We all know how hard it is to start a new website, when nobody knows who you are. Some are facing this right now and others in the past, when they entered this industry. You have to work on link building, make strong profiles on social media websites and everything is so hard when you are alone and an anonymous name.
Exposure makes everything much easier, because friends can write and talk about you, letting other people know you exist. So try to make as many friends and connections as you can, work hard on this and it will help you on long term.
Most of you who started a company or website are trying hard to promote it and get it in front of the others and that’s not pleasant at all. What if you launched the site and got tons of traffic from the first days ? That’s what known people in the industry do, like Shoemoney with AuctionAds??????, JasonCalacanis with Mahalo or Danny Sullivan with Sphinn.
I have faced this problem for a long time and now, after I raised a decent number of connections, I feel much comfortable to launch a new site and promote it, with their help.
From my experience I will try to offer you a few tips to make connections and friends faster.
- Use all major Instant Messaging platforms ( Yahoo, Gtalk, MSN, Skype, AOL ) to interact with people.
- Build social media profiles and try to keep them updated as soon as possible, but only with interesting stories. Don’t spam, don’t exaggerate, do it naturally. You will raise fans that will help you promote your own stories. Always keep in touch with some of your fans and they might help you more. Choose the ones in the industry.
- Help others and they will not forget you. Offer to help even if the person doesn’t request it, he will like you more.
- Act nicely. Don’t argue, don’t start flames, because your reputation will suffer and you don’t want this. At least be sure you are right if you have to fight with someone and the others will agree with you.
- Make relevant and interesting comments on other blogs, so the blogger and readers to be curious who you are and visit you.
- Get in touch with your readers, they can prove very useful sometimes, interact with them.
- Use the better social network of the moment - Twitter. This microblogging platform is great to interact with others and socialize. You can get to everyone and see how they do it, ’steal’ their marketing ideas.
- Make a brand out of you. Use the same avatar and nickname on every website and messaging platform, so people can find you easier.
- Link to you and your social network profiles from everywhere you can. And most important, interlink them, because some friends from one social network might also be on other and add you. Every extra connection counts.
If you follow this nine tips, you should start gaining exposure and ease your job. Along with the exposure, you can talk with your connections, exchange tips and tricks, become a better marketer.
Add me on Twitter, Stumble, Sphinn or Digg.
Image Credit: VoicesNow
May 16th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Yep, struggling with this one right now. For years I’ve tucked myself away learning the deeper aspects of writing software, and ignoring all the social hype going on around me. Now that I’ve completed what I wanted to complete, I’m finding it pretty frustrating to market some sites I’ve created. Persistence is my friend though.
Good, thought provoking post!
May 18th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
In deed, it is tough to establish a presence online and get people to actually start reading your content and trust your words. I don’t call my quest a struggle, it’s work in progress and I definitely trust the often repeated advice about establishing yourself on the social networks like stumble, digg and sphinn, it would be a little crazy not to in this new web2.0 world. I have actually already made a couple of mistakes but luckily I was not banned and was able to correct the mistake when the social networks made me aware of it. It’s easy to bury yourself when you’re trying to get exposure, sometime you end up doing yourself more harm than good because you may not bother to learn the rules. So lesson learned for me.
Great post!
May 18th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Good tips. What’s distressing - to me at least - is that as the web becomes more and more crowded, the tougher it will become to get noticed. People are already having to put in enormous amounts of time using all of the social media tools available just to get some significant numbers. I can’t imagine what kind of hoops we’ll have to jump through in ten year’s time.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:11 am
A good summary on the importance of networking. Right now, I only really use stumbleupon; perhaps in the future - I’ll build a presence on the other social media sites you mention.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Good post Alex, I totally agree with point number 8, If I see a familiy name or picture I tend to trust them more.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Very good tips that every new blogger should know!
May 21st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Very good summary of the basic stuffs that we tend to forget =) Cheers and thanks for the tips.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:16 am
I had already made a couple of mistakes but luckily I was not banned and was able to correct the mistake when the social networks made me aware of it. It’s easy to bury yourself when you’re trying to get exposure, sometime you end up doing yourself more harm than good because you may not bother to learn the rules. So lesson learned for me.
May 24th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
The more basic stuff, the most we need to learn. thanks for sharing!
May 25th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
I like to give athumbs up for sharing information that will help some out who is just learning about our industry.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:03 am
I think the tips mentioned above are great and would really make my son confident. Every child should have such kind of an exposure.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:07 am
The tips you mentioned are very good. I would say steps 5 and 6 are the most vital to having a successful blog. When you are able to represent your site well, others will come. Thanks for the great info.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Hi This is actually a very good article and gives lot of input about the tips. Thanks a lot for valuable information on Success.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Thanks for your info. I really needs some assistance in communication with others. Your tips will be useful to me. Thanks again!
June 1st, 2008 at 8:03 am
Good tips for beginners and for those who are already in the bloging. I like the tips a lot and will be implementing those in my web site. Thanks for this sharing. Keep bloging
June 8th, 2008 at 6:06 am
good tips. thanks for sharing
June 12th, 2008 at 7:35 am
number 4 is so true!
hey, thnx for the tips by the way~
will keep them in mind.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I’m worried right along with Mike Sieber. We have to do so much these days just to get our page up and running, and then we have to multi task to get it up in the rankings. It will just keep getting harder. I do think these are great points though that you should know when owning a website.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:37 am
Nice, helpful advice for those starting out. Concise and to the point, thanks!