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Prove Your Brilliance - Part 1

We are going to dive into proving your brilliance which is now on page thirty six in your workbooks and we've got a fabulous cartoon networkers at a cocktail party I'm an expert on authorities in thought leadership if that isn't a redundancy I don't know what is somebody blowing smoke and it does happen we don't want you blowing smoke we want to proving your brilliance and I'm going to deliver you some formats to make that easy to do so we will jump right into that your brilliance has a lot of facets and a lot of formats possible and the key is that you choose the right formats both for you and for your audience so chances are good if formats work for you they're going to work for your audience so we're going to cover the specifics of the best ways to do that. Do you have to create new content for every network know you can repurpose simply and effectively and that's what we're diving into one of the beauties of the internet today when the greatest gifts the internet has given us is th...

at unique ability to take one piece of content and turn it into two hundred and one other pieces of content and you don't even have to be the one doing it you can absolutely delegate that out once you nailed down which formats you want to use and how you want them to look so that's, the really cool part of this is khun become ah whole team exercise repurpose ing your brilliance is about sharing it. It is one of those great gifts and you want to share it far and wide. You are at the center of your branded universe, you're branded business and this is about getting your thought leadership, your expertise, your experience, your history, your points of connection, all of it out there where your market can interact with you, connect with you, engage with you and become a client and customer of yours. So you really want to do that? Um, we're going to dive into the twenty one now. Blogging to me is no more than well, I guess you could make it more than fifteen hundred words, but that's a lot. I usually go for a minimum of two hundred fifty words. Seth code in has a minimum of maybe six words, so it just depends on your style. Um, I think that almost everyone, unless you hate to write, in which case I don't want you blogging because that's not a good use of your time, but if you can speak you khun blawg so that means everybody, because you can have it transcribed from a recording, you can also use dragon software. And do it that way there's really no excuse for you not to get your expertise out into the market in some written format because people are skimming still today they're not reading so when you blawg you do need to use subheds very small chunks of text and the shorter the better so if you write a long post, consider breaking it up into multiple posts instead because otherwise people will get overwhelmed and they won't read it it's also about making your block post highly share a ble highly shareable you want your share buttons at the top so they don't have to actually read the whole post before they decide they want to share it you want to maybe traveling down the side and you want him at the bottom you also want to express a very clear called action at the close of every post one call to action that called action can be a simple as hey love to get your thoughts on this topic and you would spell out what the topic is in the comments below please leave a comment even if you want comments you have to ask for them because there are a lot of blog's that have their comments closed now my whole thought on that is if you're going to have a blogged why would you close your conference? The whole point is you want interaction when I checked email finally last night I had one gal who I found my block and she found three post that she commented on and I replied to her comments in every single case blood comments are designed to create engagement that only works if you're going to jump back in and reply to them and do it in a timely manner so within twenty four hours if not a whole lot sooner and the beautiful part about blog's is if you're dealing with evergreen content which is content that is not going to fall out of date quickly I've stripped the dates off my block post it's rare that I'm blogging about something that is going to go out of date so that means I can share a post that I wrote nine months ago today and I do that through twitter and facebook but nobody sees the day so they still think that it's completely fresh new content and it is for them so they'll still comment and that works extremely well so you really want to be aware of little nuances like that if you can remove the dates on your block posts it's not a license not tow blawg is not a license to stock your habit of blogging and by the way blogging does need to be a regular habit I have a blogging habit of once a week on my marketing block and five days a week on the move it forward moments which have not shown up on my block it and will within the next thirty days, because I've got two years of content, I've got over three hundred of those posts, and I'm to start putting them up there, but you really do want to use the nuances to your advantage. So that idea of taking the dates off your posts when you're not using content that will fall out of date can be an enormous plus, because then you could share those posts over and over again if you share a post with dates on them was the first thing we do when we google we check the date of the information that's coming up don't wait, we want the most current. So if it's not showing that it was done within the last thirty days, you're probably not going to read it. You're going to go. You know what? I can find something more recent than this when you strip the dates solves the problem really solves the problem, so I love to know tweeted link to your blawg inside the chat room when you are in the facebook group, if you're not in their right this second tweet a link to your blood no, by the way, your blog's should be at the heart of your website, those of you that have a website over here in a block over here. You are losing the power of your blawg to drive traffic to your website driving them to your block doesn't do them any good there's not enough called action possibility on that blawg unless you're going to say at the end of every post go to my website but why not have the blawg inside your website if you're not doing that that's a very key piece and I would encourage you to make that transition it might feel icky and sticky and techie make the transition it's gonna make a difference yes judy the way I've got mind set up I have a separate blawg but it's so it is a tab on my website so it looks as if it's because the blogger is designed to become a book so I didn't wantto designed to become a book yeah I'm blogging a book okay it's all about marking so each of the post is a marketing post but when you're in my website it looks as if that's right? Okay when I get here blawg can I easily get back to your website without hitting the back button or is that my only option? Because I lost my invitation but they're both dead wordpress so I could I could put it all in one but the reason they were separate was for that reason but I understand what I understand what you're saying yeah, the big thing to me is a lot of times I'll click that block, but on somebody site and it takes me out to their blawg and then I've got no way to get back there's no navigation there except for hitting the back button that maybe switch doesn't always effectively work either you know once in a while it will take me to a new page and a new tab and it leave their website open in the first tab, but I've got to be paying attention. Our attention spans are so short if you don't make this super easy, I don't have time to look around go well, what happened to her site? Uh, I'm busy now I'm going to keep going say, like I can do the same thing that I did with the blogger on on my block to go back to my site. The other thing for me is I want the traffic that comes to your website to access your block and the traffic that comes to your block to access your website. So here's the question too if somebody goes straight to your block not through your website, how did they get to website? I have to look, I kind of think in my head what do I haven't that's my point, I have to look at it and I guarantee you there are people in our chat room who are guilty of this and not realizing that they're making it hard and they're not getting the traffic that they want because they've made it hard I noticed this with actually the the gal that had commented on three of my posts and she had a gmail address and then I saw one of the other comments to me and she had her name dot com so I said, hey, why aren't you using your first name and at your first and last name dot com as your email address you can redirect it back to your gmail you don't go check a separate account but it's a branding piece that's so important and it's so basic and so many of his owner's heir missing it so really and truly make that switch if you do nothing else based on what you've learned with me pick that switch it'll make a world of difference I also had her clean up her signature file because she sent that to me and it was massive so I gave her that see me or about me dot com trick and I said one call to action she has a book I said why wouldn't you have a hot link? Ah hot link to your book not just the title of your book and gm and author of but a hot link to the book or a hyperlink whatever works the best did you the question and I've been resistant to blood because in the genealogical arena, most blocks are all my great grandmother was born in county cork, arlen but, you know, snoozers, and so I'm like, well, I don't want to be a snoozer, so I'll just kind of avoid the whole thing, and I'll do all this other stuff and all this other stuff, but I'm hearing what you're saying by making this the heart of my website, content that I want to share because you've got a fabulous story. You you need to be sharing a tech tips and things like that, but you also want to share pieces of your personal story to further connect. Uh uh, did you see the connection that occurred in yesterday's segment when you were sitting up here sharing your personal story? Absolutely everybody knows you now if you'll pull back that curtain through your your your blawg, it will have an enormous impact, and the beautiful part is you're going to be able to get people sharing their story of how you help them work with how many different geological sites are there? Brazilian, you know, so you could say I love your story. If you've worked with this site, I love your stories you've worked with this this site, start collecting stories and sharing those in your block posts. How cool people who said oh my gosh, I met my my great aunt finally you know, on that trip to boston I didn't even know I had a great aunt so many cool things you could do with that because you're dealing with intimate personal family history that's just the richest material there is it's soap opera stuff people love that okay, so yeah, none and I don't want to hear that you know, it would be like anybody else you won't blogged right? That's cracked logging is just a format all right, make your block different your bloggers lisa okay, all right articles there's really not a lot of difference between an article and a block post an article to may the minimum word countess to fifty. The tricky bit is sometimes if you're writing articles for another publication, they will ask you to write in ap um and that's hard in my opinion, it doesn't sound nearly as conversational its third person. I don't love that, so I had an opportunity to do that for a while with one of the online groups and I just this too hard for me I have to translate all of my original posts into this language and I don't want to do that it takes all of the melisse out and that's what people are wanting to read so I would really encourage you find resource is for you're writing for your block post for your articles that will allow you to bring your voice to that publication. I know mind body green is great for that I've got a client who regularly publishes up on mind body green, and the visibility she gets is extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary that's one of those situations where you really want to have a killer biobox at the bottom of your article that leads people to your opt in so they then become a part of your community. Don't just ask him for comments and don't just start your bio box with jane smith is an expert and will block the moment they see your name. They're going to tune out of the bio box. So what you want to do instead of, say, when you want mortgage greatly generation tips, here's the link to follow and they'll take that link and they'll go down. Get your tips, be part of your community when you want more tips on scrapbooking here's my ten my top ten checklist for scrap bookers, and they'll go to that link. Don't make it about you make it about the reader it's got to be all about the reader hey, um, so articles can be about format and again, articles was subheds way easier to read than articles that don't have subheds. You know, use bolding use quotations makes your format up to make it a fast easy read for a skimmer because we've become a globe of skimmers these days it's kind of sad that's why I can't read books if they're too thick this is about as much as I can read otherwise they get intimidated okay, so youtube you khun turn any block poster article into video there are a couple of cool pro has actually dozens of cool programs out there the two that I have some familiarity with one is called article to video dot com and that's article the number two video dot com an article video robot is another one okay, you can also do it manually with talking heads style I've got several of those up on youtube if you're curious including my rant about people who take my name from a networking event put it on their list okay um, but yeah there's a lot you could do with youtube. Youtube is the number two search engine pay attention if you've got a way to get your content up on youtube on a regular basis that's the hardest part about youtube if you have not got it really set up in your office to make it super simple and fast, you won't do it, you won't do it, I've got it veered right now so that my desk is positioned all I d'oh is turned my large monitor around. I used my logic tech camera. I do not use the camera inside my laptop because it's not that good. I look way better with the logic tech that matters to me, and I turned it around all move my desk chair around and then I can usually capture in the first three takes. Sometimes I only need one or two takes. I don't script it, I will outline it. I keep them short and they're slightly different each time. I never want to read to my audience. There are tools you can get a teleprompter, this teleprompter application on an ipad I know you can use, but don't love it right. I always feel like it takes away the spontaneity it does and it's much better. If you know what you want to say, do it in short clips and then put it together. Yeah, yeah, there's. Easy editing software out there actually do edit a little bit, but not a lot. Basically, I take off the the front part where I've turned it on and I clean up the back that's about all I do so don't make it hard but if you're going to dive into one of these or you stuck your toe in and you're like, well melissa, I kind of tried it and I thought I could get good it but then I forgot about it and I want to go back to go back to it but go back to it with intention of mastery of mastery and making it a regular habit because if you're not making it a regular habit, you're not going to do it being persistent and consistent in your promotion and marketing efforts is essential for success absolutely critical um yes if you own youtube channel yes I do okay, I do podcasting it's just an audio version of a block post on article taught is it's not hard to do? Um I'm actually going to be diving into podcasting um following my creative life experience, I started taking some trainings a couple of weeks ago and I put him on ice because this became my sole focus and priority and podcasting makes sense to me I'm one of these rare people that actually likes the sound of my voice on the recordings most people don't and I think it's cause I hear my mom coming through a love that part andi I have a lot of content and who better to share my content than me why do I want to give that up to somebody else? So what I am looking at doing, though, is instead of doing at home and buying all the equipment and worrying about sound quality and worrying about oh, so if there's a noise outside or something like that, I'm looking at going in studio for an hour a week, investing in that and letting them make sure that it's crystal clear and that it's edited properly and they take care of all the pieces that I'm not very good at anyway, and so I can focus on delivery and really fantastic content. So think about it. Is it going to make sense for you to get into the investment of all the parts and pieces you need and learning how to do the editing and all of that? Or does it make more sense for you to locate a studio that's cost effective? I'm not saying blow the moon on this one that's cost effective that you can then go and record several at a time and get him in the can. One of my colleagues was actually getting ready to launch a podcast in september she at the time I was featured on her podcast or she was recording us. To be featured had forty two in the can. She was doing these back to back over the course of two weeks and she didn't want to launch until she had. I think her magic number was fifty. I was like, wow, that's, a lot of work, but what it meant was that once she launched, she was on autopilot, so you have the same ability to do that you can pre record and then launch your podcast, and but you've got to have a certain number tow launched on itunes anyway. So that way you're really ready for all that launch action and you have the credibility built up, and everybody is going to send out an email on that day two there, um, tribe about being on that podcast so it's, some really nice play for her, she structured it with questions, made it very simple for us. We weren't blind sided. If you're going to be interviewing, people always provide questions critically important. Please don't make them wing it very uncomfortable would get blindsided.