nick usborne's blog

What? Another program on social media marketing?

There seem to be a zillion self-appointed social media gurus out there, half of whom have written a book, ebook, guide or special report of some kind or another.

I thought about this a lot before making the decision to sit down and write a social media program of my own.

The last thing I wanted to do was invest months of writing time, only to serve up something that might repeat what is already out there.

As I was researching the project, here is what I did find:

- Books, courses and programs on how to use Facebook and/or Twitter and/or YouTube.

- Books, courses and programs on marketing with Facebook and/or Twitter and/or YouTube.

- Business books providing a 30,000 feet view of social media marketing.

- And books packed with case studies of successful social media campaigns.

As I worked my way through what had already been published, I began to create a clearer picture of what I could do with my own program, and how to fill the gaps I found in what has already been published.

Here is what I decided.

1. Write a program on social media specifically for freelancers.

I have been a freelancer myself for over 30 years, and have worked with other freelancers for almost as long. This is the audience I know best, and can help the most.

2. Write a program that isn’t focused just on the tools (individual social media sites), but on the practice of social media marketing itself.

Knowing how to use Facebook, for example, is like knowing how to use a hammer. It’s a tool – albeit an amazing one. But whether you are creating a social media strategy, or building a house, choosing the right tools for the job comes last, not first.

This is why my program first looks at how to apply social media strategies and campaigns to achieve specific marketing needs. Only then do I look at which tools are best for each task.

3. Write a program that teaches freelancers how to use social media to help client companies achieve their most pressing goals.

Good luck to you if you approach a prospective client and say, “Social media is the big thing. I can help your company do social media.”

You would be better off saying, “If you have pressing marketing goals you need to achieve, I can show you how to use social media to help achieve those goals.”

Clients say yes when you give them a solution to their most urgent marketing needs.

This is why a whole section of my program focuses on 8 separate business goals that are well suited to social media solutions.

4. Write a program that clearly describes a number of different ways in which freelancers can generate new streams of income with their social media expertise.

It’s all very well reading a book, course or program that tells you all about social media, but it won’t do you much good if it doesn’t also show you how to apply that expertise in ways that will make you money.

That’s why 4 whole sections in my program cover separate ways in which your media expertise can put money in your pocket.

Summing up.

It took about four months to write the program, working five days a week. But I’m pleased with the result.

This program fills the gaps left by all the other books, courses and programs I have come across.

It gives freelancers the social media skills they need to generate multiple streams of income for themselves and their clients.

The course is called How to Make Money as a Social Media Expert.

You can learn more about it here...

 

 

How to compete with algorithmic-based content-creation factories.

It’s nice to think that web content creation starts with a group of writers and editors sitting around a table, brainstorming ideas.

That’s happening less and less.

More often you’ll find content ideas being selected by an algorithm. Spearheaded by Demand Media, this approach involves algorithms determining the supply and demand of topics online and then spitting out headline suggestions...thousands of them every day.

Writers then get $10 - $15 per article written. Because the pay is so poor, even good writers can’t spend enough time to write quality articles, or posts.

The outcome? A flood of low-quality content, with tens of thousands of these short, low-quality pages being published online every day.

- If you are a writer, you’ll have to work extremely hard to make a living writing for this model.

- If you are an online publisher or merchant, you run the risk of severely damaging your brand by becoming associated with low-quality content.

What’s to do?

Differentiate yourself, and your website, by zagging while the algorithms zig.

Focus on quality content. Attract more visitors. Engage more readers. Build your brand. Leverage social media by creating content worth sharing.

It is to help you do this that I created Web Content Café.

In addition to dozens of articles on content best practices, members also get access to a new content idea, published daily.

There are now 76 content ideas in the archive, available to you immediately when you sign up. Then you get a new idea each day, five days a week.

Subscribe for yourself, or have your company or clients subscribe.

And escape the contagion of low-quality, algorithm-generated content, and all the ill-effects that come with it.

More about Web Content Café...

 

The power of saying NO to your customers.

We keep reading about the power of saying yes to our clients. And we keep telling ourselves the customer is always right, even when he or she isn’t.

To provide some relief from this obsession with saying yes, here is an instructive story for you.

Recently a close friend, my son and I went to a small, hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant in Camden Lock, London.

It had one of those scary menus with numbered dishes, from 1 through 195.

We glanced through all the items, settled on some starters and main dishes and called for the waiter.

My friend was the host, and took on the task of placing our orders.

The conversation went something like this.

“For our starters, we’ll have numbers 17, 23 and 34.”

“No.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Not 17, 23 and 34.”

“You don’t have them?”

“Yes, we have them. But they are not good.”

“Oh. So what is good?”

“12, 14 and 21. You have those. They are good.”

“OK. And what about our main dishes?”

“You tell me spicy or mild, fish, chicken, pork or beef. I tell you what’s good.”

An unusual experience, to be sure. But the outcome was that I enjoyed one of the best meals of my life, from a restaurant that didn’t look like much, and from a waiter who kept saying no.

There is a lesson to be learned here. The customer isn’t always right. We can often help our customers and clients best by saying no from time to time.

When we say no to poor quality, and yes to high quality, the outcome is the same as at that restaurant – a happy customer.

This lesson applies to pretty much every business model. In my case, I see it being relevant to the creation of web content. Every day companies ask writers to deliver fast, inexpensive and low-quality content.

Most of the time those writers say yes.

The smart ones say no, and create a reputation and brand for themselves that rises way above the ordinary.

Saying no can be good.

For a menu of over 70 high quality web content ideas, and dozens of articles on content best practices, check out the Web Content Café...

How to make a lot more money as a freelancer, without working any harder.

If you are a freelancer, and are looking for ways to increase your income, this message is for you...

Earlier this year I launched a program called Breakthrough Freelance Success.

I am now re-launching that program under a new name – Profitable Freelancing.

Why the re-launch?  Two reasons.

1. I didn’t much like the original name of the program and wanted to change it.

2. I wanted to bring the price down, by a lot. So I cut out the group-coaching part of the package and am now selling just the self-study program – at about half the price of the original program + coaching.

Here’s a peek at what it’s all about...

Given the same levels of skills, and the same opportunities, no two freelancers will make the same amount of money.

One of them will make more. Sometimes a lot more.

It doesn’t mean he works harder, or for more hours.

It simply means that he or she is working smarter.

She is choosing more profitable clients, or more profitable projects. She is making better use of her time and billing more hours. She is building on her strengths, month by month. And she is finding new ways to leverage her skills and knowledge to create new sources of income.

If you want to be that kind of freelancer, and make a lot more money without having to work any harder, check out Profitable Freelancing.

- The price earlier this year was $497, for the program + group coaching.

- The new price is $297 for the program alone.

- But if you order before July 29th (this Thursday), you’ll save $100 and pay only $197.

For the information you’ll be getting, and the positive impact it can have on your freelance business, that’s a pretty good price.

Learn more about Profitable Freelancing, and buy here...

Your readers are probably getting bored with a constant, relentless diet of articles.

Sure, articles are fast to write, and easy to optimize. But too much of the same old thing just gets boring.

And why subject your readers to more and more articles? There are a ton of ways to offer your visitors more value.

Here are just a few alternatives to articles:

- Interviews

- Slideshows

- Tutorials

- Infographics

- Reviews

- Scoops

- Q&A

The list goes on and on.

Delivering greater value to your readers, through quality content, is what Web Content Café is all about.

In fact, there are 59 web content ideas already listed in the archive at the Web Content Café site right now. And a new content idea is added every day, five days a week.

Plus there are dozens of free and premium articles on the site too.

Who subscribes to Web Content Café?

- Website managers working to inspire in-house writers, add value to their websites and engage more prospects and customers.

- Freelancers wanting to add value to their relationships with their clients, and build their expertise as web content writers.

- Writers of their own money-making websites, looking for content ideas that will attract more search engines traffic, get more social media exposure, engage more readers, and generate more income.

To get instant access to the all 59 web content ideas already on the site, sign up now...

5 Ways in which low-quality web content can damage your business.

Some marketers find the allure of bulk, low-quality content irresistible.  Each page is cheap, and each has the potential to attract search engine traffic. Publish a hundred, a thousand or a hundred thousand of these pages and you can attract a lot of extra visitors to your site.

But...low-quality content can do more damage than good. Read the slideshow for 5 reasons why...

Learn more about the benefits of Web Content Café membership…

Different ways to profit from Web Content Café membership...

Different people profit from their Web Content Café memberships in different ways.

Some are freelancers, and use the daily content ideas to add value to their relationships with their clients.

Some are small business people and use the ideas to attract and engage new visitors to their websites.

Some use the ideas as inspiration for new pages on their own, money-making websites.

And others, like Jana Picou, work for organizations and use the ideas to inspire a group of internal writers.

Here is how Jana leverages her Web Content Café membership:

“I like to start every morning at work by setting aside the first half hour or so reading the day’s content idea. If it’s helpful–which most posts are–I write a short summary or jot down the main ideas and log them in a Word doc.

Some of the ideas I can immediately implement. Others I spend a few minutes brainstorming about how I can use them for my organization’s site in the future. It’s a quick reference for me as well as for sharing new ideas with my boss.

I’ve found the Web Content Café to be one of most efficient ways of getting relevant and current info to web writers – something I appreciate in a fast-paced work environment!

Thanks!”

Jana Picou, Joycemeyer.org

Whether you are a freelancer, are employed, or are writing your own website – you can quickly profit from the daily content ideas you receive as a Web Content Café member.

Learn more about Web Content Café...

Lucky you. You’ll get immediate access to 49 web content ideas on the first day of your Web Content Café membership.

The people who signed up on the day I launched Web Content Café were the brave ones.

They had to take it on trust that I would deliver useful web content ideas, every morning, five days a week.

It’s a much easier choice today.

You still get a fresh idea served daily. But you also get access to the 49 ideas already there in the archive.

That’s like getting a free book of web content ideas as a gift on the day you join.

And let’s say, conservatively, that just 10 of those ideas inspire you to write a new page for your website. That’s 10 new pages which will start attracting new readers and, either directly or indirectly, begin earning you extra revenues.

Content is the lifeblood of any website, for almost every online business model. And the focus at Web Content Café is on creating quality content.

Quality content is what will differentiate your site from others. Quality content is what drives you up higher in the search result listings.

So you might ask me, “Nick, why don’t I wait until there are 100 content ideas in the archive before I sign up? Then it would be like I’m getting two free books.”

Well, you could do that.

But I think you’d do much better to start adding more new pages to your website starting today.

Quality content leads to cash. It makes no sense to wait.  

Learn more about Web Content Café member...

27 Web content ideas so far - and the next one coming at 6:45AM EST tomorrow.

At web Content Café I add a new web content idea every day, five days a week.

That means you can sit down each morning and find the inspiration to write a new page for your website.

- Some of the daily post link to tools you can use to identify page topic ideas.

- Some make suggestions as to the type of content you should be adding to your site.

- Some focus on a content best practice to apply.

- Some help you build strength in new areas, like social media, SEO, content marketing etc.

What is the value of adding a new page to your website each day? Well, you don’t need me to answer that question if any of the following apply to you:

- You want more search engine traffic coming to your site.

- You want your readers to come back to your site more often.

- You monetize your site with affiliate programs.

- You monetize your site with contextual ads like AdSense.

- You want to engage your readers until they are ready to buy.

Quality content is the lifeblood of pretty much every website. You need more pages. You need to attract new readers. You need Google to love your site. You need to engage your readers more frequently.

You know all this. But you also know it’s not always easy to keep coming up with new ideas for quality pages.

Well, that’s what Web Content Café is about.

Learn more about Web Content Café here...

There are now 14 web content ideas posted for members on the Web Content Café.

At the Web Content Café I post a new content idea each morning. I’m now up to 14.

Each idea will inspire you to add a new, high-value page of content to your website. And, as we all know, the more content pages you have on your site, the higher the potential for increased search engine traffic.

That’s the whole point of Web Content Café.

More pages to attract organic search traffic.

More pages written to engage and delight your readers.

More pages that can be shared through social media sites.

And, of course, more pages almost always result in more income, one way or another.

The people who signed up when I first launched the site had to patiently wait for their first few content ideas, day by day.

Sign up now and you can access the first 14 ideas immediately. Plus, you’ll keep receiving new content ideas, delivered fresh daily.

And at any time you can dig in to the dozens of member-only content-best-practices articles already on the site.

Learn more about Web Content Café membership...