We have all seen it before. A friend tells you to check out his new site. He is talking about big dreams for the future, about all the plans and the goals of making money. Couple of weeks later you see the same friend, ask him how the new project is doing, and you hear that same old excuse of not having had enough time to work on it. There are some harsh truths that your friend needs to know and the method that will empower him to become a great content marketer.
The fear of starting
One reason for this is the fear of starting. It is a very common problem for people. They are unsure on what will happen when they post something. They are insecure about the quality and the value of what they have to say. They are shy thinking about what their friends and family will say. They think that nobody will care about their site. Nobody cares about you or your site, everyone is too busy thinking about themselves. Get on with it.
Dreaming about building a large audience and a name for yourself is not enough. Don’t be one of those people who would rather dream and be safe, than to actually act on the dream a have a chance of failure. Don’t be happy and content with the status quo. To give life to your dreams, you must start doing it and start doing it now. The more you think about it, the more time it will take you and the less probable is it that you will do it.
What people need in situations like these is a bit of a motivational push to click that publish button. When you do click on that button and your first post is online for the world to see, you realize how silly it was to have any fears and how you should have published that post a long time ago. Just go for it really. Close your eyes and publish that first post.
Find your sweet spot, know what you want to achieve, get the minimum viable site live, start publishing content and get the message out there. Measure, learn and improve as you go along. Some spend months on research, on planning, on the design and other details. I do not find this a valuable way of spending so much important time on. These are weeks and months spent without writing, without creating content, without marketing, without connecting to your audience, building a name and testing things in the real world. Don’t fall into the analysis paralysis. This process can be much faster.
Your first post will suck
Be realistic. Your first post will most probably suck. Only your mother might like it. Your analytics report might say you had two visitors only. No one would click on the Twitter share button or the Facebook like button. This may sound a bit harsh but even the biggest bloggers published posts that sucked early on in their careers.
What separates them from the rest is that while publishing these awful posts they were learning the fundamentals of creating immersive content. And this is what counts. Getting experience, learning how to write better, improving the way you present your content, getting more comfortable about reaching out to people and promoting your content. These skills are key skills that you need in order to build a successful site.
Focus your time and efforts on learning the craft of blogging. Learning how to create great content is the most important lesson for you to become a successful blogger. The content and the way you present and promote that content, determines how well your project will do. It takes a lot of time to master all these activities. It is natural that you will be starting from almost zero and building your way up, learning from all the bad content you put out there and all the experience that you gain.
Starting is not the end, it’s the beginning
When you start a project is actually where you hit the reality and realize that maybe the plan you had has to be changed, or the dream you have will need a lot of time and effort to be reached. After starting that site or after publishing that first post you realize that the work is only starting. Visitors won’t just come after you publish, you will have to go out and get them.
Starting a site is not the end as many people see it, it is just the beginning of a process. You cannot expect just to launch your site, publish the first post and have visitors come to you in any numbers. It does not work like that. The real work actually starts after you have launched. That is when you need to put in the effort and time. Without doing that your project will surely fail. This should not discourage you from trying though.
Don’t just give up after couple of weeks if you feel like you have not reached your high expectations, but manage your expectations better. We have all heard too many success stories about people starting sites and making products and then selling them and earning tons of money. We have all heard about people that started posting content online and ended up with book contracts and lucrative speaking engagements. We see people traveling the world and having great lifestyles thanks to their online projects.
These stories are possible but they only happen to a small percentage of people. Keep this in mind in order to have a more realistic expectation of your project. This will keep you grounded and will help motivate you to put in the effort that is needed over a longer period of time before you start seeing any progress.
It is a marathon, not a sprint
The real work of a content marketer is about performing consistently day after day and building an audience few people at a time. It takes time to become a successful blogger. It is a lot of work, takes up a lot of your day and is hard to get away from. It is a marathon, it is not a sprint. There is a long road ahead and your first post is just the start of your blogging journey.
- Keep creating great content, the best content you can think of
- Entertain people, inform people, educate people… make them love and share your content
- Keep posting regularly and consistently
- Keep connecting to people in your target group
- Keep promoting your content wherever you can
- Keep networking with other authors, entrepreneurs and influences
- Keep measuring, learning and improving your efforts
By taking these first steps you will already achieve more than most people do. Other people keep talking and dreaming and you are not one of them. You have started a site. You have published that post despite being fearful of the feedback. You are actually in the field working. Only doing the actual work can help you, it will improve you, it will teach you what works and what doesn’t.
Slowly but surely your site will grow, your reputation in the industry will increase, you will be growing an audience and will start seeing the benefits of having a successful site. You will not stand still like you would have if you were only talking about it and thinking but not doing it.
via Business 2 Community http://ift.tt/1hb18pb
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