Self Promotion

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   keiranthapaposted 14 years ago

   There are hundreds of thousands of hubbers out there. Each one has his own agenda. I guess that mostly self promotion is a major concern for many. However, I've noticed that many do it in surrogate ways like inviting someone to be friends etc. Should one be modest about promoting one's good work ? When MNCs go about spending billions of dollars on copy writing/content writing their goods for advertising ,I guess a good hubber can always present his work well without spending a dime to draw dedicated readers easily.
   I welcome your reactions.

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      Faybe Bayposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The best way to make friends is to find the threads, such as Lets Be Friends, and The Hub Tribe Is Forming. These are places to meet and greet other hubbers.
      
      Self-promotion is setting up a thread that has a portion of or a link to your hub.
      
      There are forums where you can post hub links. The best way to gain fans is to read their hubs and comment on the content, or interact in forums.
      
      A way to gain more fans is to tweet, facebook, myspace, etc. and let all of your current contacts know what you are doing, While that is promotional, it is not considered self-promotion, but marketing.

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      TerryGlposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Well what you think or maybe what I think is good work is two different things. Self recommendation really does not work on the internet.
      
      I think the best thing to do is to be a quiet achiever. Do your stuff, believe in what you do and see if you can succeed from there. If not you need to change the model of how you do things.

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         keiranthapaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         You got a good point there.

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2. 61

   keiranthapaposted 14 years ago

   I agree with you.

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   1. 64

      Faybe Bayposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I am too tired to argue, I was trying to help as that is what I thought you were asking for.
      
      Tried and true methods that earn a particular hubber $1000 to $2000 per month (after one year of working at it), versus wait until someone finds you.
      
      I read other hubs to learn what they are doing, plain and simple. If I like what I read I comment. If I see a question I answer it. If you do not like my answer that is up to you.
      
      This is a social community site. I am inept at marketing, and others here have been so kind as to market some of my hubs for me, if they held merit, because I admit I need help.
      
      If you are an island, that's just fine. I am not an island. It is a big world out there, and I am still new.

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         foreignpressposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I have to agree with your original premise: That you have to "blow your horn" to an extent to be heard. That's not to say be obnoxious. But let people know what you're doing. I've tried it both ways. I've tried being quiet and letting my work speak for itself. But, in America at least, that just doesn't work. Our society is too competitive -- and to a large degree very cutthroat -- to sit back and let things work on their own. I've found that an adrenaline push in additional marketing accomplishes the same task twice as fast. The quality of writing must still be excellent, and the content must hit the hot buttons. But if there's no marketing you'll be left in the dust.

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      2. 85

         Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         No it isn't, Faybe. It's a site where you write articles which earn money by attracting readers via search engines.  The social aspect of the site - where you meet and mix with fellow writers - is a nice bonus, because writing online can be a solitary business.  But socialising with your fellow writers won't earn you a red cent.
         
         Other Hubbers don't click on ads.  The people who click on ads and buy eBay and Amazon products are readers who find your Hub via search engines.  You won't attract them by inviting people to be friends or followers.  If someone has been feeding you the idea that followers equals money, they don't know what they're talking about, and I doubt very much they're earning $1,000 a month.
         
         Not having a go at you, just wanting to correct any misleading information you may have been given.  You do have to do some marketing, but not within HubPages.  You need to find external avenues to self-promote.

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            Lisa HWposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Marissa, not that my "approval" is needed on your comment here; but I like how well it sums things up. 
            
            I very much treat my Hub-writing and other activities on here as completely separate things (right or wrong).  "Hubtivity" is described as "bringing something to the site", but if I read, comment, or do something in the forum here it's because I'm taking a break from writing (or some other work unrelated to HubPages).  For me, answering questions may be a matter of trying to help someone or skimming for ideas for Hubs or else just killing time.  If I come to the forums I may be looking for discussion, laughs, or (again) killing time or taking a break.  Sometimes I'll "accidentally" end up getting an idea for a Hub on the forums.  Granted, those are all essentially selfish motives, but none of them have anything to do with self-promoting or even trying to call attention to myself or my Hubs. 
            
            With the exception of obnoxiously having a Facebook page and Twitter account pretty much for the purpose of just listing a lot of my online, "extra", writing; I don't do any promotion/marketing of the kind of writing I do on HubPages at all.  (I don't even pretend they're for anything else, so I'm not misleading people by "pretending" to be friends on Facebook.)  A lot of my online writing is an "extracurricular activity" for me, and I'm here for the writing (and occasional "relating").  If I'd do a little off-site promoting and pay more attention to writing the "right kind" of Hub and title I could be earning a lot more than I do; but even without doing any promoting, my Hubs that are the "right kind" do pretty well on their own.  The ones that are not don't.
            
            I'm pretty much one of those people who "just sits" and waits for traffic to come to me, but the search engines do that if the Hub and title are something that attracts them and that readers find helpful or useful once they run into it.  It may not be the wisest thing in the world, money-wise, but I want/need my "hobby writing" to stay "for me", and my "relating" to keep being a genuine, social, interaction - without ulterior, financial/traffic motives.
            
            My point is, though, that if you write the "right kind" of Hub it will do the work for you, and it doesn't take a lot of  promoting to earn quite well on here.  With "just enjoying myself" on HubPages, I have my good-earners, my no-earners, and my low-but-consistent-earners.  Of the last kind of Hubs, the person who writes 300 or 500 or 1000 of those dollar-or-a-two-a-month Hubs is going to have a good part-time income - no promotions needed, no business-approach needed.  The difference between my no-earners (or almost-no-earners) and fifty-cent-a-month or dollar-a-month earners is that a lot of stuff I wrote without regard for title, demand, or keywords.
            
            For now, whatever I do on HubPages is for my own entertainment - whether that's writing or taking a break and "hanging out doing nothing".  Sometimes in discussions of earning and promoting and other business-related approaches people on here don't seem to realize that earning doesn't have to be all that difficult and that the advice given somewhere (at least at one time) on HubPages to "have fun" is actually sound advice (as long as Hubbers don't completely disregard the other advice to write good titles and write about stuff people search for, and assuming "fun" is writing).
            
            There is more than one way to earn money/traffic on here, and even outside promoting/marketing aren't always all that necessary.  It seems to me too much emphasis is often put on promoting, as if there's no way to earn without putting a lot of effort into it.  There is.  The reason I'm not earning over a thousand dollars a month on here isn't that I don't promote.  It's that I don't pay attention to keywords (not even now) and have only recently abandoned the practice of trying to come up with "clever" titles and started writing more search-engine-aimed titles.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               Lisa, you and I have very similar approaches to HubPages. I also don't promote my Hubs - if I'm going to do any self-promotion, it's for my websites.  However, that's because some time ago I switched from trying to make a living online, to treating it as a hobby - so I don't bother with the boring bits any longer!

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   kirstenblogposted 14 years ago

   Self promotion within HP is something to be done tastefully. At the end of the day tho HP traffic does not easily or often convert into clicks or sales of items so going beyond good taste in your self promotion is pointless. A better way to self promote is to make friends here and participate, have fun and focus on the type of self promotion that draws in outside traffic, in a word backlinks. Ask someone like Nelle, she has other accounts that don't make friends here and are just for niches she has found to be good for her, those accounts seem to make her some decent $$$ and those profiles don't get promoted here in the forums etc.
   
   I like having friends here, its good for my self esteem but as far as making sales goes I want search engine traffic, preferably with a credit card in hand!
   

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      Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Kirstenblog, I'd say self promotion within HP isn't something to be done at all.  Networking is something worth doing within HP - that's a different kettle of fish.  As you rightly say, traffic from within HP is a drop in the bucket compared to your eventual search engine traffic, and it doesn't convert either.

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         kirstenblogposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I think we have slightly different ideas of self promotion. I have a very wide idea of self promotion and include just about anything that gets attention and builds some sort of reputation for yourself. If you take a narrower idea on what self promotion is and limit it to asking for readers and followers and back links then the only exception to the don't do it rule would be in the makeover area as its a legitimate area to ask people to read and get a back link. Self promotion is fine and dandy when done in a legitimate way
         
         Make a reputation as a spammer and thats not the kind of self promotion you want

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            Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Kirsten, I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with self promotion per se, just that doing it within HubPages (followers, forum posts) is not an efficient use of time, because 90% of your traffic and 99.9% of your income will come from search engines.  So if you're going to put any energy into self-promoting, it's obvious where that energy should be directed.

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4. 61

   keiranthapaposted 14 years ago

   Thank you all for sharing your insights. It was great to read your reactions. Looking forward to more interactions.

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