Writing is one of the most competitive “jobs” on the Internet. Chances are high that you visit at least one blog/social media profile every day while looking for something that you’re interested in. Because of this, it can be hard to start and gain recognition, especially if you’re a beginner. The following four tips can help you overcome initial hurdles and give you a headstart.
1. Refine Your Basic Profile Information
Many people make the mistake of considering this a non-important factor in the bigger picture – after all, it doesn’t really matter what your social media name or profile picture is, right? Wrong. In reality, these couple of categories can help you leave a good first impression. The initial thing that people see when they visit your page is exactly this.
For example, depending on the platform that you’re using, you should think of a good pseudonym instead of writing out your full name. The profile picture shouldn’t be overly formal, but it still has to outline your professionalism. As far as the short bio goes, it has to represent your passion and show the people why you’re the one that they should be paying attention to. Don’t go into too much detail as it can quickly become tedious to read, simply try to spike the people’s interest.
2. Choose a Topic That You’re Knowledgable About
Trying to write about something in hopes that it’ll bring you the most money, even though you have no clue what it’s about, will only lead to disappointment. As soon as you visit someone’s post, you can immediately tell if they’re a true professional about the subject or if they’re simply trying to milk money. If it’s the latter, you’ll quickly lose any reputation and respect from your visitors.
Additionally, you won’t be able to attract anyone if you’re writing about commonly known things related to that specific topic. People are interested in details – in learning something that they haven’t previously known. If a simple Google search can uncover everything that you’ve mentioned in your post, you’re just another source that doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Because of this, you have to choose a subject that you’re specialized in, whether it’s related to your job, hobby, or something else.
3. Monitor Your Competitors
Whichever niche you choose, there’s undoubtedly going to be dozens of other people who are going to be writing about the same thing. In order to be able to come out on top, you’ll have to find their profiles and analyze their posts. This is where Google comes into play once again – visit the search engine and look up all the most popular keywords related to your topic. Then, start sifting through the results.
Some links will lead you to blogs that won’t have social media profiles attached to them. This is where you’ll be able to take advantage of Spokeo – a phone number search and email lookup tool. All the blogs will usually contain either one of the two pieces of information that Spokeo can work with, after which you’ll be able to run a search. When it’s done, the tool could return any social media profiles that it could find related to your entered email/phone number. Once that’s finished, it’s up to you to go through them, uncover your competitor’s strategies, and implement novelties of your own.
4. Add Visual Content (Photos/Videos)
After you’ve successfully checked out the previous entries on the list, it’s time to spice up your content. Plain old text can only get you so far – eventually, your visitors will want to see you get creative with your posts. This means not only focusing on your knowledge to offer something no one else can but also using your own imagination to make the content easier to digest.
One of the simplest, most popular ways to do this is by adding relevant photos or video clips. While this might seem fairly easy, you’ll have to make sure that they pass on the exact information that you want them to. This probably means that you’ll have to struggle a bit more to find credible sources – it won’t be as simple as running a search on YouTube. However, if you’re unable to find any, you can also make the visual content yourself. Graphs and charts are very easy to create, and they can make your content a lot more digestible.
