Create Media Outposts, Learn HTML, and Give More
Every online business needs a headquarters location, like a blog or website, but to really reach out to the people you want to touch, you need media outposts as well. Chris Brogan, social media guru, suggests niche social networks as good places to create outposts (for instance, MLMers might find the Home Based Business Forums a great social network for this purpose). The social outpost idea is secret #20 in Chris’ “27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community.” I’ll elaborate on that secret below, plus review secret #16 (learn some html) and secret #27 (keep giving). I implement each of these secrets on my home business blog and tell you all about the challenges, benefits, and costs.
Secret #20: Create Media Outposts
In my MLM business, growing my business is all about growing my network. To that end, Chris’ suggestion to create media outposts is perfect because it increases my “reach” and expands my network. How does one do that? Chris has several ways. First, include the rss feed to your blog in your Facebook and LinkedIn pages. You can use automated services, like Simplaris Blogcast, to automate the process so your blog feed shows up on your page automatically. Next, tweet your really good blog posts to Twitter (Chris recommends a ratio of 1:12, that is one tweet about your blog to 12 tweets about other people’s stuff). Finally, find niche-specific social networks and repeat the process.
I found the basic steps of this secret easy to implement but the principle behind this secret more difficult to follow. Basically, Chris is telling us to stay on top of our social network at all times. That means keeping our pages updated on the various social media platforms in which we participate. I can manage to stay up to date on a few but keeping up with Chris’ blistering pace is hard work. Plus, maintaining a 1:12 tweet ratio means you have to do some serious digging to find real gems to post for the 12 tweets other than your own. On a weekly basis, if I were to follow Chris’ principles to the letter it would take me about 5-7 hours, not including writing my blog or other regular activities. That’s a lot. Then again, he does social media for a living.
Time Spent: 5-7 hours weekly
Dinero Spent: $0
Secret #16: Learn Some HTML
If you want to have a professional-looking blog or install some of the nifty gadgets that Chris talks about on his blog, you have to know at least some HTML. Even submitting articles to article directories takes some knowledge of HTML, lest you end up with a completely funky-looking article with spaces in all the wrong places. This tip isn’t hard to follow, even for a neophyte. Just visit places like W3Schools for a free tutorial that takes you through the basic HTML tags step by step. In all, it might take you a couple of hours to learn the basics and then you can revisit the site on-the-fly as you need more help. I didn’t spend any time on this secret but guestimated how long it might take a newbie to learn the basics.
Time Spent: 2 hours for basic HTML training
Dinero Spent: $0
Secret #27: Give More
Chris certainly follows this principle on his blog. He gives and gives and gives his secrets away. Visiting his blog on any given day is like spending Christmas at a horse sale barn for me (an admitted horse addict). As he puts it, “Share your secrets. You can’t execute them all anyway.” I don’t have nearly as many secrets as he does, but I can give you two new great blogs I just stumbled across that have fabulous yet practical tips for the online marketer:
1. Dosh-Dosh: online marketing from a weird, funky, but workable angle
2. Gary Vaynerchuck: A wine guy who made it big and shares his online marketing secrets
Time Spent: 5 minutes (spent surfing and stumbling)
Dinero Spent: $0
Anything else I can give you? Anything else you want to know?
photo credit: Noah Sussman
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