Nick Usborne's Blog, page 18

As a freelancer using social media, only two audiences matter.

Social media can be a wonderful tool for freelancers. But it can also be a time sink.

It’s all too easy to spend hours a week feeding the social media beast, without getting any measurable value in return.

All too often we focus on numbers. We want more friends and followers. We want more clicks and more positive feedback.

Once things start rolling and our numbers start rising at a healthy clip, it’s easy to develop a minor obsession. All of a sudden we are spending more and more time finding ways to increase the size of our social media audience.

If this is happening to you, you should press the pause button, sit back and ask yourself this simple question: “Who are these people?”

If they are people like you – fellow freelancers – you are wasting your time. It’s unlikely that any of them are going to contribute significantly to the growth and success of your business. Not impossible, but unlikely.

You’d do better to tighten things up and focus only on two audiences…

Audience #1: Prospective clients

The time you spend on social media has the most value when you use it to attract new clients. Imagine waking up one day and finding a direct message from a prospective client asking you to get in touch.

How can you achieve this? First off, follow their own social media streams and contribute by way of likes, loves and comments. But don’t overdo it. Don’t stalk them.

Most important of all, add value. I constantly see people trying to attract my attention on my own social media streams. They add comments like “Cool!” and “Awesome!” There’s no value there. They are not making themselves look good. You’ll do better to contribute valuable and useful feedback and comments. Communicate your own knowledge and expertise.

Next, make sure the content within your own social media streams is of value to your prospects. Link to your own content only when it is of direct value to your clients. And don’t feature only your own stuff. Also link to articles, videos, podcasts etc that are created by others, but still of value to your prospects. Be a curator of high value. Share the good stuff, whatever its source.

Audience #2: Influencers and thought leaders

The second group comprises people who are influencers and thought leaders in your own space, but not potential clients.

Why bother with these people? Because if they get to know you and recognize your expertise, they will likely share and spread the content you publish. When a post of yours is given the thumbs up by an influencer, it makes you look good, acts as an endorsement and brings you to the attention of other people.

Over time, influencers can then go on to mention you to people who really are potential clients.

If you are going to target influencers, you need to aim above your own pay grade. There’s not much benefit to making friends with people at the same level as you.

On the other hand, you don’t want to aim too high either. At least, not at first.

For example, if you are in the marketing space, you might feel tempted to reach out to Guy Kawasaki. Well, good luck with that. He has almost 1.5 million followers on Twitter alone. He’s going to be too busy to notice you among the tens of thousands of other people who hope he will notice them first.

Find a middle ground… above your pay grade, but not up in the stratosphere.

You can be social in the real world too

These tips for using social media work in real life too. You can build networks of prospective clients and influencers by attending events and conferences.

When you get there, do the same as you’d do on social media.

Be a source of valuable information to prospective clients, and attract the interest of influencers.

Truth be told, while social media is a great tool for connection with people at a distance, meeting those people face to face is a great deal more powerful.

But either way – as I said at the outset – use your time and energy wisely.

Make sure you’re connecting with people who can offer you real value, either today or at some point in the future.

 

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Everything you forgot about link-building.

Visit a handful of online marketing websites and blogs and you’ll get an idea of the emphasis being placed on the various activities near and dear to marketers’ hearts.

You’ll find a lot about search engine optimization, in spite of the howls of people who say SEO is dead. (They’re wrong.)

You’ll find plenty about the benefits and rise of social media.

And you’ll find tons of information on content marketing.

But you can go for quite a while without finding a meaty page or post about link-building. Link-building is the process by which we try to get relevant and high-ranking websites to link to one or more pages on our own website.

Maybe it’s a “marketing fashion” thing. Social media and content marketing are hot, and link-building is not.

Which is strange, because after years of being asked, a couple of spokespeople from Google have recently let slip the top two factors they look at when deciding on how high up in the search results a particular webpage should be placed.

There are over 200 factors in all, but the top two are, in no particular order:

Quality content

Inbound links

That’s right. Attracting quality, organic links to your website is one of the two most important factors if you want to find your webpages on page one of the search results.

You’d think the web marketing world would be awash with websites, conferences and video blogs on the subject of link-building. But it’s not. (I’m not saying there aren’t any, there are. But not many when you consider the importance of the topic.)

So… in case you forgot… here are some of the basics you need to think about, and act on.

First, a little background.

Google is #1 among the search engines and crushed almost all the competition back in the late 1990s, because it was the first search engine to look for not only relevant pages, but also quality pages.

How did it recognize “quality” pages? It followed the lead of the scientific community, where published papers are graded according to the both the number of peer reviews, and the authority of the reviewers.

The greater the number of peer reviews from authoritative scientists, the faster and further your own paper rose to the top.

Google did the same with search. First it used keywords to help it identify the subject of a page, and then it looked for “peer reviews” or inbound links to help it measure quality.

Their thinking was that the more inbound links a webpage received, the greater the likelihood of it being a quality page. They also took note of where those links were coming from. An inbound link from a two-page recipe site published by your mom doesn’t give you much juice. But a link from the front page of the Washington Post does.

Relevance matters too. A link from the gardening section of a quality website won’t do you much good if your own website’s topic is accounting software.

That’s how Google changed the search industry. And as we have recently discovered, they are putting as much emphasis on inbound links today as they did when they first got started.

The bottom line is that the more inbound links you attract – from other relevant and authoritative websites – the better you’ll do in the search results.

A decade or so ago a lot of webmasters – of the idiot variety – decided to play the system. A zillion useless directories, article sites stuffed with duplicate, low-quality articles, automated reciprocal linking services, and paid-link schemes were sprouting up across the web like weeds.

Their promise was that they would provide you with hundreds or thousands of inbound inks to your site. (I still get the occasional spam email inviting me to submit my sites to over 1,000 directories worldwide.)

Which led us to Google’s Penguin update in April of 2012. This update penalizes sites that have too many of these low-quality, rubbish inbound links. In other words, Google has had enough of all the nonsense and has decided to beat all offenders with a very big stick.

So we’re back where we started… with the same promise from Google.

The greater the number of relevant and quality inbound links to your webpages, the higher they will rise in the search results. (All other things being equal.)

But here’s the thing… they need to be natural, organic links.

In other words, you have to create high-quality content that deserves to be linked to.

The foundation of any link-building strategy is to create quality content that other webmasters, editors and writers will want to link to, as a service to their own readers. No payment, no reciprocal deals. Just natural, organic links.

This doesn’t means there is nothing else you can do, other than watch the quality of your content.

For example, there are tools and services out there that can give you very valuable insights into inbound links to both your own websites and those of your direct competitors.

So if you get serious about link-building – and you should – you might draw up a list of your top competitors and use one of these tools to identify who is linking to them, and which kinds of content are attracting the greatest number of links.

Now create some of that link-attracting content for your own site, and reach out – ethically – to the sites that are linking to your competitors. Maybe they’ll link to your new content too.

There’s more to say about that. And there’s a lot more to say about the business of link-building.

But that will do for now.

Resources:

Here’s someone I know and respect who can teach you a ton about link building… Eric Ward of ericward.com

One of the tools you can use to research links to your own site, and those of your competitors… CognitiveSEO

 

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Optimize each page of digital content according to its purpose.

Content marketing is a hot topic, and for good reason.

Content is the lifeblood of most websites, blogs, video channels and photo apps.

A constant flow of new and compelling content gets visitors hooked and keeps them engaged.

What is content? Often it’s an article or a post. But it could be a review or a buying guide. It could be a video, a photo essay or a slideshow. Or an ongoing series of photos on Instagram or Pinterest. Or a podcast or a vlog. It could be a multimedia mashup.

Add together all those new pages, posts, videos, photos and podcasts – plus all the tweets and Facebook updates that are created – and you have hundreds of millions of new pieces of content uploaded each day.

Over 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every MINUTE.

On Facebook 510 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded- every MINUTE.

Meanwhile, over 2 million new blog posts are published every single day.

The trouble is, most of that content is created blindly, with no real plan or purpose.

Granted, a lot of the social media activity in particular is just personal stuff, sharing photos of puppies, vacations and so on.

But there is still a massive amount of content created each day that ultimately has a commercial purpose.

And like I said, way too much of that content is created without a plan or any clearly defined purpose. It’s created simply because, “Hey, we need more content. Now!”

Many web teams are under pressure to upload a certain volume of new content every week or day.

This puts pressure on writers, particularly when it comes to creating new pages and posts. Some of those writers are salaried, but more and more of them are freelancers.

A lot of the time the briefs they are given are vague. “Hey, we need a piece on Vitamin D”. Or, “Give us something on how European central banks are turning to negative interest rates”. Or, “All the other tech blogs are writing about the problems at Twitter. We need something on that too.”

Volume of content seems to trump quality of content, almost every time. And quality isn’t just about how “good” the page or post may be, it’s also about whether or not that new content is “on purpose”.

Which brings us to the topic of content optimization.

There is already one content classification where optimization is pretty well understood. And that’s when we optimize a page for the search engines. That’s search engine optimization.

But content can be optimized to achieve other ends too.

– Optimize content for maximum shareability through social media

– Optimize content to presell, with links to a product or sales page

– Optimize content to build authority and thought leadership

– Optimize content to attract inbound links from high-quality websites

– Optimize content to generate qualified leads

– Optimize content to encourage user engagement

That’s seven ways to optimize your content. There are others too.

For example, you can add a whole new layer across all classification when you work to optimize your content for seasons and holidays. Pretty much every product and service is seasonal to some degree.

When you choose a purpose for a new page or screen of content, and optimize the content to achieve that purpose, you’re suddenly being a whole lot more professional in your approach to content creation.

Job one is still to aim for quality.

Job two is to decide on the primary purpose of each piece of content you create.

Job three is to then optimize every page or screen you create.

Web content optimization lies at the heart of maximizing impact and revenues.

It’s a pity so few companies practice it.

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What would happen if you improved on everything you did by a factor of 10?

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say you’re a freelance writer, focusing on Business-to-Business clients, and want to create a free report to offer your website visitors when they sign up for your newsletter.

We’ll call your report, “The 7 Secrets to Converting Prospects into Clients”.

You create a short outline. You do some research. Maybe you download a few reports from your competitors’ websites to see how they did it.

You then write the report. Let’s say it’s 14 pages long. You get a cover designed. You’re good to go.

That’s the “factor of 1” version.

Now let’s look at what a “factor of 10” version might look like.

You find 7 senior marketing managers at B2B companies, contact them and say you’d like to interview them. You could do this by Skype. Better still, you could travel to their offices and interview them in person. Or go to the same conferences they go to and interview them there.

Now you have 7 video interviews. You make transcripts of them.

You change your title to, “7 Successful B2B Marketers Share Their Prospect Conversion Secrets.”

On your website you can now offer both the transcript and the 7 video interviews as a freebie for everyone who signs up for your newsletter.

The transcript version is 54 pages long. You have photos from the videos. And you have the videos yourself.

Now you are leaving your competitors in the dust. Because what you offer has 10 times the value of what they offer.

You are also building a unique and powerful brand. You’re the person who goes 10 times further. You’re the person who does what it takes to do the job right.

Here’s another example.

Your website probably looks OK. WordPress, I’m guessing. Maybe you spent $50 on a logo design. Maybe another $50 on the design, look and feel of the site itself. Maybe you didn’t spend any money at all, and did it yourself.

You have the sections you need – a Services page, a Portfolio or Samples page, an About page…and so on.

That’s the “factor of 1” version.

Now let’s look at what a “factor of 10” version of your website might look like.

You go to 99Designs.com and spend $500 on a really great logo and site design. You make your website look super-professional.

As for the content, you create the usual pages. But then you do more.

If you’re that B2B guy, you do a ton more video interviews and post them on your site. Maybe you do one a month.

Or maybe you become the “resource” guy who curates the very best B2B articles and software resources from across the web for your clients and prospects.

And you have a blog that you add to at least once a week. Maybe every day.

Sound like a lot of work and expense?

It is.

But you’ll get a lot more clients and you’ll be able to charge more, because you have massively increased the perception of your value.

You’ll make back the extra money you spent with your first few projects. Maybe from your first project alone.

As for the extra time all this takes… well, that’s how you separate yourself from the crowd. That’s how you present yourself as a top-tier professional.

And let’s go back to those interviews you did. If you interview 20 B2B marketers, I bet five of them will become clients.

You can apply the “factor of 10” approach to everything you do as a freelancer. You can apply it to every project you do for your clients.

The thing is, almost nobody does it.

Almost everything freelancers do is “just OK”.

Their websites look OK. Their free reports look OK. The content on their websites is just OK. The way in which they market themselves and their services is just OK.

And when you look OK, you’ll never stand out. You’ll be part of the herd, scrambling to pick up scraps of work for very little pay.

The good news is that because most freelancers take the “factor of 1” or “just OK” approach, it shouldn’t take too much for you to stand out as being exceptional.

Even a “factor of 5” will put you on a pedestal.

So what do you say? Are you going to stick with doing the bare minimum? Or are you going to step up and present yourself as being exceptional?

 

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Optimizing a web page doesn’t mean it has to be all new.

Clients like to feel they are getting their money’s worth when they pay you to improve on an existing web page.

This is true whether you are writing an online sales page, subscription page or some kind of content page.

In my experience, clients not only want you to completely rewrite the current control, but they also want you to base the new page on a totally new idea.

If you give them a variation on the current page or, heaven forbid, just make some tweaks to what they already have, they become very disappointed and will likely throw your draft back in your face.

From an online testing perspective, this is a foolish way to go.

If you really want to improve results, you’re better off making discrete, incremental changes to an existing page, testing it, and then seeing if the results are better or worse.

In other words, you work with a page that already performs well and then see if you can make it even better.

Certainly, there is a place for trying something absolutely new, based on an entirely different approach or idea.

That’s where your next big winner will likely come from.

But when you do that, you are taking a significant risk. It’s a shot in the dark. You have no idea how a completely new approach will perform. And based on my own experience over the years, these “new” approaches will fail more often than they win.

If your client is looking for a lift in performance, the best thing to do is to mix it up. Focus most of your attention on testing incremental changes to current best performers. Then, occasionally, try something completely new.

A reasonable starting point would be to put 80% of your effort into making small improvements to existing pages, and 20% of your effort into trying something completely new.

The trouble is, most companies I come across don’t want to do it this way at all.

They always want something completely and utterly new, based on a fresh and original idea. Every time.

This doesn’t make sense from a testing perspective.

So why do they do it?

Like I said at the outset, I think most of the time it’s because they want their money’s worth. If they are paying you to beat their current control, they want to feel you have put maximum effort into the job.

There is some ego at play there too. If a totally new page turns out to be a big winner, your client wants to be part of that big win.

It’s a rare and sophisticated client who will nod and smile when you come back with some minor tweaks to an existing page, and then pay you the same amount as he or she would for a complete rewrite.

How do I deal with this as a freelance writer and copywriter?

Mostly I go with the flow and give the client what he or she wants.

But once I get to know a client well enough, I’ll get into that conversation about taking the 80/20 approach.

And sometimes they’ll bite.

 

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Without segmentation, email marketing just ticks people off.

When it comes to buying gifts for my wife, I’m pretty useless.

So I fall back on jewelry almost every time.

And I often buy her jewelry at a particular online store. I like their stuff, and so does she.

After over 5 years buying from them, I would consider myself a fairly valuable customer.

Which is how they fooled me, just for a moment, when they sent me an email recently.

Here’s the subject line:

RE: HUGE Discounts for VIP

Finally, after all these years, recognition that I’m a VIP!

In the body of the copy, they wrote:

Hi,

This is Mimi from Xxxxx. I am very pleased to inform you that you could get Huge Discounts this weekend with the VIP Coupon issued to you this morning !

Below are your VIP Coupon details:

———————————-

Code: VIP48HOUR9827

Activate it Now >

———————————-

FYI, we have added lots of new stunning pieces this morning, and each piece is one of a kind. You may start shopping for the new pieces at this page.

Warmest regards,

Mimi

Customer Service Manager

Let’s look at all the ways they got it wrong here.

First, the “RE:” in the subject line.

Really? They’re not replying to one of my emails. They know it and I know it. And they are only the 10,000th company to try this trick. As a result, it tells me the whole email is going to be BS.

Simple rule… Never type RE: in a subject line. The RE: is added automatically when you reply to an email. It’s a simple email convention that has been around from the start. When we look at our inbox, RE: shows us ongoing email conversations and threads. Its absence tells us the email is something new.

When you mess with that automated email convention, you are playing a trick on the recipients.

I have clients who insist on using the “RE:” trick.

“But Nick”, they say. “We have tested it and we get a much higher open rate this way. The proof is in the numbers!”

I believe them. But there’s a downside. And the downside is that every time I see this trick being used in my inbox, my respect for and trust in that company takes a hit. A company I once respected goes into my memory’s “idiot marketer” bucket.

And don’t think it’s just me who reacts that way. Your customers aren’t stupid. They recognize the tricks you play.

Yes, you’ll get a higher open rate on that email. But you also take a hit on your reputation. Is it worth the trade off? I don’t think so. Why spend so much money on earning a customer’s trust if you’re then going to start eroding it, one email at a time?

Now for the salutation and opening paragraph:

Hi,

This is Mimi from Xxxxx. I am very pleased to inform you that you could get Huge Discounts this weekend with the VIP Coupon issued to you this morning!

“Hi?” Really? I have spent all that money with you over the last 5 years, and you don’t even know my name?

And the opening paragraph just confirms that this is a bulk email, probably going out to every customer on their list. Just more BS.

Now we come to the wonders of segmentation.

If they segmented their email list, they really could treat me like a VIP.

For example, if they decided to write an email only to customers who have been buying from them for 5 years or more, they could have written something more like this.

Hi Nick,

Wow… I just printed out a list of our most valuable customers, and there you were! You’ve been buying from us for over 5 years now, and we really, really appreciate it!

I’m not kidding when I say that, because there are a zillion jewelry stores online, and I know you could shop at any one of them.

We want to thank you for sticking with us!

Use the code below – and please don’t give it to anyone else – this is for our most valued customers only – and we’ll give you a 75% discount on any item in the store.

Etc…

With a 75% discount they not going to make any money, but they’re not going to lose any either. Because the margins on jewelry are huge.

But they will make me love them. And they will have secured me as a customer for the next 5 years.

I guess there are two takeaways here.

First, don’t be an idiot email marketer. Your customers aren’t stupid and they’ll punish you for treating them as if they were.

Second, segment your list so you can write to separate groups of customers with different, personalized messages and separate offers.

Email has the potential to be the most personal and valuable marketing channel in your arsenal.

But it won’t work for you if you don’t MAKE it personal through segmentation, and show respect for your readers.

About the author: Nick Usborne is an online writer, copywriter, author and coach. Read more…

If you found this post helpful, sign up for my e-newsletter and get a free copy of my 35-page guide…

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Take total responsibility for your freelance career.

The life of a freelancer isn’t always easy.

We have our ups and downs.

Maybe we lose a big client. Or that big prospect we thought was in the bag slips out of our grasp at the last moment.

Meanwhile we’re complaining about all the new freelancers entering the market, and pushing prices down.

Or we’re moaning about how the companies we’d really like to work with don’t seem to be hiring freelancers.

And then there’s that client who wants to renegotiate our fees, downwards.

In fact, if you put a group of freelancers together in a bar, and kept them lubricated with beer, you could listen to them moan and complain all night.

And that’s OK. Pour some beer down a group of people from any profession and they’ll find plenty to moan about.

But what isn’t OK is when that negative, moaning attitude becomes a permanent mindset.

Occasionally I’ll come across a freelancer who does very little other than moan. Worse still, they get into the blame game. Everything bad happening to their freelance career can be traced to someone or something else.

It’s the economy. It’s cheap clients. It’s an apparent absence of good work.

And soon they descend into a state of self-pity and misery.

That becomes their permanent state of mind.

And when you are immersed in the negative, and blaming outside forces for everything that goes wrong…you’re in a place you’ll likely never escape.

Over the years I have found myself going down this slippery slope a few times.

Most recently I was in the middle of a big project with a partner, and then he suddenly pulled out. My investment in the project, for which I never got paid, was well into 5 figures.

After being royally ticked off by what had happened, I got into a serous binge of self-pity.

And that’s when I decided to get serious about the “total responsibility” thing.

The idea is that you take total responsibility for everything that happens.

I lost that five-figure payday? It’s because I didn’t tie the deal down carefully enough before I got started. And that’s the truth of it.

I lost a long standing client? Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention to what they needed from me. Maybe I took my eye off the ball. And hey, sometimes you lose a client for reasons way outside your control. It happens.

Or I could moan about how many newer copywriters are charging peanuts and putting downward pressure on my own prices. Moan about it? No thanks. I’ll just work harder at offering a level of value that attracts higher fees.

The point is, if you want to do well as a freelancer, you need to take total responsibility for everything that’s happening.

No moaning. No blaming.

When you take total responsibility, you’re in control. You’re no longer a victim of circumstances and outside forces. You’re no longer passively waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

When you take responsibility, you’re in the driver’s seat. You are the boss of your own future and destiny.

Does this mean you can’t have a few beers and moan with your buddies from time to time?

Sure you can. Have a moan fest once a quarter. But for entertainment purposes only.

And maybe introduce your friends to the concept of total responsibility, and the freedom it brings you.

About the author: Nick Usborne is an online writer, copywriter, author and coach. Read more…

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Follow your own dreams, not someone else’s. (And be sure it’s an amazing dream.)

I have written about his before, but as it’s early in the year I wanted to tackle the subject again.

As the New Year gathers steam, we feel inspired to set new goals, maybe move forward in new directions, and take on fresh and interesting projects.

That’s all good.

But there is a caveat.

Don’t be lured into taking on someone else’s goals, directions and projects. They maybe a perfect fit for that person, but not so much for you.

Let me explain.

I often talk about the benefits of creating a website that generates a passive income, like my site about coffee, CoffeeDetective.com.

I get hugely excited about it and can list a dozen good reasons for every writer and copywriter to create a website of their own.

But…

It’s not for everyone. While many people have followed in my footsteps by building money-making websites of their own, others may fully understand the benefits I describe, but in the end say, “Nick, I get it, but it’s not for me.”

That’s a totally legitimate response.

I do the same. I can read about someone else’s amazing system for building a business and making money. I can agree with everything they say. I can see they are right in having identified a legitimate opportunity. But most of the time it’s just not for me.

What do I mean by “not for me”? I mean it doesn’t get me excited or get my juices flowing. It doesn’t fire a passion inside of me and make me want to get started right away.

Sure, I get it from a rational point of view. But it doesn’t make me jump out of my seat and throw my arms up in the air.

The same is true for a ton of other “fresh start ideas” that are promoted at this time of year.

That fresh start might be about taking more exercise. Or healthy eating. Or increasing your productivity. Or starting a whole new business.

The promoters of these ideas are genuinely excited about what they are offering. For them, this new idea is killer.

But still, just because it’s right for them doesn’t necessarily make it right for you. Yes, it’s their dream, but it might not be yours.

Derek Sivers, the founder of CDBaby, uses a simple test about whether he’s going to pursue a new idea or not.

If it makes him say, “Hell yeah!” it’s a keeper. Anything less and he says no.

In his own words…

“When deciding whether to commit to something, if I feel anything less than, “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” – then my answer is no.”

You should apply this same test when looking at opportunities presented to you by other people.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with those ideas. And in the vast majority of cases, those people are being totally sincere and honest when they pitch their ideas.

Like I am when I talk about my coffee site, and the program I created around it..

But just because they are sincere and excited, doesn’t mean the idea is right for you.

Your time is limited. Don’t spend it pursuing someone else’s dream, even if they say you can succeed with it.

Hold back and find an idea, business or project that is truly your own dream.

Keep the brakes on until you find something that makes you jump up and say, “Hell yeah!”

About the author: Nick Usborne is an online writer, copywriter, author and coach. Read more…

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3 Ways to put an extra $12,000 in your pocket every year.

As the end of each year approaches, and the holiday season looms, most of us come up a little short.

We wish we had a little extra money in our pockets. More to save. More to spend on our families over the holidays. And more of a cash cushion so we can sleep better at night.

An extra $12,000 – one thousand more each month – would certainly make a big difference. In fact, for many of us, that extra thousand dollars a month would change our lives.

So how can we do that? Really, there are only three ways.

1. Put an extra $12,000 in your pocket by spending less.

Yep…spend a thousand dollars less each month.

For some people that simply wouldn’t be possible, however much they cut back on luxuries and even some essentials.

For others it’s possible, but not fun.

Like me, you’ve probably read stories about people who have deliberately taken drastic action to live like paupers and save a ton of money in the process. That’s not for everyone, especially if you have children.

That isn’t to say we can’t cut back on some of our more wasteful spending. But you’re unlikely to save a thousand dollars a month.

2. Put an extra $12,000 in your pocket by getting a second job.

Millions of people take this route. Sometimes it means working a second shift. Other times it means taking on a part-time job in the evenings or at weekends.

That’s a tough life.

Of course, new opportunities like Uber and Airbnb have given millions of people the opportunity to make extra cash by becoming “taxi drivers” or renting out rooms in their homes.

That can be a great option for some people, but certainly isn’t for everyone.

And that brings us to our third option…

3. Put an extra $12,000 in your pocket by monetizing your hobbies.

That may sound a little weird.

I can explain what I mean best by using myself as an example.

I’m a bit of a coffee nut. It’s my thing. Making and enjoying coffee is fun for me. It’s a hobby.

Almost 10 years ago now I began writing about making gourmet coffee at home. My intention was to chronicle my own journey and share tips, tricks and best practices with other coffee lovers. I’m still doing that today.

But I didn’t choose to share my enthusiasm and knowledge through Facebook or any other social platform.

Instead, I created my own website – CoffeeDetective.com.

That proved to be a key decision. Because my coffee site now gives me a steady stream of passive income.

It puts a lot more than a thousand extra dollars in my pocket each month.

More like 3 or 4 thousand a month, depending on the time of year.

It’s getting close to making me as much as a second, full-time job would.

But the difference is, it’s still just a hobby.

I work on the site only when I feel like it, usually during the evening and at weekends.

I have total independence. Total flexibility. And I only write the stuff I want to write.

No boss. No schedule. Total freedom.

How does my website make money? In general terms, I make money through various forms of advertising on the site pages. I’m also about to start publishing some downloadable guides to coffee making, which should add to my monthly income.

Best of all, this income is passive. That is to say, once I have put an ad on a page, or created an ebook for download, my work is done. After that it’s all automatic. I don’t have to sell anything. No shipping hassles. No trips to the post office.

I can go on vacation for two weeks, and the money will still keep pouring in.

Could this be YOUR ticket to an extra $12,000 a year…or more?

Absolutely it could.

In fact, I have been teaching my “money-making websites” method to other people for years now. Hundreds of them are already making a steady flow of monthly income through their own websites.

This is absolutely something you can do.

You can get started right now if you want, on your own. Or you can accelerate things dramatically by taking my program, How to Write Your Own Money-Making Websites”.

This is a comprehensive home-study program that takes you through the process of choosing your topic, creating your site, developing your content and integrating a variety of monetisation methods.

The program also includes 7 weeks of live webinar training.

How to Write Your Own Money-Making Websites is published by American Writers & Artists Inc. You’ll find their information and sales page for my program here.

Imagine – a year from now you could find yourself with that extra $12,000 in your pocket!

 

About the author: Nick Usborne is an online writer, copywriter, author and coach. Read more…

If you found this post helpful, sign up for my e-newsletter and get a free copy of my 35-page guide…

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Don’t create a mobile app until you’ve mastered social media.

I work with companies from a variety of different industries, and I also keep an eye on what other companies are up to. In other words, as well as being a writer for the web, I’m also a student of the web.

And here is what I see…

Most companies finally “get it” when it comes to what they should be doing on the web. They pretty much understand what their websites can do for them, and why the web is different from offline media.

(That isn’t to say they couldn’t improve their websites. 100% of businesses online could improve their websites.)

But when you take a look at their social media channels, it’s a whole different story.

Most companies don’t get social media at all.

As an example, I just looked at the Facebook page of a company I sometimes work with. Over 20,000 people like the page. Not a bad figure.

However, when you look at individual updates on that page, you’ll find that they are liked by only 1 or 2 people.

That tells me two things.

First, they probably bought those 20,000 friends through paid advertising. That audience wasn’t grown organically, over time.

They bought their friends. They don’t have real friends.

Second, they aren’t being social at all. Their posts are simply promoting their website pages, offers and products.

They bought the audience. And they use Facebook as a broadcast advertising channel to try selling to that audience.

Good luck with that. No wonder nobody likes their updates. (The 1 or 2 likes probably come from people within the company.)

Most companies treat social media this way.

But it doesn’t work.

If you want to be successful with social media, you need to stop broadcasting and start being social. That means asking and answering questions and getting into conversations with your friends, followers and subscribers.

You know…being social…like when you’re with friends at a bar or in a coffee shop.

The next problem I see is that many of the companies that don’t yet understand social media are beginning to create mobile apps.

And they are making the exact same set of mistakes.

They are treating mobile apps as broadcast channels.

Good luck with that.

People don’t like apps that are created simply as advertising channels. They want apps that do something for them.

Help them connect with friends. Or find a local store. Or share a photo. Or check in for their flight. Or buy a ticket for a concert. Or order a ride from Uber. Or get timely news on the price of gold. Or play a game while they are on the bus.

An app has to deliver value. And that value has to be congruent with the mobile experience.

Many mobile apps are social, like when posting to Instagram, using your Facebook app, or creating a video with Meerkat.

Other mobile apps are functional, helping you find the nearest bus stop, or checking your progress while running, cycling or taking some other form of exercise.

Whether social, functional or both, an app needs to be relevant to the mobile experience. I don’t need an app for when I’m sitting at home or at work in front of my computer. I need it for when I’m away from my computer.

So…circling back to the title of this post…why do I say a company shouldn’t create mobile apps until it has mastered social media?

Two reasons.

First, because a lot of the mobile experience is social.

Second, because if you can’t get beyond the traditional web and get your mind around how to use social media successfully, you’re almost certain to make the same mistakes with mobile.

And the first thing to learn about both social media and mobile is this…

They don’t work as free broadcast or advertising channels!!!!!

Understand social. Then work on mobile.

Related:

How to Make Money as a Social Media Marketing Expert

This is the definitive guide to using social media marketing to generate multiple streams of income for yourself and your clients.

As a freelancer you are in a unique position to make money by offering social media consulting and writing services to your clients.

You’ll also learn how to use social media to promote your own business and websites.

This is a huge opportunity for you…right now.

Learn more about How to Make Money as a Social Media Marketing Expert…

About the author: Nick Usborne is an online writer, copywriter, author and coach. Read more…

If you found this post helpful, sign up for my e-newsletter and get a free copy of my 35-page guide…

Writing For The Web #1 — 7 Challenges every Writer and Copywriter faces when writing for the Web.

Sign up and I’ll send you the link for the download, and then you’ll receive my most recent post as part of my e-newsletter every Tuesday morning.

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