Having a blog is a great way to go public with your expertise. In a way, having a blog is like having a PR agent that gets you published in print, web, and even on radio and TV shows.
You may not become a national celebrity (you could) but really, you only need to be what Steven Van Yoder calls “Slightly Famous” to the people you want to reach. You can become locally famous to your potential customers.
How can that happen?
As you blog, you can create content that is suitable to be used for articles, news releases, and talking points for you to use in other media.Don’t shoot for the New York Times, or Time Magazine, work your way up by becoming slightly famous in industry targeted media.
After you have written your articles, news releases and talking points, it’s only a matter of submitting them in the right place to the right people. Networking!
I have seen bloggers take content from their blogs right into the mainstream media even appearing on national television. A good blog post in the form of a 350-700 word article could make great content on a news or magazine website. But it is almost as exciting (and probably as lucrative) to be spotlighted in the highly-targeted, customer-rich industry media.
One morning while having my coffee and looking at the mail, I found a blog post of mine was transformed into the cover story on a print trade magazine I had given permission to use content from my blog. That put my message and URL right in front of the people I wanted to reach and I didn’t have to pay for an ad in the magazine!
An e-book I produced from a blog series I completed had more than 100k downloads and put my message and “business card” in the hands of my targeted audience. Another e-book I wrote landed me scores of print and targeted radio and news interviews.
Here are a few ideas for getting your blog content working for you in other media:
- Turn a series of blog posts into a free e-book your site visitors can download. Send a copy of the e-book with a news release to reporters.
- Write in the format of the magazines and websites you want to target with your articles. That way your style will be a fit for their media.
- Bulleted lists make great radio call in show talking points. Write up a short blurb for each point and send them to show producers.
- Do you have any news? Put together a news release and post it to your blog as you also submit it to editors.
