaks in 2021. Just so you know, featured snippets are the short text snippets you see at the top of your Google search results when you type in a query.

VI. Use of List-based Blog Titles

Studies suggest that 36 percent of internet users prefer list-based topic headlines. The argument behind this is that internet users find the lists easier to skim through.

This trend has also been there for some time, and it really won’t change in 2021. To write good list-based blog titles, be sure to include the problem or product in your headlines.

VII. Web Hosting Quality

Website speed is something you can’t overlook if you wish to offer a great content experience to your audience. A significant fraction of internet users will bounce back if your pages take more than 30 seconds to load. This isn’t something you may want for your website because high bounce rates can negatively affect your rankings.

A more straightforward hack for web speed is choosing a good web hosting provider. The hosting should be fast, guarantee security and scalability to accommodate your brand’s growth.

VIII. Visual Content will dominate

Visual content is gaining more traction as more bloggers are favoring them in their pieces. They come with SEO benefits and are also effective in keeping your audience engaged.

If you wish to use visual content, you may want to use screenshots when writing tutorials. You may also want to use charts, polls, and stock images in your content.

IX. Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are the links you get from other blogs to your website. Their purpose is to drive organic traffic to your website.

Quality backlinks are also helpful for your SEO rankings because they make it easier for Google to determine your website’s quality. With quality backlinks, Google will view your web content as being qualitatively good, thus ‘reward’ you with free search engine traffic.

With these benefits, the use of quality backlinks is a trend that will still dominate in 2021 and may still last way past 2021. If you’re just getting started, you can generate quality backlinks by writing high-value guest posts on other websites and then linking back to your website.

Other than the backlinks, it would also help if you interlink the blog posts on your website. This way, your audience will find more value in getting more information on your site. The high amount of time they spend on your website will also make it rank positively on the search engines.

In Closing

Blogging trends are dynamic, implying that you should always keep an eye on new and upcoming changes, so you aren’t left behind. Other than the trends, always aim at providing value, and your audience will continue expanding.

Tiffany Harper is a training guru who’s been working in the corporate sector as the technology expert for several years now. She is a management graduate and loves to share her experience through blogs and expert articles. For her love of writing, she provided online consultations for the dissertation writing service department, while working with EssayMama. Please do not hesitate to contact her on LinkedIn.

Tags blogging, blogging advice, guest post

A3 Contributor Book Release Guest Posts

Embarking on a Fool’s Errand?

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date August 10, 2021
No Comments on Embarking on a Fool’s Errand?

We’re all familiar with phrases that warn us of danger lurking ahead.

Look before you leap.
You can’t be too careful . . .
I’d think twice about that if I were you.

All of these idioms are meant to ward off an ill-conceived project or advising someone to think carefully before tackling what might be considered an ill-fated trip.

But my favorite is: Every dark cloud has a silver lining.

I recently published a compilation book with twenty-two additional authors. I considered the idea a long time before I pulled the trigger. I wanted to “pay forward” the support and assistance I received when I began to write 10 years ago. I’m confident had I not engaged a writing coach and joined a professional writing community for women I might never have become the author of five books. Coupled with a certification as a writing coach, I felt confident in tackling this task.

We May Be Done But We’re Not Finished was a title I stumbled on nine years earlier. I used it as a tagline for my first website, My Purpose Now. The audience? Women 50+ who were struggling to discover their purpose once the nest emptied. They’d been all in, clear about their calling, and engaged in their families. With that no longer in demand (and rebuffed if offered) they were uncertain as to whether their best years were behind them. No. Absolutely not. God had so much more in store; they simply needed an assist to find that path.

I wanted to feature stories of ordinary women 50+ who had done extraordinary things: accomplished a long-ago dream, goal, or vision. Completed a degree. Travel. Quit the job to build a business or develop a non-profit. Serve in a homeless shelter. Dare to dance, paint, act on the stage that called them for 30 years. Some stories centered on loss – a loved one, an unexpected divorce, health issues or financial adversity. But no matter the theme, God was the hero in each story.

A friend asked, “why not write this yourself? Just interview them and tell their story. This is going to be a lot of work.” I insisted each woman’s voice was vital to the telling.

I turned to social media sites to invite those who’d been writing for at least two years. Most blogged, some wrote for local publications. But most lacked their first professional book publishing credit. I selected 25 individuals – most of whom were strangers – from a total of 80 submissions. I would write 50% of the content. I tacked on a few longtime writing friends to write a chapter—and to talk me off the ledge if needed.

I had no clue the time it would require and the effort it would demand. None. Zip. Nada.

I discovered an interested publisher and sent a proposal and sample chapters. I signed the contract two days later. I was officially the managing editor.

No turning back.

The contributing authors signed an agreement for their participation. It included their commitment to write on the specific theme, follow editorial guidelines, write to the allotted word count, adhere to deadlines, and help market the book upon release. I had the final say if an issue arose regarding “artistic license.”

As the managing editor, I did two rounds of editing and coached those who needed assistance. Some were strong writers from a technical standpoint and had good stories but needed help to make the story sing. Others brought a compelling experience but needed support to strengthen the quality of the writing itself.

It was exciting, exhilarating, and exhausting. The journey was never boring.

I had divas. “My mom and my friends told me; it was perfect – don’t change a word.”
I had debaters: “I’m not using lower case for he, him, and his in reference to Christ. It’s wrong. It’s dishonoring.”
I had deniers “I don’t care about the publisher’s requirements; I’m writing it like God told me to.”

We started with 25; we concluded with 22. We parted on good terms.

From the concept development to the search for authors, from what felt like a thousand emails to release of the book – six months. We worked with a stellar traditional publisher who knows speed to market and excellence in all they do are keys to success.

And now the avalanche of advantages kicks in: I have 22 partners to help market and promote the book.

Some are teaching our group tips and tools on our private Facebook page where our primary communication exists. Many have a writing-related side-hustle: Podcasting, blogging, vlogging, or websites of their own. I was stunned by the number of social media gurus, and valuable contacts they brought with them. Our goal is to create community.

And I thought I was doing this for them.

I’ve been contacted by three writers who are interested in my coaching services. Two additional experienced writers have reached out to ask if I might be interested in teaching a workshop on this collaborative writing approach. I’m thinking that’s one to consider. I never saw that silver sliver peeking through the dark cloud on occasion.

The vision that some regarded as a fool’s errand, has been realized. Our writers are encouraging readers to resist the rocking chair brigade and press ahead to make the rest of their life the best of their life. That is a good outcome.

Nobody promised it would be easy. But then, achievement never is.

Deborah DeArmond is a recognized leader in the fields of performance development, facilitation. She is a certified writing coach as well as an executive business coach. She is also an award-winning author.

Deb’s the author of Related by Chance, Family by Choice, I Choose You Today, and Don’t Go to Bed Angry. Stay Up and Fight! All three books focus on relationship dynamics, communication, and conflict resolution. Her humorous devotional entitled Bumper Sticker Be-Attitudes was published in late 2019. Her newest release, We May Be Done But We’re Not Finished: Making the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life was released in July. She has published more than 200 articles in print and online, including a monthly column, now in her 7^th year for Lifeway Magazine with an international circulation of 300,000.

Deb helps clients achieve success in becoming the coach others desire to work through through her engaging inquiry, humor, and straightforward approach. Her clients have described Deb as “candid but kind” and skilled at asking the questions that help “guide others to discover their answers and solutions to success.”

Website: debdearmod.com
Pinterest Deb DeArmond
Facebook Author Deb DeArmond

Tags advice for writers, collaboration, courage, following guidelines, joint project, over fifty, Purpose, true stories

Guest Posts

Ways to Create Emotionally Intelligent Characters

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date July 26, 2021
No Comments on Ways to Create Emotionally Intelligent Characters

As much fun building characters in a fiction story is, the process is equally challenging. Trying to create memorable characters who incite a heartfelt connection with readers requires quite a bit of work. But you can start by developing them with emotional intelligence, also known as EQ.

You want your characters to have an authentic balance of emotional intelligence so their impact on your readers is lasting. Additionally, if your readers can resonate with your characters’ internal struggle and growth, they’ll be more inclined to finish the entire story.

So, let’s briefly define what emotional intelligence is and then explore three ways to incorporate it into your character development to create emotionally sound characters.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is defined as “the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.”

In terms of character development, this means you want to show your character’s understanding of their own emotions. Show how they use them in different circumstances and manage them in stressful times when they need to communicate effectively, overcome obstacles, and form relationships with others.

With this definition of emotional intelligence in mind, here are three ways to create emotionally intelligent characters in your fiction stories.

Three Ways to Create Emotionally Intelligent Characters

Defining emotional intelligence is just the beginning of creating emotionally intelligent characters. You want to ensure you’re striking the right balance of emotional intelligence in your characters to paint an authentic picture of who they are. Here are a few ways to help you do just that.

Work on your EQ

Creating emotionally intelligent characters who provoke genuine emotion and connection from your readers is a bit easier when you understand your EQ. An emotionally intelligent writer has gone through some of the things their character is going to go through. And that can be used to write better characters.

So, work on your EQ. Your characters can mirror the general flow of your emotional journey to make them that much more realistic.

Draw on real-life experiences

As you work on your emotional intelligence, you’ll likely learn how to be better from your involvement in other people’s journeys to a high level of emotional intelligence. And these encounters should be leveraged to create solid characters. One of the best ways to develop emotionally intelligent characters is to draw on real-life experiences.

For example, let’s say you have or are currently dating someone with depression or anxiety. Think about the nights of researching their disorder, the difficult discussions you had to have with them, how you overcame their attempts to push you away and self-isolate, or how you improved your communication to support their healing. If you’re creating a character living with either of these disorders themselves or in relation with someone who is, draw from your own emotional experiences.

Ultimately, considering how you navigated similar circumstances that your characters are going through will help you develop them with a realistic balance of emotional intelligence. Also, the genre you’re writing can help shape the emotional intelligence of your characters.

Consider what EQ looks like in different genres of fiction

To determine the right EQ for your characters, you’ll want to consider the genre of fiction you’re writing in. Your characters’ emotional intelligence journey should make sense not only for the character but for your chosen genre as well.

For example, let’s say you’re developing a character for a comic book. You decide the stories will involve fighting crime, and therefore, the comic will be placed in the action/adventure genre. The question becomes, what does the emotional intelligence of a comic book character in the action/adventure genre look like? If their goal is to fight crime effectively, what is their motive for doing so? Were they bullied as a kid? Was a family member the victim of a high-profile crime?

Ultimately, your character’s level of emotional intelligence and how it develops in the story, and the pace at which it does, should be informed by the genre they’re in.

Conclusion

Creating emotionally intelligent characters will make your story stand out among the many fiction pieces out there. Develop these characters by working on your personal EQ, using real-life experiences to inform your character creation, and considering what EQ looks like in your chosen genre.

Tags advice for writers, character development, Characterization, emotional intelligence

Guest Posts

Blog Strategy for Sustainable Content Marketing Success

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date July 14, 2021
No Comments on Blog Strategy for Sustainable Content Marketing Success

The foundation of today’s marketing campaign for brands is content marketing. The kinds of content that can effectively reach the target audience online include emails, case studies, infographics, white papers, articles, and blog posts.

Blogs account for a large portion of content used on digital marketing today because they are relatively affordable. Using content for sustainable content marketing success is viable as long as you use the right approach. This article highlights processes and steps that can guarantee marketing success.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Blog marketing is built on SEO and so to attract the audience, you need to create informative and SEO-optimized blogs. One of the ways to achieve this is by having killer blog intros that can prompt the audience to read and minimize bounce rates. SEO is a way of boosting the volume and quality of your web traffic.

An effective process and area to boost SEO include the keyword usage of the blog content. Keyword usage offers a system of allowing blog content writers to include particular relevant words in the blog posts. Since the keywords are relevant to the blog topics, it will be easier for the readers to find the posts by simply conducting an internet search.

SEO is sustainable because it is an effective kind of digital marketing that increases traffic and promotes brand awareness. The ability of SEO to yield tangible results is what makes it an ideal digital marketing strategy. There is also an increased demand for SEO as many brands are appreciating its value.

One of the brands that have successfully used SEO is Etsy. Etsy has focused on creating a strong content strategy to drive organic traffic to its site. The company’s marketplace for dealing with hand-made goods is known for its content and it lures people to keep on coming back.

Set clear goals

Goal setting is an important aspect of any project. It is important to define your direction and track progress as you move towards goal achievement. Have a specific and measurable target when designing and implementing a blog content strategy.

Avoid value goals such as wanting to make sales but instead specify how much your sales target is. Having specific content marketing goals can allow you to plan well and increase the chances of success.

Your content marketing goals could be to boost brand awareness and web traffic, grow your email list, get more followers on social media, or boost conversion rates.

Your value as a marketer is gauged on results and not productivity or activities. For your content marketing initiatives to be meaningful, they should be in line with the measurable business objectives.

Aligning content marketing goals with business goals entails talking to relevant executives to clarify the goals. When you know what your business is set to achieve, it will be easier to plan for content that can facilitate the achievement of those goals.

Wistia, a professional video hosting provider, has been successful in creating marketing content.

The company embarked on a campaign aimed at driving quality leads to its site. They used a TV series referred to as the Brandwagon with humorous content to provide insights into the brand growth.

Know the target audience

The purpose of content marketing is to gather leads and make them long-term buyers. To achieve this, you need to understand the buyer persona well. Developing and identifying a buyer persona offers the benefits of lead identification, exceptional brand experience, good customer segmentation, and cross-marketing alignment.

Creating a buyer persona entails getting data from the existing customers and gathering the persona data based on research. It also requires aligning the buyer’s personal data with the appropriate marketing approaches. Knowing your target audience is a big step to creating a blog strategy that can lead to continuous lead generation and conversion.

Initially, MySpace directed its marketing efforts to every person who desired to be connected on Facebook. After Facebook offered a useful and robust tool for reaching the target audience, MySpace created a better strategy by starting with the target buyer persona and started focusing on the most ideal persona; the musicians. MySpace got a reprieve after the musicians started posting songs on MySpace.

Publish premium posts only

A well-planned blogging strategy may not guarantee content marketing success. You need to regularly create and publish quality articles. Readers are interested in educational, stylish, and informative articles all the time. Extremely short blogs may not impress an online audience and so you need to publish comprehensive content with well-analyzed topics.

Try to enrich the blog posts with alternative formats like animations, images, GIFs, and more. This is a good approach because people are more attracted to content backed by visual elements. Visuals enable the audiences to enjoy modern content experiences because the blogs are well-structured to boost readability.

Deciding on an appropriate way to deliver valuable content to your target audience should be a top priority. Brainstorm the various ways to add value to the readers and don’t be discouraged if you are not professionally trained in a given niche. The kind of content that is likely to be more attractive to the audience depends on the unique characteristics of that audience.

Instead of identifying the audience by general demographics such as income, gender and age, you could focus on how knowledgeable the audience is in a topic. HubSpot has strongly leveraged the quality of content for its blogs.

The company has built an excellent customer journey to help convert prospects into buyers as soon as they are ready. HubSpot uses a variety of funnels to create blog articles for broad and attractive topics. After every post, they have CTA to test their free software and this attracts readers to collect emails with popups.

Promote your content

Famous and influential blogs regularly promote their content to maintain some level of popularity. Explore various ways of promoting your content online, such as sending new content digests and posts to subscribers’ emails.

Since social media boasts millions of daily users, it is one of the most effective tools for content promotion. Add icons for social sharing to your posts to encourage the readers to share the posts on their accounts.

Another promotion tactic is to create guest posts for other websites. By doing so, you will attract a new audience and encourage people to follow your blog. Q/A websites can also be great blog promotion platforms to boost online authority and place you as an industry leader. Promoting content is important in the following ways:

It is a way of attracting new clients and increasing web traffic
Promoting a blog can build your brand reputation in a particular niche
It can help you to advertise more effectively in a modern business environment
It boosts your trustworthiness in the eyes of clients
Promoting a blog can help to maintain a marketing strategy and create well-structured content.

Boohoo Group has managed to thrive amid the coronavirus pandemic. One of the factors that have led to the company’s success is the social media strategy. Boohoo Group has been promoting its content on social media using the influencer marketing strategy. The influencer endorsements have helped the brand to reach out to the young audience on Instagram, where it has many followers.

Conclusion

Developing a blog strategy for sustainable marketing success should be a priority for every digital marketer. Blog content can yield positive results for your brand if you follow the above processes and guidelines. You need to be persistent and patient to see the results of your content marketing efforts, including conversions.

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Tags blogging advice, marketing for writers

Guest Posts

12 simple and powerful tips for successful freelancing

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date June 28, 2021
1 Comment on 12 simple and powerful tips for successful freelancing

Working for yourself has its own set of rewards and can be extremely lucrative. Being self-employed means being responsible for the money that you make and the amount is dependent on your ability and the kind of work which you’ll do.

Since the pandemic, many individuals have turned into freelancing to earn an extra income. In this article we’re going to give you several important tips on how to boost your career as a freelancer.

12 simple tips on how to become a successful freelancer

Becoming a freelancer isn’t an easy task. It’s like managing a business only your employee is you. The money you make will depend on the kind and amount of work that you do.

1. Plan of action – As a freelancer it can be very easy to take long breaks and blame it on not being able to find work. When you have a detailed plan of action in place, you will likely work according to that. Create various plans of actions based on your daily goals, your weekly, monthly, yearly and 5 plans. It’s also important to set realistic expectations and plans otherwise you’ll be disappointed when your plans don’t come to fruition.

2. Build your own brand – Building a brand takes time and requires resources before people start recognizing you for your work. As a freelancer, look for ways to enhance your CV. Ask yourself questions like is this the best way to build my website, how do I make my blogs better, how do I gain more visibility. Everything you put online is a means of acquiring more business and hence more money as a freelancer. Clients are more likely to hire those who have a proven track record so get those positive reviews so that you can gain clientele even through word of mouth advertising.

3. Be wise when quoting your price – When it comes to freelancing work there are mainly two types of payments that are done. Hourly and per project basis. You know the amount of work that goes into the completion of a project. The opportunity for a client to nitpick and negotiate an hourly rate and for the client to make comparisons about the work and the time it takes in its completion. Having said that, you know what works best for you as a freelancer so decide on a payment method that’s comfortable to you.

4. Setting up a system that works for you – Throughout your freelancing career, there’ll come many obstacles which you’ll have to overcome and things become 10 times more difficult if things haven’t been organized properly. Set up systems such as an invoice system, mark dates on your calendars, track your work record and find a filing system that works for you and makes your life that much easier. Use calendars to mark important meeting dates or to mark work events. These things will help you keep a track of the work that you’ve done and will also help when it comes to filing taxes.

5. Networking – As a freelancer, the onus of finding work rests on you. The more you network with your industry professionals the chances of you getting work increase. It’s also important to network with fellow freelancers as you can get many important job leads through them. While some of you may want to stay away from other freelancers from your industry, it’s a better strategy to work with them, build on their contacts and share the success rather than doing everything alone.

6. Learn to say no – It may be tempting to say yes to every work offer than comes your way but know your limits. It’s better to say no to a project while already working on something and giving it justice rather than taking on multiple projects and giving none of them any justice. Also, try to visualize how you want your work to be and focus on doing work related to that. You’ll have to adapt and change a few things along the way, however don’t completely stray off topic because it’s difficult to achieve success when being pulled towards multiple directions.

7. Make sure to have the terms and conditions written down – This point is often overlooked by freelancers when it shouldn’t. When you get on board with an agency or a client, make sure to have the terms and conditions of the work written down tight down to the payments. One problem many freelancers face is the issue of payments. A lot of the time payments are delayed or employers give less amount of money that was agreed upon. To save yourself from situations like these, it’s always better to have a written contract rather than a verbal one.

8. Create an LLC – While this may sound extreme, here us out. LLC or a limited liability company is a business structure wherein owners aren’t personally responsible for their companies debts or liability. An LLC will separate your business finances from your personal belongings and finances. This is just a precautionary step freelancers must take incase you get sued by the client. Another advantage of creating an LLC is that it makes taxing things much easier and also manageable.

9. Attend networking events – One way you can get more work is by attending networking events in your field. You can attend seminars, conduct seminars where you get to interact and connect with those from your field. Be on the lookout for events where you can meet potential clients. Once you are at these networking events, don’t shy away! Your main purpose of being there is to talk to as many people as possible, getting them interested in your work and making an impression.

10. Do a thorough research on your competitors – Spend as much time as you can getting to know your competitors. How they brand themselves on social media, how they find work and while you’re at it, also do thorough research on the kind of clients you want to work with. Getting an idea of what they’re looking for may give you ideas on how to better market your work and will eventually help you in acquiring new projects and clients to work with.

11. Set boundaries and take care of yourself – As freelancers it can be tempting for it to take over every aspect of your life and ignore the other essential things. Don’t let freelancing and overworking ruin your physical and mental health. Working up until the point of exhaustion won’t help you or your loved ones. One great thing with working as a freelancer is that you decide your own working hours and can therefore take breaks whenever necessary.

12. Don’t quit your day job immediately – If you’ve just started work as a freelancer then right now isn’t the right time to leave your day job in pursuit of becoming a full time freelancer and the reason behind this is that freelance work doesn’t guarantee you money every month like a day job does. Day jobs provide stability and a regular income source. You can only quit a job on good terms once you feel completely settled as a freelancer.

In Conclusion –

As with new things there will be a certain amount of getting used to this lifestyle. Working as a freelancer has its own set of advantages and disadvantages as does any other line of work. Freelancing will give you the freedom a regular 9-5 job won’t provide and it’s probably one of the reasons why more and more people are opting to be working as freelancers rather than just full time employees.

Ruby Smith is a career and productivity copywriter who believes in the power of networking. She’s passionate about blogging and writes web content for a variety of clients. She is currently dedicated to Online Jobs Academy as a gig worker, she understands the benefits and challenges of the industry. Blogging about education and career regarding ideas to grow is something that she loves doing.

Tags boundaries, branding, freelance, freelancing, guest post, networking

Guest Posts

Starting Your Writing Career as a College Student: 5 Things to Consider

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date June 26, 2021
No Comments on Starting Your Writing Career as a College Student: 5 Things to Consider

Aspiring to become a writer as a college student may seem retro from a certain point of view. With so many modern occupations related to IT, AI, and digital industries, becoming a writer can seem antiquated.

However, book publishing is still on an upward trend despite eBooks and audiobooks becoming more popular. As a college student, you are in the perfect position to shape your writer’s career into something truly special. Before you jump into it, here are a few things to keep in mind as you start your writing career.

1. It Might Take a While Before you are Published

Before you devote yourself to a writer’s career, you should know that getting published isn’t easy. Take Brandon Sanderson, a giant of modern fantasy literature, as an example. Sanderson wrote 13 novels before he managed to sell even one, after which publishers took notice of him and the rest became history.

His story serves to drive an important point home – you will need supplementary income to live off of before you go big as a writer. While he was developing his literary universe of interconnected works, Sanderson worked full-time in a hotel. Becoming a writer takes passion, dedication, and discipline. If writing is your calling, this bump in the road won’t stop you in the slightest.

2. Look for Inspiration in Contemporary Writers

While you can look for your writer’s muse in the literary geniuses of the past, it might be better to look to contemporaries for inspiration. Depending on the literary genre you feel drawn to, and whether you gravitate toward prose or poetry, there are dozens of writers to look to. Haruki Murakami is a writer whose surrealist writing is juxtaposed with existing historic facts about art, philosophy, and music.

He is the prime example of how pouring “yourself” into your writing can result in mesmerizing, world-renown writing. Research their careers and look for the roots of their writing career to see how they came to be where they are now. Taking “writing” from a pedestal and seeing it objectively will allow you to get a much better perspective on how to succeed going forward.

3. You will have to Dedicate Time to Develop your Writing Voice

When it comes to the subject of writing, originality isn’t as important as much as your writing style and voice. Take Dan Brown, the renowned author of Angels & Demons, and many other Robert Langdon books. His writing style is far from beloved by literary critics. However, each book he publishes is a best-seller almost immediately – why is that?

It’s not so much about “what” you write about as it is about “how” you write it. This is why you should also look for admission services help if you are writing your admission papers as a future freshman or college student. Put in the effort to hone your writing skills and a style unique to your personality – that’s what publishers and readers enjoy about authors.

4. Set your Daily Writing Schedule and Stick to It

Discipline is a major component of becoming a successful writer. While it is true that you cannot create art under pressure, writing a book is a monumental task that will take months, if not years. For a good example of a disciplined author, we need to look no further than Stephen King, who needs no introduction.

His writing habits consist of working on new materials four hours a day, each day. This has resulted in King producing writing materials for his publishers at an unprecedented pace. As you begin to develop your career as a writer, you will have to create a strict schedule and abide by it. Writing a few sentences here and there won’t help you reach the point of looking for a publisher any time soon. Put in the time to express your ideas in writing every day, and the results will speak for themselves.

5. Consider Freelance Writing as a Professional Exercise

Lastly, there is a way for you to both work on your writing style and earn an income while developing your career. Platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr offer a plethora of projects in a variety of niches for writers such as yourself.

You can work as a blog writer, ghostwriter, or content creator for websites in need of different types of writing. This will help you manage your financial situation until you reach a point where you are ready to present your work to a local publisher. Freelance writing is also flexible, meaning that you can pause or quit if a better opportunity arrives, making it a good choice for college students.

Getting from Here to There (Conclusion)

If becoming a writer is what you are passionate about, there will be no stopping you once you hit your stride in writing new materials. Be mindful of the reality that writing isn’t easy and straightforward. However – it is a battle with yourself to remain focused and dedicated enough. If you can manage that, you will build a successful career as a writer straight out of college, doing what you love.

Author’s bio. Jessica Fender is a professional writer and educational blogger at Bestwritingadvisor, an aggregator for useful college resources and websites. Jessica enjoys sharing her ideas to make writing and learning fun.

Image source: pexels.com

Tags career advice, college students, guest post, patience, writing career

Guest Posts

9 Tips For Video Marketing Your First Book

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date June 22, 2021
No Comments on 9 Tips For Video Marketing Your First Book

As a book author, you must be able to market your book. It may be hard for you if it’s your first book because you don’t have previous experience, but it is not impossible. Authors either go through the route of a traditional publisher to get their books out, or they self-publish.

Self-publishing is a viable option for many authors who don’t have the resources to work with traditional publishers. Thankfully, it’s easier to self-market your book now with the internet and social media, and one effective tool to use is videos. Video marketing works like magic to market your book, even if it’s the first one. You need to know what to do and how video marketing works which is what we’ll be discussing now.

In this article, we’ll be dishing out tips for video marketing your first book.

1. Run social media video campaign

One of the best ways to get people on your video is to offer them something for free. According to some essays help online, the best way to accomplish this is through social media. This is because you’ll get people willing to share your post and put the word out about you and your giveaway. This will invite more people to you, and you’ll have a lot of traffic on your video.

2. Add a smile to your video thumbnail.

You may not take this seriously, but your video thumbnail is essential too. It’s one thing that can make people either play your video or pass it by. So it’d be best if you used a thumbnail that is appropriate for your video. Use a compelling image that makes the video play-worthy, and the best way to do this is by using a smiling image, especially one that makes direct eye contact. This is because humans relate to other humans.

3. Make sure your video has a share button.

Knowing how powerful social media can be and how quickly information spreads, it’s a wise decision to enable the share button on your video. Making it possible for others to share the video means that it’ll get to more people quickly. The more people get to watch the video ad about your book, the more buyers you’re likely to get.

4. Prompt people to share the video

Adding a share button is sometimes not enough for people to share the video. They could watch the video, get the information that you’re passing and then move on from it. That’s why it’s important to prompt your video watchers. Also, don’t leave out your friends and families. Stick your video to their faces and ask them to share it with their network of friends.

5. Use email marketing

Email marketing remains one of the cheapest and most effective marketing strategies. It doesn’t matter that you’re trying to market a book and not some commerce items. Combining email marketing and video marketing makes both even more effective. Create an email list, and be sure to send your book marketing videos to them.

6. Put your money where your heart is

It’s okay not to want to spend a lot of money marketing your first book. You probably made a DIY video for marketing and have spent very little in your marketing. However, according to professional essay writers, if you want to reach many people and have a higher chance of making many sales, you need to spend some money. Your best bet would be to promote your video on social media. This ensures that it reaches multiple times more people, and you have a higher chance of selling your book and making your money back.

7. Pin the video on your Twitter feed

Twitter allows its users to pin a tweet to their feed. The reason for this is so that the tweet isn’t lost in the sea of several others on your feed. The fact that you’re constantly tweeting and sharing other tweets makes it easy to lose an unpinned tweet. Pinning means, it’ll always be at the top of your feed and will help you drive more engagement to the video.

8. Post the video to online communities platforms

There are many platforms with online communities composed of people of like minds. If you’re on these platforms, then it’s likely that these people are on the same frequency as you and are likely to resonate with your book. So you’ll be doing yourself a disservice not to post your video on such platforms. It doesn’t matter if it’s a LinkedIn group, Twitter Chat, Reddit, etc. They’ll be more open to your book than you think they are.

9. Play it at events

If you have your first book to market and you’re speaking at an event, then you have the perfect opportunity to get your work out to people and convince them first hand. At events like this, playing your video is beneficial to both you and the audience. They get a break from listening to you give a long (probably boring) speech, and you also get to market your book and get the word out. It’s a win-win situation.

Conclusion

Video marketing is an effective marketing technique, especially if you’re a first-time author and are marketing your book. However, it’d be best if you found your way around it. The tips in this article will help you do this effectively. Remember that the more people that see your video, the more sales you can make.

Eliza Sadler is a professional journalist with extensive experience for four years. She also works as a freelancer, writes a lot of articles, and provides the best dissertation help. She always focused on doing quality work to achieve her goals and objectives. Eliza is fascinated by the ability to create original works that meet high standards. Feel free to connect with her by email.

Tags marketing for writers, marketing strategies, social media, video marketing

Guest Posts

5 Tips for Running Your Author Business

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date June 10, 2021
No Comments on 5 Tips for Running Your Author Business

You’ve dreamed of becoming an author for years, and now, you’re preparing to submit your first manuscript to agents and start offering additional writing services through your new small business. And while you’re excited, you might also feel overwhelmed; after all, you have a lot to learn about being an author and an entrepreneur! The following resources can guide you through everything from tackling writer’s block to marketing your book, and these tips will help you master the best practices for managing a thriving writing business.

Shift Your Mindset

It’s important to shift from thinking of yourself as a freelance creative to thinking of yourself as a small business owner. This means that you need to uphold professional standards in all of your communications, set up organized systems that help you stay productive, and make decisions with your future reputation in mind. Have confidence in your writing abilities!

Establish a Payroll System

Eventually, your business might grow to the point where you need a couple of employees to keep everything running smoothly. When that time comes, it’s best to set up an organized payroll system so that you can manage your 2021 payroll calendar and make sure everyone receives their paychecks on time. Using a payroll template can be a good choice if your business is too small for an automated payroll system. Payroll template software can also include helpful functions like time tracking, invoicing capabilities, and employee scheduling.

Paying Taxes

You will need to pay taxes on the earnings that you make through your writing business. Yes, this means setting aside a chunk of your income from book sales and any other services you offer through your business! Paying your taxes late — or neglecting to pay them at all – can have serious consequences down the road. It can be a good idea to work with an accountant for guidance in this area. Wealthfront recommends looking for an accountant who has relevant experience working with businesses similar to yours, so see if you can get any recommendations from other writers you know!

Join Your Chamber of Commerce

As an author, you want to spend lots of time networking. You never know when those connections with other authors will come in handy! If you have a writing business, you could consider joining your local chamber of commerce. Founder’s Guide recommends joining your chamber because it allows you to have a voice in your business community, make new contacts with people in your industry, and promote your business. You’ll be able to attend events with entrepreneurs you might not have met otherwise!

Ongoing Marketing

Naturally, you’ll want to spend most of your time writing and editing, but you also need to leave room in your schedule for marketing. Even if you’re working with a publisher, maintaining a public presence and letting your readers know where they can find your book is important! And if you provide other writing services, you have to make an effort to get the word out. When you’re busy, it’s all too easy to put marketing on the backburner, so automating social media posts is one simple way to ensure that you’re always promoting your business.

Starting your journey as an author can be difficult. Every author’s career is unique, and building your professional writing business will involve lots of highs and lows. But with these tips, you’ll start taking your business seriously from day one so that you can invest in your future success.

Are you ready to become an author and publish your first book? Almost An Author can help you navigate your new career path. Check out our resources for aspiring and new authors today!

Photo via Pexels

Tags business, guest post, marketing for writers, the business of writing

Guest Posts

8 Reasons Why Voice is More Important than Being Original in Writing

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date June 2, 2021
No Comments on 8 Reasons Why Voice is More Important than Being Original in Writing

Every writer wants to write in an inspiring and captivating way. Whether it’s poetry, novels, personal essays, or blog articles, every writer wants to have a unique writing style and voice. Texts without a voice are empty of meaning and sterile. So, how can your audience sacrifice their time reading a voiceless text? They’ll have no way to associate themselves with the plot or characters.

Defining writer’s voice

What is a writer’s voice? To help you clear your mind, I’ll tell you what it’s not:

It’s not the technique
It’s not the writing style
It’s not the brand
It’s not originality

The writer’s voice cannot be measured. However, you can easily define and identify it. The writer’s voice does not entail grammar, structure, or wording. It’s a unique way that the writer sees the world. And how they translate it. For instance, everyone sees an orange the same way. However, everyone has their approach when it comes to describing its taste, color, and texture. According to the literary writer, Rachel Gardner, the writer’s voice is an expression of you.

You are the person who gives life to your writing by offering emotions to characters. Every reader wants to have a connection with the characters. And to see things through them. Your voice is the only door that they can use. Adding voice to your writing involves writing with your emotions, passions, dreams, attitudes, fears, and believes.

Elements of your writer’s voice

As we said earlier, your voice reflects who you are and what inspires you. Your readers should feel your presence as they read your pages. However, you should avoid being an intruder in your piece. You are developing your characters but you are not them.

Unlike technical or scientific texts, your writing needs to be humanized. Your personality plays an integral role in influencing your voice. Your personality needs to breathe out emotions about your topic of interest. You need to trigger the sensations that you want your readers to feel. And you can achieve this goal through your voice.

Tone

Your tone is an important part of your voice. Talking allows you to reveal more about yourself and how you feel. And this happens largely because of your tone. Communicating through writing creates special effects. How every element of your writing connects helps in developing a unique voice. How you say things is just as important as the message you want to share. You can adopt several voice tones in your writing such as jovial, humorous, intimate, ironic, drama, and sophisticated to name a few. The tone that you use will have a huge impact on your brand. You need not use the same tone all the time. You can always adjust it to fit the message you want to communicate.

For example, you can write your blog posts straightforwardly and informally and short stories in a slow-paced and intimate tone. Several factors such as time, narrator, and content influence your voice. The most important thing is being consistent throughout the text and within your writing style.

Rhythm

Rhythm is another essential element of your voice. Rhythm determines the pace of your text. Rhythm is delivered to your writing using phrase structure, alliterations, paragraphs, punctuations, and rhymes. Rhythm is technical, unlike subjective tone.

Mutable writing voice

Writers are versatile by nature. They can write using different styles, delve into one matter or choose to scratch the surface in other topics. They can write short stories, novels, poems, and short articles. Regardless of what they write, their voice is a key ingredient. Unlike other writers who think that voice is created from the ground up, I think it’s inborn.

Writing voice cannot be transmitted because it’s personal. While it’s improved with inspiration and practice, it’s always been within us. Being unique and personal doesn’t mean that your voice is not mutable. You can change the writer’s voice and adjust it depending on what you’re writing about. For instance, writing a story about an incident that happened centuries ago cannot be narrated like something that happened yesterday. The writer needs to transport themselves to the time they are writing about.

These elements don’t make up your writing voice on their own. However, they do as a whole. Each of them affects the writer in one way or another.

Finding your writer’s voice – 8 reasons why it’s important

With high content turnover, it’s important to create and refine your writing style. Being original is great because you don’t want to replicate the findings and experiences of others on your platform. However, it doesn’t guarantee that people will read and enjoy your piece. To succeed as a writer, you need to find your voice.

You can use your experiences: When you find your writing voice, you’ll always start with what you know. You’ll have an easy time slipping into the shoes of your characters and immersing yourself in the story. You’ll be inspired by real events, emotions, and people.
It allows you to be conscious of your observations: We all see the world through unconventional lenses. However, only a handful of people are aware of the existence of these lenses. When observing people, you’ll start taking note of the dialogue, silences, and interruptions. Your observational skill will determine how you describe events to your readers.
Awakens your senses: All readers want to feel something when they immerse themselves into writing. They want to immerse themselves beyond the bare description. To achieve this, you’ll need to awaken all your senses.
You’ll start avoiding clichés: Most writers easily fall into the trap of clichés especially during uncertainty and doubt. Since you’ll be using your experiences, you’ll naturally avoid clichés.
Your details will be intimate: Intimate details are essential in the enhancement of vivid writing quality. You’ll be specific in describing and characterizing the setting. Subtle movements can help in building the mood of your poem or story.
Creates authentic and strong voices: By using an authentic and strong voice, your reader will become submerged in your story.
You’ll understand the writing rules: You’ll not be afraid of experimenting and bending writing rules. To find your voice, you’ll need to understand the writing rules completely.
You’ll write every day: To master the art of writing, you need to practice. The more you write, the more you’ll be conscious of your writing style and improve on it. Finding your voice will make writing an enjoyable activity.

Conclusion

Writing is a skill. And like all other skills, you can master it through practice and consistency. Don’t be afraid to try new things and bend the rules.

Leon Collier is a blogger and academic writer from the UK who has vast experience working with Topbritishessays and essayontime.co.uk. He loves to take on every challenge thrown at him and has the ability to deliver outstanding work regularly. When he’s not busy writing, he loves reading books and playing tabletop games with his friends. Follow him on Twitter @LeonCollier12.

Tags elements of voice, guest posts, unique voice, Writer's Voice

Guest Posts

Plot Structures: Predictable or Helpful?

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date May 25, 2021
No Comments on Plot Structures: Predictable or Helpful?

Girl meets boy. Even though it’s obvious to the reader that they would make a perfect couple, they don’t like each other. Somehow they’re forced to spend time together. They gradually fall in love but then they have a big argument and break up. Eventually they come to the conclusion they can’t live apart. They reunite and live happily ever after.

This is a basic romance plot structure. I want to address your immediate instinct which is to roll your eyes and complain, ‘It’s so predictable.’

When it comes to stories, predictability is generally considered a bad thing. Would you read a book if you knew the ending? You said no, right?

Chances are, you’ve read a romance novel. You’re probably thinking about ‘Twilight’ or ‘Cinderella’ right now. What do these two stories have in common?

‘Nothing. One is about vampires and one is about fairy godmothers.’

Wrong. They both end with a romantic happily ever after. You knew (consciously or subconsciously) when you started reading that the girl and boy would end up together. It was predictable. Did it take away from the story?

‘Twilight’ and ‘Cinderella’ follow the same basic plot structure but originality is still achieved through characters and context. Even though they fall into the same genre, these stories attract different audiences. ‘Cinderella’ is for little girls who like dressing up as fairies and princesses. ‘Twilight’ is for edgy teenage girls with weird types. (No judgement.)

One of the benefits of using a basic plot structure to craft your story is ease of writing. Girl meets boy is a good place to start if you’re stuck. And that predictability we were talking about makes it easier to read as well. There’s a clear beginning, middle and end. That makes a story.

You can edit it into a good one later.

Many writers don’t decide to use plot structures but they emerge naturally as the story evolves. The truth is, plot structures are a good place to start if you’re suffering from a bad case of writers’ block.

In the words of Jodi Picoult,

‘You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.’

Deborah Rose Green is the author of ‘Dragon Pearls’ (2019) and ‘Crown My Heart’ (2020). She’s the Contributing Editor for the ‘Hey Young Writer’ blog and starting her Creative Writing degree in September.

Tags originality, plot structure, plotting, writing romance

Guest Posts

How to Build a Career in Marketing Copywriting

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date May 11, 2021
No Comments on How to Build a Career in Marketing Copywriting

To put it simply, a marketing copywriter is a person who creates texts to sell products. It can be email messages texts to send them to probable customers, materials for advertising, articles for company websites, or short slogans for TV or radio. In other words, it does not matter what kind of text marketing copywriter delivers, but it does matter how it impacts the company sales volume.

The need for marketing copywriting specialists is huge: there are 3,406 Marketing Copywriter jobs on the Glassdoor site with an average salary of $25-200K per year.

Where to Start

The main must-have skill for a marketing copywriter is the competence to create in readers the desire to act. For instance, to click the Buy button right after reading the text in the company blog, or to visit the company website after hearing the advertising slogan on TV. Therefore, a proficient marketing copywriter knows how to make entertaining content and understands how it will impact readers.

So, if you are interested in a marketing copywriting career, you should find out more about marketing strategies and PR. It will be not enough just to catch the main trends or tricks for marketing copy. Still, since selling is very connected with human emotions and behavior, it will be incredibly useful to study a bit of psychology.

Also, you must not forget about writing skills themselves. Although a marketing copywriter sells products, his or her tool for doing so is words. That means, your materials must be easy to read, informative, catchy, and entice customers first read till the end and then react in accordance with your marketing intentions, whether it is purchasing, checking the website, or something else.

Additional knowledge can enhance your copywriting CV. For instance, if you want to get a marketing copywriter job in an IT company, a degree in Computer Science will look like a strong advantage.

Steps to Become a Marketing Copywriter

Step 1. Defining your current skills

Now, when you know where you want to be, you need to define where you are at this moment. Maybe you are an experienced freelance writer; then you have to improve your skills in marketing. Or maybe you have just started your way, but you have already successfully participated in some volunteering projects. Explore your potential: sometimes, it is not apparent what heights you can reach.

Step 2. Boosting your skills if needed

Once you have defined where you have a gap in knowledge or experience, fill it with training or practice.

Step 3. Create a portfolio (you can get some freelance orders for that at low price)

It is essential for the copywriter to tell potential employees about the quantity of your experience and showcase the examples of what you can do. So, your portfolio becomes as important as your CV or even has more weight.

How to create a marketing copywriter portfolio:

● Find a task at the freelance exchange, from your friends in the field, or even create it on your own. But the first two options are preferable. Why? The explanation is below.

● Fulfill the task and measure its results. The master in marketing copywriting creates not just grammatically correct and interesting copy, but copy that helps to achieve some marketing goals. So you need to show this to potential employees. That is why it is much better to take a real task than to come up with it on your own. This is not always easy without experience, so just do the best you can.

Step 4. Finding an internship or full-time jobs

The path really begins on this step. Many newbies think that the hardest part is getting a job, but actually, you have to work even harder once you get it.

How to Make Progress at Work

While working as a marketing copywriter, you need to continue improving your writing and marketing skills. To do it effectively, you must learn to take an example from other people’s work, ask the right questions, and critically evaluate yourself. Specific marketing metrics will significantly help you with this last point: checking whether the copy achieved its goal with conversions, a percentage that shows how many customers read the text and how many of them did desirable action (buy, click, etc.).

You will also find the following tips helpful:

● Read more. The more you read examples of other people’s good work, the more you understand what to strive for, and the faster you notice your own mistakes. For writing skills, any text is fine, but only marketing samples are useful for mastering your selling techniques.

● Determine for whom and for what you write. It’s essential to do this every time before you start working on a new piece. Always keep in mind that your text must accomplish the task. Draw in your head a portrait of your potential reader and answer the questions: what he or she wants, what he or she is interested in, and, most importantly, how to hook them.

● Follow the trends. Marketing is a very changeable area, so it’s important to know what is essential and relevant now or you will be hopelessly outdated. You can find out what’s trending on Medium from the blogs of the top experts.

How to Grow

A specialist in marketing copywriting can work on enhancing one’s skills in the niche or move into related areas. The first option might involve career growth to becoming the head of the department. The position will require writing articles, building strategies for development, and giving subordinates tasks. The second option is possible due to the fact that marketing copywriting already combines two specialties. So you can grow in the direction of pure marketing, up to the creation of your own agency.

Marie Barnes is a Marketing Communication Manager at Adsy, where you can write as a guest blogger. She is an enthusiastic blogger interested in writing about technology, social media, work, travel, lifestyle, and current affairs.

Tags copywrite, copywriting, guest post, marketing, writing career

Guest Posts

Sculpting a Masterpiece

The beautiful prose that came to mind in the shower somehow transformed into clunky sentences by the time I got to the computer. The more I wrestled with the words, the more unwieldy they became.

I have often read that true writing is in the rewriting. Most of us are not satisfied with a first draft. We know it takes several passes before writing is shaped into something acceptable to show others

Yet I get frustrated going over and over sentences trying to make them both clear and winsome. Why is my thinking so muddled? Why do I take so many words to say what I mean?

Wordy written in red by my teacher often adorned my school compositions.

The person who performed my first paid critique mentioned my “long, convoluted sentences.”

My husband told me after we had dated for a while that he used to wonder when I’d get to the point when I told a story. (After being married for 40 years, I’ve learned to jump to the main point first, especially when talking about the car or an appliance. Otherwise, he spends my whole narrative wondering what he’s going to have to fix.)

Yet, I’ve received enough encouraging feedback from my writing that I am not totally without hope. And now that I am aware of my writing mistakes, I can battle them with determination and knowledge.

I’m encouraged by a legend concerning Michelangelo. Supposedly, someone asked him how he got the statue of David out of a hunk of marble. The artist is rumored to have said, “I just cut away everything that’s not David.”

Before we can create a work of art, we’ve got to drag out our hunk of marble. As many have said, we can edit a bad page, but we can’t edit a blank one. The marble that Michelangelo used had previously been considered and rejected by two other sculptors. He saw the potential in it that others missed.

So we dump the words in our head onto paper. We study the craft of writing and learn ways to “write tight.” We carve away unnecessary words and cumbersome descriptions. We chisel adverbs and polish with stronger verbs. We sand away passive verbs in favor of active ones. We brush away clutter. We chip off multitudes of facts and illustrations and keep only the most poignant ones. And we can pray with the Apostle Paul, “that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak” (Colossians 4:4).

Visualizing excess verbiage as clumps of rough stone adorning the statue of David helps encourage me to get rid of clutter-words in my writing.

A statue as detailed as David takes time to sculpt, and so does editing. Blaise Pascal once wrote in a letter, “I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.” But the time is well worth it.

We might not become the Michelangelo of words. But we can sculpt our manuscripts as close to a masterpiece as possible.

Barbara Harper lives with her husband of 40 years in Knoxville, TN. They raised three sons, one of whom added a lovely daughter-in-law and an adorable grandson to the family. Barbara loves reading, writing, and card-making. She has blogged for almost 14 years at https://barbaraleeharper.com/. She wrote a newsletter for women at her church for 15 years as well as magazine articles, newspaper columns, and guest blog posts. One of her passions is encouraging women to get into the Word of God for themselves. She’s currently working on her first book-length project.

Tags editing our work, encouragement for writers, patience, Polishing a draft, self-editing, wordiness

Guest Posts

TikTok For Beginners: Ultimate Guide To Market Your Brand In 2021

Post author By Lisa E. Betz
Post date April 28, 2021
No Comments on TikTok For Beginners: Ultimate Guide To Market Your Brand In 2021

TikTok is currently one of the most popular video sharing applications in the social media world. It’s filled with lots of videos such as dancing, lip-syncing, duet, performing stunts, and comedy clips.

Once you start to scroll TikTok videos on the For You page, you won’t want to stop. Because TikTok videos encourage users to watch videos again and again. Whether you’re relatively new to TikTok or already a member, the following tips will help you to go viral on the TikTok app.

However, whether you’re just a viewer or planning to upload videos yourself, you have a clear idea about how to use TikTok to become a famous person in time.

TikTok – Short Intro

TikTok is the combination of all social media content with short and long form videos from 15 to 60 seconds. It has an effective music library, comedy, dancing, and trending videos. You can find popular videos, follow people and explore hashtags on this platform.

There are two main reasons that TikTok is really unique:

Type of content you post
How posted content is reaching your audience

Set Up Your TikTok Account

Before you get the TikTok For You page, you need to create a TikTok account. Here are the steps to create a TikTok account:

Go to the google play store/ App store.
Search the TikTok app in the search bar and download the app.
Once downloaded the app, sign up for your account by using Facebook, Twitter, or email.
Otherwise, use your email to create a new username and password.
Once logged in to your TikTok account, you’ll get a TikTok homepage to access videos.

Optimize Your TikTok Profile

Are you ready to edit your profile?

A profile is a place to show your identity across the world. You can add your unique profile image, username, short bio with clickable links, and attractive emojis.

To edit your TikTok profile,

Tap the ‘Me’ profile icon in the bottom of the screen.
Click edit profile.
Here, you can change your profile picture. TikTok allows you to choose either a static image or a video.
Next, you can add a unique username that easily remembers and identifies your audience.
Add a short bio to your profile, and it will appear at the forefront of your profile.
You can add your website link, Instagram, and YouTube profile links in the bio section. It will display at the bottom of your bio, so people can directly visit your website.

Create And Upload Your TikTok Videos

TikTok is the best social media platform to create amazing videos and engage people to follow your profile. Here are few ideas to create your TikTok videos:

Click the + icon at the bottom center.
The camera will open, and you can start to film your videos.
But before starting to record videos on TikTok, you need to choose your song.
However, if you want to capture videos at the moment, you can skip the option and start filming videos without music.
Like Snapchat, TikTok provides AR filters and effects, which helps to change the look and color of videos.
Click the effects option on the left-hand side to find more features.
The world tab includes options like environment and the effective background designs.
On the right side of the recording screen, you can see a beauty button to change the look of your face.

TikTok allows you to create videos from 3 to 15 seconds, and you can also merge multiple clips together for up to 60 second videos.

Once you start to post videos regularly, try duets, dance, and lip syncing features because these videos are more popular among the TikTok audiences and viewers.

TikTok For Marketers

Nowadays, many applications have helped businesses to promote their products and services and reach target customers. TikTok is undoubtedly a fast moving platform to get maximum reach and reach your message to the viral audience. Marketers use different strategies for brand awareness and increasing sales growth.

Here are some most effective strategies to brand a particular product or service on TikTok:

Make a Trend

TikTok is the best platform to find trendy content and hashtags. One of the best ways to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website is by making the most recent content and using a perfect hashtag to get your content in front of the exact audiences.

Engage With TikTok Users

Engagement is a two-way process! Uploading engaging content for your TikTok followers is important. Additionally, spending some time to see your post comments and commenting back to the audience is also needed. You can also comment on other users while watching trending videos, which helps to create good conversation and build strong relationships.

Promote Hashtag Challenges

Hashtags are the most popular and inspired activity on every social media platform. It will help you to generate audiences and spread your message organically. Hashtags challenges are a non-sponsored method to reach potential customers. Even you can grow organic TikTok viewers by using trending hashtags that may help you achieve immense growth.

Partner With TikTok Influencers

Like other social media platforms, TikTok’s influencer presence and growth are huge. Partnering with TikTok influencers to promote your brand is a great way to increase brand awareness and generate sales.

In fact, people are more likely to trust a brand and buy products based on their influencer recommendations. That’s why influencer marketing helps to improve your marketing growth and establish your brand to loyal followers.

Conclusion:

TikTok provides endless opportunities for users to create TikTok accounts and become more popular among younger audiences. Incorporating TikTok into your marketing strategy is a long process. But, with a perfect guide, you’ll be able to create awesome content and attract many people to visit your TikTok profile. Therefore, don’t miss this amazing platform for your business success!

Alison Williams is a social media content writer who works at Flatfitty, she is an experienced social media analyst, and her passion is to contribute to engaging content for authority blogs and websites. You can also visit her online at Twitter.com!

Tags branding, guest post, marketing strategies, social media, technology, TikTok