media

How to Establish Yourself as an Expert to Grow Your Network and Client Base

Everyone is an expert in something, whether it’s basket weaving, social media marketing, or book editing. Consider this: being known as an expert in your field or area of interest affords you (and your business) all kinds of good stuff: credibility, a wider network, new clients or readers, and chance to cut through the noise. For all types of authors, an expert status can lend itself to getting the word out about a book and grabbing the attention of new readers. Here are three easy steps to get you started:

1.     Figure out what you know.

In which fields do you have credentials, a strong knowledge base, or passion? What do people ask you about? What do you just love doing?  Answer this question and—voilà—you have your specialty. Next: specify, specify, specify. Don’t be just a branding expert; be an expert on personal branding for LinkedIn. A health guru could work toward becoming a clean-eating coach, and a leadership consultant could specialize in educational or nonprofit leadership. By narrowing your area of focus, you stand out among your competitors and peers and attract the attention of the right people.

2.     Do your homework and build your message.

Once you’ve identified your area of expertise, it’s time to do some research. Figure out what leaders in your field are saying about the topic at hand. To continue one of the examples above, how do other experts approach the topic of clean eating? Scour books, industry journals, and the Internet to see what’s already been said so you can position yourself in a unique way. Your message is your value proposition, and it should continue the conversation in your voice, with several clear points. For the health guru, that could look something like this:

“Providing busy families with a clean-eating plan that sticks” or

“Teaching parents how to eliminate processed foods from the kitchen.”

3.     Deliver your message.

So now that you know what you’re talking about and have surveyed the landscape, how do you get the message across to your people? There are several ways:

• Write helpful articles and post them to article aggregators and industry publications, or start a blog or newsletter and post your content there. You can also check out other blogs or websites in your field to see if you can write guest posts for them.

• Look for local groups, organizations, conferences, and seminars where you might be able to teach or speak. You could host your own seminars, webinars, or Internet radio shows to educate people on your topic of expertise.

• We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—write a book! When you hand someone your book, or they see it on bookstore shelves, it’s instant credibility for you. Just make sure you do your research before you get started, as we’ve discussed many times. The book industry can be tricky, especially for newcomers.

These tips are meant to point you in the right direction, but becoming an expert is not something that happens overnight. It take quite a bit of time and hard work to amass the content you need to disseminate your message, so taking it slow and moving one step at a time is key. For more resources, check out Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog or one of these titles: Trust Agents by Chris Brogan, Good in a Room by Stephanie Palmer, or The Brand You 50 by Tom Peters.

BBBB Readers Cast Your Vote for Us!

With the seemingly limitless options in publishing today, getting some good advice or an expert opinion is more important to your success than ever. Whether it’s peer reviews of your writing, marketing tips or information about how to publish your book—there is a wide variety of excellent online resources for writers, authors, and small publishers.

Writer’s Digest provides a great service by compiling and releasing an annual list of the 101 best websites for writers--you can see last year’s list here. At the Big Bad Book Blog, our aim is to provide authors with educational resources that make sorting out the publishing world a little easier, so if you have enjoyed our site this year, we would love it if you would vote for us!

To vote for us to be included on the list:

• Just send an e-mail to: writersdig@fwpubs.com with “101 Best Websites” in the subject line

• In the body of the e-mail list our blog, www.bigbadbookblog.com and feel free to include any information about why you’re voting for us, although this is not required

• Deadline is January 1, 2011

Thank you and we appreciate your support!

Serving as an expert source and writing articles is an excellent way to build your credibility and promote your brand. Not only does it get you more publicity, but articles are also a great tool for connecting with potential clients and acquiring speaking engagements. Articles are quick, informative, and can be included in a speaker’s press kit or given as a freebie to clients.

To develop a database of articles, start by making a list of topics you can speak on, such as “10 Things Every Leader Should Know” or “5 Ways to Improve Your Health While on the Road.” Don’t worry if you can only think of a few. This list will grow as your career continues and as you research more outlets for your ideas.

Next, identify publications that cater to your audience and that submit freelance articles. Look on the publication’s website for the submission guidelines; it is important that you follow these to the letter. Ignoring guidelines is usually grounds for an automatic rejection and does not present you in a professional light.

Here are a few more tips for developing and submitting articles:

1. Make your articles concise and actionable.
2. Use startling statistics or third-party facts to support your ideas.
3. Tailor your article to the publication’s tone and audience. This may mean switching out certain terms. For example, you can substitute the term “customer” with “patient” if you are submitting an article on marketing to a medical publication.
4. Leave out the self-promotion—that’s what your bio is for.

Above all, provide value. If your articles don’t have substance, not only will no one want to read them, but media professionals will not want to print them either.

If you’re a nonfiction or business author, it’s easy to repurpose some your book content into an article. Simply pull out a page or a few paragraphs that focus on a central topic or concept and add an appropriate introduction or summary.

There are also many options for submitting articles for content syndication on the Internet. Content syndication can benefit your website’s search-engine ranking and enhance your web presence. Here are a few syndication resources:

Free Resources:

http://e-articles.info/ This free article directory provides useful free articles, tutorials, and information resources about various life issues. Subjects include Arts & Entertainment, Finance, Dating & Relationships, Business, Technology, Health & Fitness, Home & Garden, News & Society, Sports, and more.

http://www.articlealley.com/ This site helps authors promote and syndicate their content on a large scale. Web content managers from thousands of partner sites use Article Alley to source free content they can include on their own websites.

http://www.articlesbase.com/submit-articles.php Similar to e-articles.info and Article Alley, Articles Base allows authors to submit articles to a comprehensive database. Articles Base is unique in that it includes an author bio box where you can promote your own webpage and personal brand.

Paid Resources:

http://www.isnare.com A $2-per-article submission charge makes syndication available to 1000+ websites.

http://www.rcplinks.com/Article_Submission.htm $25 for 100 links to your article.

Rules when submitting articles to content syndication services:

#1: No links allowed within the body of the article.

#2: No promotion of your company or book within the article itself.

#3: Links promoting your Amazon page or book website should live in the bio or “about the author” section.  Use links sparingly in this section as an article will often be rejected if there are more than three.

As an author, you’ve probably been told you should be blogging. Blogs are an excellent way to engage your audience and establish yourself as an authority figure. Still, many find the idea of blogging overwhelming and the actual process of writing blog posts almost unbearable. But with a little bit of planning, a few shortcuts, and some tips from the blogosphere, you can be posting and engaging with readers in no time. Here is our five-part series on blogging to help you get started:

Part One: To Blog or Not to Blog (why you should blog)

Part Two: A Blog Without a Cause (what to blog about)

Part Three: Taming the Blog Monster (managing your blog)

Part Four: The Blog Without a Name (promoting your blog)

Part Five: Blog Vital Signs (tracking your progress)

In part two of our five part series on blogging, we’ll focus on what you should be blogging about. Blogs began as online diaries, and diaries, by nature, are full of random thoughts. But in order for your blog to be effective, you need to focus at all times on the key message you want to convey to your author platform.

Start by identifying key topics from your book, marketing message, or genre. What would your audience be interested in? How does it relate to your author platform and marketing message? Here are some ideas:

• Industry news and updates
• Book reviews (review others in your genre)
• Tips, ideas, strategies, facts, and other helpful tools associated with your message. For example, if you are an expert in leadership, share tips on running a meeting or turning around a trouble employee.
• Events, new products, and other time sensitive items

Categorize your blog content into main topics, which might include book reviews, industry news, interviews, guest posts, etc. To go back to the leadership expert, your categories might include character development, understanding people, improving communication, etc.

Look at other blogs on your topic. What are they saying? Do you see something missing from the conversation? Once you establish your main topics (you can always add more later), start brainstorming talking points related to each.

As you are brainstorming, consider ways you can group and dissect topics while you are writing them. For example, you can pull bits from a larger work and share them as a series of posts. You can also take short bits of information from those posts and use those for tweets. Publishers call this process “content chunking,” and it’s a tremendous time-saver. While you are developing one big work (like a book or article), you can simultaneously create small blog posts, tweets, and Facebook posts. This saves you from doubling up on your efforts.

Unfortunately, not all publishers let you chunk sections from your book into posts, but some publishers, like Greenleaf Book Group, actually include content chunking as part of the publishing service. (Full disclosure: This blog is the creative outlet of Greenleaf Book Group.) Other publishers actually forbid any content chunking due to infringement laws (since the publisher may own the publication rights to the original work). Check with your publisher before you blog any content from your book to avoid potential legal hassles.

In terms of what a blog post should look like, they are relatively short—anywhere from 250 to 1000 words, depending on the topic and the nature of the post. Generally they fall into the 250–500-word category, which is roughly one to three paragraphs (unlike this post). Posts aren’t limited to text either. Pictures and video are great items to share, as long as they are relevant to your overall message. Also, here is an excellent article for building credibility in your posts.

You’ll also want to be professional, but use a conversational tone to engage readers. It’s a good idea to post questions and invite feedback at the end of a post. The purpose is to engage readers, so above all, let your personality shine through, be genuine, provide information, and stay on target with your message.

In our next post, we’ll cover ways to manage your blog so it doesn’t manage you.