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The ProBlogger Newsletter is Back - Sign Up Today for a Free Bonus

Posted: 02 Jul 2008 01:12 AM CDT

Today I’m pleased to announce that the ProBlogger Newsletter is Back! You can sign up today and get a 1 hour podcast with me for free here:

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Early on in the life of ProBlogger I produced a weekly newsletter that ran parallel to this blog.

I did this as a way for readers to keep in touch with the latest information about the blog, get a little exclusive inside information on what I’d been doing, to promote new products and services available to bloggers and to make advance announcements about ProBlogger. The newsletter was well received by readers in the main, I could tell this from the emails I’d receive on those weeks that I didn’t get one out on time as people often emailed to ask where it was (always a good sign).

The service that I was previously using to provide these newsletters became quite unreliable and I also became quite busy and so six or so months ago I brought them to a halt. I regularly get emails from subscribers asking if I plan on bringing the newsletter back so have decided that now is the time to do so. I’ve moved the list of subscribers onto my new newsletter service provider (Aweber) and the first newsletter will go out later this week.

Those of you who were on the newsletter previously will be automatically subscribed. If you no longer wish to get them - simply unsubscribe when you get the first email.

For those of you who were not previously subscribed (or if you can’t remember) you can subscribe using the following form:

Add Your Email Address Here to Subscribe

If you’re not sure if you’re subscribed - subscribe again and it will weed out duplicate emails.

What is this newsletter about?

Frequency: I will aim to produce this newsletter on a weekly basis but reserve the right to scale it back to twice a month.

Content: There will be a similar mix of content to last time and it will include:

Recaps on the hot threads of conversation on ProBlogger from the last week
Inside information on techniques that I’m trying in my blogging
Pointing out tools and services that you might find useful
Pre-announcements of new ProBlogger site news (there are a few things coming soon that I’ll let newsletter subscribers test before anyone else)
Exclusive newsletter only tips from time to time that won’t go up on the blog (or at least won’t appear on the blog for a few weeks)

Free Bonus

As a small thank you bonus for subscribing - in my first newsletter I will be including a link to a one hour podcast interview that I did last week with Denise and Patsy from The Blog Squad. In it they interview me about my journey as a blogger and I share a lot of tips on how to improve your blog.

This is not available anywhere else on the web for free so the only way to get access to it is via the newsletter. Enter your email and you’ll have immediate access to the podcast.

If you just want the podcast simply add your email to the field above and once you’ve verified your subscription you’ll get access to the podcast.

If at any point you wish to stop receiving the ProBlogger newsletter simply click the unsubscribe link in every email we send. Your emails will always be kept private and unsubscriptions will always be honored.

Looking forward to connecting with you via the newsletter in the weeks and months ahead.

Pick a Niche

Your blog should appeal to a very specific segment of the population. It's not enough to simply focus on "people who want to be productive". Get detailed! Know what you're typical user looks like. Understand what motivates them to read your blog. Research their purchasing habits. Don't be afraid to really narrow your focus.

For me, I chose Executive Assistants. Sure, much of the content included information that anyone interested in personal or professional development (including EAs) could use. But I also had a lot of laser-focused content just for EAs. I referred to my job often and truly sought to have a tightly focused audience. This hugely increased the value of my audience to the purchaser. Any company or person who buys your blog is, essentially, buying your audience. The more targeted you are, the more valuable you are.

Of course, you need to choose a niche that you're familiar with and have respect for. The cardinal rule when creating content is that the audience can sniff out insincerity and inaccuracies from a mile away. You'll lose your audience quickly if you don't understand their needs and have a desire to help them.

Lastly, select a niche target market that is not saturated already. I started my site for Executive Assistants because there were simply no other sites out there that met my needs as an EA. Any successful business fills a void in the market. Research your competition. If you find that your niche is overwhelmingly saturated, tweak it a bit.

Build a Brand

From the day your website goes live, you're building a brand – for yourself and the blog. Think carefully about what you want the brand to say about you and your business. You don't have to spend a ton of time and money creating a logo. You can build a strong brand through your quality of content and the overall look and feel of your site. Keep your brand consistent all over and carry that brand with you in all of your activities around the internet. Create a slogan and add it to the footer of forum posts. Create a persona for yourself. Look at Perez Hilton. He is the definition of his brand! My point is this: you need to be original. Using a standard issue free template doesn't help build your brand. Minor tweaks (that require minimal technical know-how) will make all the difference in the world.

Develop Your Community

As a blogger, you are nothing without your audience. Don't take them for granted. Ask them what they want, what they like and don't like. Utilize polls and other research tools to help engage your readers and get to know more about them. Let them contribute freely by allowing guest posts and encouraging comments. If you have the technical ability, add a forum to facilitate conversation. Give your audience a platform to share their thoughts and build a community. You may be the creator, but you are not always the leader. Let the community lead you.

Create Relationships

Just like in any other business, it's all about who you know. Nothing helps build recognition like a loyal fan, who happens to be a blogger as well. The very first post I wrote on my blog impressed a man named Jay (of Dumb Little Man) and, thanks to him, I was motivated to continue moving forward with my silly little idea. Throughout my blogging "career", Jay has been an enormous inspiration and an incredible supporter.

Of course, you shouldn't wait to be approached by others. Stick your neck out and say hello to your favorite bloggers. Ask for nothing – simply introduce yourself, share a few sincere compliments, and start a dialogue. These are your colleagues. If they're willing to share advice, listen to them. When they post articles you think you're readers would enjoy, share them. Reciprocal relationships are one of the most valuable tools in building your business. But they don't happen overnight.

Create Original Products

A hugely helpful tool for increasing the value and visibility of your blog is the use of original products. Create an e-book, special report or podcast. Sell it or give it away free for people who subscribe. Whatever you do with it, the product helps firmly establish your brand and it proves the interest level of the audience. When I was negotiating my deal, I was able to point to the sale of my e-book and say, "Look. My audience is not afraid to purchase helpful tools. They are actively seeking resources that aren't available elsewhere." I was able to show income reports and the value of my blog increased significantly because of that.

My final and most critical piece of advice is to simply remember this: you are not building a blog, you're building a business. Be thoughtful in your approach. Study and track your numbers consistently – everything from subscribers to pageviews to revenue. If you're going to pursue any of the options mentioned above, this advice will serve you well.

Chrissy Scivicque is the Senior Content Manager at OfficeArrow.com – the world's first online community created for office professionals, by office professionals. She writes a wide variety of articles to help people do their jobs more effectively and with less frustration. You can follow her journey by joining the OfficeArrow Community today - membership is free!

3 Tips for Renting Social Media Properties

I think the main tip that I’d give with exploring any sort of ‘rental’ approach to social media is to enter into it with clear goals, realistic expectations and balance.

1. Goals

I explored the common criticism of Twitter in my post Twitter is a Complete Waste of Time! and shared how unless you work out WHY you’re using it you will often be wasting your time. For me I’ve played with many types of social media and in every situation had little idea what I was doing in the early days. However my goal is always to quickly work out what it’s strengths are and to find ways of using them to achieve my overall goals as a business person.

I guess what I’m saying is that you don’t need to have strict and formal goals written out next to your computer - but don’t just aimlessly wander around social media sites with no purpose. Take the time to identify what you want to achieve and work towards that.

2. Realistic Expectations

It is well worth keeping in mind that there is no perfect medium or platform and that each one has it’s weaknesses. When your expectations are too high for anything that you invest time into you could be setting yourself up for a fall.

Recently I spoke with a blogger who six months ago had quit blogging to put all of his efforts into Twitter. He made a big bet that it would be the next big thing and that he was going to position himself for that. Over the last month or two of Twitters growing problems with their architecture this blogger has come to regret that decision. It’s not that Twitter is bad or finished - it’s just that his expectations of that service were too high.

3. Balance

The retrospective advice of the above mentioned Blogger Twitterer was to not give up on one medium to focus upon another until you’re absolutely sure that the new one will work. He wishes he’d worked hard to build his Twitter presence AND his blog and had used each one to grow the other. I think a lot of bloggers could learn from this - I see many bloggers running from one thing to the next to be a part of the latest big thing. The result is that they really don’t build a presence of substance in any place.

Sure explore different social spaces - but don’t put your eggs all in one basket AND don’t spread yourself too thin (no one said that ‘balance’ is easy).

My approach to using ‘Rental Properties’ to Build My Own

Let me say up front that my approach is not the only one that works - but here’s the way I am using Twitter, Plurk, Facebook and other social spaces:

Steve makes a good point in his post - “Twitter has community built right in.”

The thing with successful social media sites is that they are where people are gathering - in numbers. The numbers are way beyond what most bloggers could hope to interact with on their own blogs.

I’ve written about my philosophy of finding readers for your blog many times. The first three steps in that process are:

Define Your Target Reader
Identify Where and How they Gather
Join their Established Gathering Points

When I do step 1 and 2 on this process when thinking about my blogs I come up with a target audience who are gathering in social media sites like Twitter and Plurk. This leads me to step 3 - joining and participating in those space.

Now this is relevant for my blog but not everyone’s. You see not everyone has a target audience who use social media. However the same principles can apply….

For example - I was chatting with a craft blogger recently who was struggling with growing her readership. I asked her to go through the above three steps and she defined a group of readers who were gathering in craft forums. When I suggested she should go participate in them she asked whether it was a good use of her time to participate in other people’s online properties instead of building her own (sound familiar?). I suggested that she do both - participate where your potential readers are already gathering but also work hard to build your own properties.

Concluding Thoughts

My take home advice is that there’s nothing wrong with rental properties and there’s nothing wrong with buying them. In my own personal experience with actual real estate I’ve done both at different times in my life. In fact I always treated renting as a good stepping stone to getting into the market myself. We found properties that were affordable enough that we could save a deposit for our own place.

Perhaps there’s something in that for us all - participate in the social space and other people’s web properties in a way that gives you a leg up to build your own.