Promote your niche

How to promote your work and your niche

Do you write articles that focus on a particular niche or topic? How do you promote them? There are some excellent tools and services we can use.Read on.

We all need to promote our work

We all need to make the most of the opportunities we have to show the world what we're doing here. There was a time when we could rely on Google and other search engines to promote our work and send us visits. With so much competition today, that glorious era is long gone.

Please join in - this is just the start

Below, I have explained what works for me but I know that there are a lot of writers here who are marketing their work, and their niches, incredibly successfully. If you have ideas that will help us all, please join in by using the comments section below. I look forward to hearing from you!

Useful links

Here are some links that I've referenced below:

• Tools you can use
• Use social media quickly and easily
• Pinterest tips
• What not to do on Twitter
• Using Tweetdeck
• Build 'showcase' pages

How to develop your online promotional system:

1. Assess your assets. Before you start thinking about creating new social media accounts, or starting a blog for your niche, assess what you already have. You probably already have social media accounts, for example.You might already have an existing blog. Is that a suitable way to promote your niche? Most social media accounts and blogs can be re-branded - will this work for you? List the advantages you already have.

2. Assemble your tools. If you need to start new accounts for social media, curation services and so on, now is the time to do it. This site, and many others, provide handy sharing buttons that we can use but for some services, it's preferable to install your own to your browser.

For example, the Pinterest button you see on most sites doesn't give you a range of options when deciding which image to post. The official Pinterest button does, so this helps maximize your marketing.

Are there are other tools you need? For instance, if you use - or intend to use - Twitter a lot, then consider getting Tweetdeck, it's free. (See link above).

3. Create your schedule. I believe that this is the most important step. The first thing to do is to determine how many hours per day, week or month you are going to devote to your promotional activities. It might be an hour a day, and afternoon a week or a day every month - whatever is right for you.This should have a little flexibility but it is better to set aside specific times to do your marketing work. This helps you to stay organised and stop feeling guilty!

4. Create your calendar. Once you have your schedule in place, you can start to develop your calendar. I use an extremely low-tech desk diary.

Note down any special dates or events. For example, I tend to concentrate on British-themed work so my diary contains dates applicable to events in history, the birthdays of famous Brits and so on.

This means that I can promote articles about those subjects on the relevant days without it appearing to be overly commercial or random gratuitous promotion. Sometimes, I have a date noted, but no article to match it - that's a great incentive to start writing.

5. Use social media daily. Using either your computer or your phone, post daily if possible. This will take less than five minutes, even if you are using a lot of services.See the link in the list above to see just how easy it is once you've got the tools in place.

6. Plan around dates. This is for both your writing and your promotion. If you have an important date in your calendar, and you haven't written about that subject, then promote another writers' work.That should preferably be from this site but it's perfectly fine to lead your followers to other sites too from time to time. This helps establish you as an expert in your field who can be relied upon to regularly keep your followers entertained and informed.

7. Keep a close eye on the most popular dates. Try to show a different approach when you are writing for special dates such as Easter, Mother's Day, St Valentine's Day and so on.

Approach the dates from a creative angle based on your own niche. For example, as I glance at my diary I see that have noted the date when Alexander Graham Bell made the first phone call. This could fit into so many niches. For my own British niche, for example, I could write about the famous UK red telephone boxes. When you write, consider the promotional opportunities.

Then I can note other dates that are relevant, such as the date the first one appeared in the streets.

Telephones might have nothing whatsoever to do with your niche but when you promote the article, it's on-topic for your followers.

8. Maintain lists. In addition to dates, keep lists of articles by other people you'll promote one day. Keep lists of niche topics, even if they are a niche-within-a-niche.For example, if you write a lot of recipes, have a list of daily desserts, or this week's soup or the cake of the month. Don't worry if you don't have enough recipes for a 'daily', promote other writers' work. They, and your followers, will appreciate it. When you get to the end of your list, just start again at number one.

9. Show & tell. What do you want people to do? What are your goals? If you want to encourage others to write here, show them how easy it is. Use this format to show readers how to create their own useful articles that will solve readers' problems. If your goal is to have people visit your blog,make sure that it's easy for them to do so. Provide clear instructions - a call to action - explaining what you'd like them to do now.

10. Be generous. Support and promote other people's work. Create showcase pages (see the link list) and encourage those who are included to share.

Visit this site's forum and help out if someone has a problem you can solve for them. Leave comments for people. Follow fellow-writers on social media.

Ah, karma...