Specialty: Communication

Rates: .10 per word

I am a professional writer with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and seven years of experience in journalism, publishing, and education. I can offer you a writing style that is crisp and detailed, integrating sundry details into a coherent and well-organized whole.

My specialty is communication writing, internal and external. Whether the project is a grant proposal, press release or blog, office file, Web site content, manual, research project, or written message, you can rest assured that it is in the hands of a seasoned and creative professional.

Feel free to give me a try.

Background

Why do you need a platform-building plan?

It’s really just a combination marketing plan / PR plan that you’ll use throughout the rest of this series (and beyond I hope). It will serve as your blueprint, showing you how to build an effective freelance writer platform that will attract the attention of the “right” kind of people — the people you want to sell to.

You don’t need a fancy template for this. Just go through the exercises below and jot the information down in a notebook or type it up in Notepad or your favorite word processor. This isn’t meant to be a final draft of anything. Your platform-building plan is a “working document.” It will change and grow with you (as you should see in tomorrow’s bootcamp session).

Exercises

1. Pull out the target market information you worked on yesterday.
2. Create an outline with the following basic sections:
   • Problems / Opportunities
   • Budget
   • Specialty
   • Competition
   • Strengths
   • Weaknesses
   • USP
   • Goals
   • Strategies
   • Tactics
3. Write down at least three problems or opportunities you’re currently faced with in your freelance writing career. For example, a problem might be that no one in your niche or industry knows who you are, so clients have no reason to seek you out. An opportunity might be that you’ve recently completed a new degree that could add to your credentials in a possible specialty area. These are the reasons why you want to build a platform and greater visibility.
4. Think about it for a few minutes, and then write down an estimated budget. You can choose to list the the budget in several ways: startup budget, yearly budget, or monthly budget depending on how far in advance you want your plan to cover. Saying “none” is not an option. You will spend money if you’re serious about improving your career. I don’t care if it’s just $7 for a domain name and $5 per month to host it. Then write down $67. It will pay for itself. Figure out what you can realistically invest up front. It doesn’t have to be much, but I want you to tell yourself what you think your future is worth. Do it now.
5. Jot down a quick list of highlights from your experience, educational credentials, etc. They don’t all have to be with one particular target in mind. If you have a degree in engineering, write it down. If you’re a parent a twins and that gives you special insight into some parenting issues, write that down. If you’ve been an avid stamp collector for a couple of decades, write that down too. When you’ve listed everything you can think of that you’re honestly knowledgeable about, choose something to focus on for your freelance writing. This will be your specialty. When choosing a specialty, I strongly suggest you do at least some preliminary research to see if there’s any demand within your desired target market. Get creative and move beyond the obvious. You’d be surprised what there’s a demand for out there. For example, you might want to target executives and larger corporate clients for business writing work, but you realize the specialty area that would be best for you is cooking. Don’t assume that means you have to write recipes and reviews for food sites. Instead think about all of the kitchen gadget manufacturers out there that hire copywriters, technical writers, and other business writers to write everything from their package copy to their instruction booklets. What’s your specialty? Write it down. Tomorrow we’ll talk about researching the market more in depth, and that might mean ripping your idea to shreds and coming back to this list for another specialty area. But you have to start somewhere.
6. Now I want you to pull up your favorite search engine. If you were trying to be found by prospective clients through search engine placements, what keyword phrases would they likely be typing in to find someone like you? Search for it and see who the top 3-5 writers are. Those are the people clients are able to find. Where are you? Well, you’ll get there. But for now visit the sites of those competitors. Look at their portfolios for a better idea of the type of work done by specialists in this area. Look at their client lists to see what types of companies are hiring writers like you. Look at their credentials if they’re included on the site. And then search again for each of those writer’s names and see what kind of marketing tactics they’re using in their own platform. Have they published any books? Does it look like they’re being interviewed anywhere? Do they blog? Are they active in other types of social media? Write down anything you notice.
7. Now I want you to write down 1-3 strengths you have over your competition that you just researched. For example, they may have been writing longer than you (let’s say as a finance writer), but you have 20 years’ experience as an investment analyst for a major firm under your belt. That’s an obvious edge you’ve got there. You might not feel like you have a strength, but you have at least one. Figure it out. If you can’t find a plus side to hiring you over the competition, then you have no right to expect anyone else to.
8. And now you should do the opposite. Write down your weaknesses in relation to your competition. In this case, if you can only come up with one weakness, you have a serious ego problem. Get over yourself. I want a minimum of three — your three biggest, but ones that you can find a way to overcome. Jot them down.
9. Now that you know your strong suits, your weaknesses, who your competition is, and who you want to target with one specialty, tell me why those potential clients should hire you. What value can you offer them – why are you right for their projects over someone else? And by value, don’t you dare say low prices! If you think a USP (unique selling position) for services should ever revolve around low pricing, then take a step back. You’re nowhere near ready to manage a serious career as a freelance service provider. Instead focus on those credentials and strengths, and figure out how they best set you apart in the specialty area. For example, I have a degree in public relations. Obviously that’s a worthwhile credential to have if I want to be a public relations writer. But it’s nothing special. A lot of people have them in the industry. However, I also was trained in auto mechanics, won a state award in automotive marketing as a student and fared well in national placements, and studied mechanical engineering for a few years. When I combine those, I have an obvious USP that would set me apart when it comes to technical PR writing or automotive PR writing as opposed to competitors who solely have the background in PR. What’s your USP? And yes, you definitely have one.
10. Now you know who you’re targeting, about what, and what USP / marketing message you have going in your favor to get them to hire you. Turn that information into concrete goals. Make them specific and measurable. For example, “I want to be a full-time writer” is not a goal. “I want to earn an annual salary of at least $35,000 in my first year” is a goal. There’s a concrete income goal, and it’s measurable (you want it to happen over the course of a year). Come up with no more than a handful for your freelance writing career, and what you want your platform to help you do. Write them down.
11. For each goal you’ve listed, I want you to now come up with one or more strategies to do that. The strategies will be the general plan for reaching those goals. For example, given the goal of $35,000 in your first year, a strategy might be to grow your referral network. Strategies don’t have to get more specific than that. Alright. Give it a go!
12. Now you can get more specific. For every strategy, I want you to make a list of every single possible tactic you could use when pursuing that strategy (whether or not it’s something you really want to do). Don’t take the lazy way out and just list the same old crap everyone does (join social networks, join a professional organization, comment on blogs, etc.). List everything (for example, posting just to link to other blogs so they’ll see your site in their trackbacks and maybe come check it out and get to know you, or perhaps taking an adult education course where you think you might meet executives in the industry who are working to further their education).

Okay. You’ve done enough today. Come back tomorrow to have some of your ideas ripped to shreds, and others refined until you have a real working platform-building plan to get you the kind of freelance writing jobs you really want.

Wow. As if we don’t have enough issues in the blogosphere already, now bloggers aren’t just allowing themselves to be “bought,” but they’ve blatantly got the “gimmies.” Yuck.

Now I know we have a good selection of folks here who are both regular blog readers and bloggers themselves, so I’d like your thoughts on this.

1. Should bloggers really feel “entitled” to the same perks as traditional media outlets?

2. Do you have any problem, as a blogger, with the idea of joining a network for the sole purpose of getting free stuff / review copies? Is there a better way to go about it?

3. As a blog reader, would seeing your favorite bloggers actively mooching in this way affect what you think of them in any way (or perhaps how you look at their future reviews)?

Here are some of my own thoughts on those issues:

1. In most cases, absolutely not. Remember, there’s a reason tradional media outlets and journalists are approached with things like review copies. In fact, there are several reasons. They offer a large audience with an interest in what the company’s offering, and they’ve generally been around long enough to build trust with that audience.

Can your blog offer that? More than likely, no. Certainly some blogs are exceptions, but those are also the bloggers companies do approach with review copies already. If you want people to respect you and your opinion on your blog, build it up. Promote it. Build an engaged community of readers. Frankly, as a blogger, that’s your “job.” When you do your job, and do it well, you’ll see the perks.

2. Personally, I find it disgusting that any blogger would publicly exercise a “give me stuff” approach to blogging. Again, there are exceptions. For example, if you write a blog exclusively or primarily focused on book reviews, naturally you’d include your address and submission details somewhere on your blog. But you shouldn’t expect to get submissions until you’ve done what I already mentioned – build the audience and build the trust.

Until you get to that point, it’s your responsibility to secure review material – and yes, that often means paying for it in the early phases. The fact that you can instantly publish something doesn’t entitle you to anything. Anyone can publish a blog these days. You’re probably not as “special” as you think. There’s definitely a better way to go about it, and that’s something I’ve already talked about here.

3. From the reader perspective I find the concept of Serendipstick even worse. If I, for a moment, got the vibe that a blogger I read was “in it for the perks” enough to be blatantly asking for access to free stuff, their credibility would be shot with me. I’d know they were reviewing what they could get for free rather than reviewing what might be beneficial to their readers (including myself). I don’t have enough time in the day to read bloggers with that kind of motivation.

That said, I have absolutely no problem with bloggers actually receiving review copies if it’s for a legitimate reason. What do I mean?

Let’ pick on Heather since it was her comment bringing light to the new site.

Heather blogs about PR and related issues. Heather blogged critically about a certain blogger relations event in the past. Now, if that company were to make changes in their next event, and invite Heather along with the open desire to have her review the event itself as it applies to larger blogger relations issues, that would be effective targeting and relevant to her audience given the past targeting snafus and conversation in her space. As a reader of her blog, I would have absolutely no problem knowing she was invited to a free-access event.

On the other hand, if Heather were to sign up for Serendipstick saying that she wants access to these kinds of events, it would be a different story entirely. Why? Because if you’re flat-out asking for it, the company giving it to you is satisfying your desire. They’re giving you what you want (and asked for), and with that comes a certain implication that you’re not going to say anything “bad” about them – at least not much.

In contrast, if you’re putting your focus on your readers and building your blog, and someone happens to approach you, you’re the attractive party with something to offer and not vice versa. By maintaining that position, you have a better chance of maintaining credibility in what you ultimately publish.

Look, there are certainly perks to blogging, especially after you’re established. But if those perks are the real reason you’re in it, do your readers a favor and just quit. Blogging entitles people to absolutely nothing. Sure, you may feel otherwise, thinking “I don’t get paid for this, so I may as well get something.” But if you really insist on getting something out of your blogging, understand you’ll work your ass off to get to that point. Asking for hand-outs in this way is just sad. If you’re not getting enough from your blogging to justify the time you’re spending, find another way to spend your time.

If you’d like to read more on the issue of whether or not bloggers should be treated as journalists, I have a post at NakedPR detailing a chat with ProBlogger Darren Rowse on the subject: Bloggers vs Journalists.

After reading one of the latest comments about someone doing a radio interview, giving their blog URL (www.IrishPolyglot.com) in the interview, and not seeing any increases in traffic because of it, I decided to start this series (yep, it’ll be a series) discussing radio interviews and ways to make them work for you. The difference is that I’m going to talk about not only how you can get media coverage for your blog, but also for yourself as a freelance writer.

Radio Interviews – Are They Worth It?

I’m a fan of radio interviews (and their cousin – the podcast / Internet radio interview). Perhaps that stems from my background – before focusing on online PR, I worked in music PR. Much of what I did revolved around planning and implementing radio campaigns (getting tracks spun on-air, having artists mentioned or interviewed over the phone, or even having them booked for live on-air interviews and performances).

While I don’t talk about PR much here, at NakedPR I used to periodically mention that musicians tend to be far ahead of most webpreneurs when it comes to using the Web for promotion – the same is true of radio coverage. They know how to “work it.”

Radio coverage is certainly worth it if you can get it. The thing is, you can’t measure radio influence through traffic alone. It isn’t the Web, and it doesn’t work in the same way.

Challenges of Radio Coverage (and what to do about them)

A lot of writers and bloggers neglect radio and podcasts, because they don’t feel it applies to them. In truth, radio and related mediums can apply to anyone – you just have to face its challenges and learn how to use it to your advantage. For example:

1. There’s no direct link. Unless you have a unique phone number or URL setup for your radio campaign, you’ll find conversions can be rather difficult to track. Don’t expect traffic miracles. Instead understand that repeated radio interviews can do wonders for your name recognition. It’s like with press releases – one isn’t going to make your blog famous (likely). It takes repeated exposure to establish you or your blog as an interesting or authority source of information. The more listeners hear you being interviewed or mentioned, the more likely it is they’ll remember your URL or think about you later, deciding to visit your site. The point? Stick with it.
2. Timing is everything. It doesn’t matter if you’re being interviewed on the largest radio station in a major metro area if the timing sucks. If you’re being interviewed during relatively dead airtime, where people simply aren’t tuned in, you won’t see results. If you’re being interviewed when plenty of folks are tuned in, but they’re not in your target audience (meaning they don’t give a rat’s furry little behind what you’re saying, what you do, or what blog you run), you’re also not going to see results. All you can do is know your audience. Can’t get an ideal interview time? See if the show will be archived for you to promote on your own (they can also do wonders to emphasize your authority status with your existing audience).
3. There’s no visual. This is why URLs are tricky in audio promotion. Saying the URL isn’t enough. If someone doesn’t have something to write with, and you happen to spit out your blog URL, they won’t have time to jot that down. This is one of the reasons brandable domain names are so valuable – they’re often memorable. Even if people do try to remember your URL for later, they may have gotten the spelling wrong. Never just say it – spell it aloud. Note any hyphens that may be in that URL. Also watch how you’re pronouncing things – if you sound muddled, you won’t do yourself any favors. Say it slowly. Say it clearly. Enunciate every single syllable. Twice.

There’s a reason musicians tend to do well on the radio, and it goes far beyond the fact that they’re promoting audio-based products. They’re generally more comfortable with the medium, used to presenting themselves orally to an audience in some manner (where others can find it nerve-racking and not come across quite as planned), and they tend to be extremely in-tune with their audiences (when they’re around, what stations they’d be listening to, etc.).

Take a few notes from those artists. Prepare yourself. Prepare your site. And understand that offline promotion has benefits that can far outweigh simple immediate traffic – it’s about exposure and recognition. Instant gratification is a Web thing. It doesn’t quite work that way in the radio world.