New Year — New Marketing Strategy for Your Business
By: Christina M. Ward
Tags: New Year, Goals, Freelance, Business, Writing

Are you thinking of upping your social media marketing for your writing business? Well, me too. After a wild #2020, I’m ready for a little intelligent planning. This year’s been so up and down! It’s time to take the wheel here and start the year right.

Do You Have a Social Media Marketing Plan?

It’s been a few weeks since I implemented a new “card-based” method of organizing articles and project ideas. I could not be more pleased with the outcomes of this time-saving method. Now, it’s time to take it to my marketing plan. Yes, as writers, we need a marketing plan.

Perhaps you are doing the same thing I am right now. Reviewing your numbers for the year. Looking for ways to optimize your time. Making plans for the new year to do better, be more diligent, publish more, make more money? Yes and more yes. Marketing is an integral part of our business and I aim to improve all aspects of my social media marketing for #2021. How about you?

Here are some of my plans, which I do not mind sharing with you. We are all in this together, right? The writing business is hard, but you can be successful. Part of that success is literally being everywhere, all at the same time. We do that by social media management tools that work for us while we write.

My Marketing Plans for #2021 (Yes, you should write yours down too.)

Organize ideas, write and publish using this method and this method.

When a story is completed, move the story “card” over into the “social media campaign” column on Milanote. This means the story is pending my social media management plans for it — mostly scheduled with CoSchedule to post across social media platforms. When this is completed and I have shared the blog post (all over the place) I move the card over again.

Move the card over to “write a newsletter” column. This means I will write a promotional newsletter introducing the story or adding a personal tidbit and sharing the link with my readers.

Final step: Add the title of the article onto an ongoing list of stories to continue with social media management if it is evergreen enough to warrant a follow up social media campaign.

It all sounds like — a lot — but it really isn’t. This is about posting less stories, perhaps, but being very thorough in sharing that work across all platforms and generating engagement from multiple audiences. It’s also about utilizing optimal posting times, targeted hashtags, and deliberate sharing strategies for each blog post I do.

In my opinion, writing and tossing work ‘out there’ without this streamlined, results-oriented follow-up is like singing in a soundproof room. Kinda self-serving and pointless.

And I have been doing far too much of this; post, publish, write more things, repeat. I realize I have been dropping the ball as far as marketing goes because the content mills kind of make you want to run faster and faster until you are dizzy. Can you relate?

Don’t let that hamster wheel make you forget you are here for a reason. To write, yes, but to promote yourself and your own work. You have personal goals for your writing, your lifestyle, your finances. We get distracted by the bottom lines of the platforms for which we work — they want us to post more and promote, keep their larger audiences fed. Keep the wheel turning. Gain new supporters — of the platform. While we are here for self-promotion, earning our own fanbase, and earning a living.

Don’t lose sight of the goals you have for yourself and your work. Going into your new year consider the following:

Analyze your writing output.

Analyze your readership and engagement.

If your output far outweighs the engagement you are receiving from your target audiences (and assuming quality is not the problem) — marketing is your issue.

Medium-Specific Marketing Strategies

There are several marketing techniques that work well for Medium writers. I have covered a few of them in this article which outlines 12 creative ways you can share your work. After navigating the Medium site for almost 2 years, here are the techniques I find work best:

Vary your publications. New audiences, new followers, new eyes. This means you have more chances to be seen with the algorithm planning out who sees what on their homepage. Get in too much of a lane and you limit your audience.

New audiences, new followers, new eyes. This means you have more chances to be seen with the algorithm planning out who sees what on their homepage. Get in too much of a lane and you limit your audience. Engage with other writers. Introduce yourself. Read pieces that other writers write on the topics you write about. Leave comments there — good comments. Chances are their audience would also like your work and may see your well-written comment and follow you.

Introduce yourself. Read pieces that other writers write on the topics you write about. Leave comments there — good comments. Chances are their audience would also like your work and may see your well-written comment and follow you. Social media marketing is not optional if you want to be successful on Medium.

if you want to be successful on Medium. Polish your work. There’s no way around this. If your work is subpar, all the marketing in the world won’t help.

There’s no way around this. If your work is subpar, all the marketing in the world won’t help. Headlines. Headlines. Headlines. Write headlines that get people’s attention and articles that deliver what that reader clicked to see. Your social media marketing is out there working hard to get people to see your work — it is your headlines that makes them click to read your work.

Write headlines that get people’s attention and articles that deliver what that reader clicked to see. Your social media marketing is out there working hard to get people to see your work — it is your headlines that makes them click to read your work. Interesting graphics. Choose photos for your work that are aimed at your target reader’s interests. Eye-catching helps readers to see your story on social media shares, on the Medium homepage, or on the pages of various publications.

I’m not going to hound you about newsletters or email marketing, but you know this is necessary. I don’t rely on it as much as some other writers I see — but it is a part of my overall strategy. If anything, it reminds people of your name and face so they remember you. Establish credibility with well-written newsletters and emails. They’ll come to your work if you interest them and provide value to their lives.

I don’t know what 2021 will bring us all, but you can bet, I’ll be going at it full force. This is my livelihood. This is my dream. I take it very seriously. And if you want to do the same, get on board the hustle train.

Choo — mother-effing — CHOO.

Now, let’s do this.

~Thanks for reading.