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My first TV interview for "Write Now" show

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My first Gutsy interview
For the past week, I’ve been preparing for my first TV interview on the “Write Now” show.
It’s not for ABC, NBC, CBS, or CNN; it’s for local Public Access channels in seven cities.
I was asked to talk about blogging and my book, which I always seem to enjoy promoting without having a copy to show, give away, or sell to my audience. Hopefully that will change one day soon.
Surrounded by two men and a nice lady at the round table above, my first question was, “Why did your family move to Belize? For the next five minutes, which seemed more like one, I was asked about our adventures in Belize and whether we succeeded in accomplishing our goals. We then switched to blogging and “How do you grow your audience?” I had to think quickly about all the notes, books and blog posts I’ve read over the last three years on:
Darren Rowse, Problogger.net,
Brian Clark, Copyblogger.com 
Annabel Candy, SuccessfulBlogging,and so many other blogs.I’m fortunate to enjoy marketing and promotion, so it seemed natural to speak about the importance of branding yourself, and how new writers need to focus on growing their platform, three years before publication.Prior to the show, I studied women on TV. What do they wear?
  • Solid colors or prints?
  • Bright or subdued?
  • Long-sleeves or short?
  • Jewelry or not?
After a week of paying attention, I came up with:Solid colors, bright is in, short sleeves are in, necklaces are out, big earrings are in. Even Oprah, follows this color scheme, except she wears sleeves.I have learned many helpful tips from publicity expert, Marsha Friedman’s book, Celebritize Yourself. She has a chapter on, “How to be a great radio or TV guest (and be quoted in the news!)” I also read about the importance of “authenticity” in Women Seen and Heard by Lois Phillips and Anita Perez Ferguson.

I hope to be able to show you the interview on my blog, once the editing is done, and if I get permission.

Have you been interviewed on radio or TV? If so, what was your experience like?

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Is your blog different from other blogs?

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If you want your blog to be successful and draw visitors, you might want to sit down, analyze your blog and dissect it to death. Remember those biology classes you took in school? The ones where you cut open an earthworm and labeled it? Well, that’s what I’m talking about, and before all you SEO experts and gurus laugh at me and say, “What about you Gutsy Writer?” let me tell you, I’m in the process of doing this and realize the changes I need to focus on. Give me a break, it’s a learning process. So what about you? Have you thought about your message, what you want others to get from your blog? Darren Rowse from ProBlogger is running 31 Days to build a better blog, the 31D BBB challenge, and the first day is all about your pitch.

Not easy, and believe me, I can relate. If we take our blogs seriously, we go through stages questioning whether or not we’re on the right track. Here are six questions to help you focus on your goals.

  • What is my message?
  • Who is my audience?
  • Do I stick to a theme or am I all over the place?
  • Should I hire an expert?
  • Can I do it myself and save money?
  • Why can’t I just have fun? (If you’re like me, overcoming challenges can be fun. Did I really say that?)

I read many marketing blogs and books and they always talk about the importance of your pitch, message, or tag line. This applies to blogs, manuscripts, screen plays, whatever you’re creating and wish to share with the world.

So today, I’d like to ask you to reflect on your blog. How is it different from all the others out there? In order to help you take the first steps, how would you classify your blog? (Pick the three most relevant to you.)

Educational
Entertaining
Informative
Motivational
Inspirational
Empowering
Spiritual
Uplifting
Journalistic
Artsy
Financial
Humorous
Promotional
Selling
Other (Please describe in your comment below.)

Useful Marketing Tip: If your goal is to get more followers, then just like getting media attention, your blog needs to focus on being:

  1. Entertaining
  2. Informative
  3. Motivational

Here are three very helpful books I’ve used:

So what is the message you want to share with your readers?
Are there any changes you wish to make with your blog?

10 Social Media Steps You Should Take Today

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US Women
from Velo Steve

I spend my time reading articles on how to improve my social media skills, but often, feel extremely overwhelmed. It’s almost as if technology is whizzing past me and I’m on a bicycle, racing faster and faster, trying to keep up. Perhaps I need a new bicycle.

Like most people, I love to learn, but cannot help myself from dreaming of Belize, where I lived for a year, from 2004-2005, and wrote in my journal, “I’m bored!” What I meant was, I had so much free time on my hands, I remember finishing a 1,000 piece puzzle with my ten-year-old son, Jordan. The next time I sit down to a 1,000 piece puzzle, I shall probably be in a retirement home.

This is not a luxury that most of us writers, bloggers, and self-employed, have in today’s world, where things have turned towards branding and self-promotion. I recently ordered a great book, Celebritize Yourself: The Three Step Method to Increase Your Visibility and Explode Your Business, by Marsha Friedman, an expert on PR and branding yourself.  Marsha clearly points out that becoming a celebrity means, “You’re not really talking about yourself: you’re simply opening a dialogue about what you know, what you learned, what you have to offer and how you can help your listener.”

So first thing this morning, I started reading Eva Kaplan-Leiserson’s article on “10 Social Media Steps You Should Take (But I Don’t Have To)” and now realize which areas I need to focus on. Please read Eva’s article for a detailed explanation on how to accomplish these ten goals.

1. Launch your website. Include such sections as About Me and Contact Me, including a good description of what you do. (Mine is reserved Soniamarsh.com.)

2. Create a blog. (Done) As Eva points out, “Make sure you’re going to post regularly. It doesn’t have to be every day, but it should probably be at least every week, to keep people coming back.”

3. Set up a program like Google Reader for others’ blogs. (I use Google Reader to keep up to date with other blog posts. Do you?) Eva mentions, “There may be some people who still don’t tweet their blog posts.” I hope you do.

4. Start a Twitter account and create a background. (Do you all have Twitter accounts? Let’s connect.) Eva explains the importance of, “Titling your account with either your name or the name of something else you want to brand (your company name, your book name, etc.)”

5. Use a Twitter dashboard like TweetDeck. (I’m doing that today. What about you?) This allows you to “glance columns for people you follow, direct messages, tweets that mention you, even Facebook status updates.”

6. Create a Facebook Page. (Is yours for business purposes?) “If you have a company, create a page for it. It’s important that this be separate from your personal page.”

7. Join a Facebook Group. (I’ve joined several groups. Have you?) “Groups are great ways to keep in touch with certain segments of your friends or get support for certain niche interests or activities.”

8. Set up a Linkedin account. (I have one, do you?. If so let’s connect.) “While more and more people are using Facebook professionally for their companies, Linkedin is still the go-to place for individual professional accounts.”

9. Link to social media accounts on your website. You need big, visible buttons up on your website so that people can easily subscribe to them.

10. Explore other options but don’t get overwhelmed. (I am still figuring this out as I keep learning.) As Eva points out, “it’s better to use a few tools well than create 100 different social media accounts that will look like ghost towns because you never use them.”

Now it’s time for me to race my new bike again. But first the gym to warm-up. What about you?

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