3 Rules for Success - Rule 2

byUltimateless

3.3K followers

Updated 8 years ago

In case you missed rule number 1

3 Rules for Success - Rule 1

So now you have built trust.

You have written so much that people are beginning to see what kind of person you are. It will come through your writing. They will get the anger, the fun, the seriousness, etc of who you are.

Now comes the next rule;

Rule 2. Engagement

Engagement is not how many times you put posts up on your social media channels.

It reminds me of what people do when they first set up shop. They have a few thousand flyers printed and send them out to the local neighbourhood then they sit by the door in their shop and wait for all this new business to come through their door.

I am afraid that doesn't work in the real world and it doesn't work in this virtual world either.

The only way that it might possibly work is if you have a freebie then your potential customer might make the effort to visit your shop or your site.

No, this is where the real work begins. Engagement is about you going out and talking to lots of people (on the internet) looking at websites and making interesting comments relevant to the post you are reading.

The trick is to visit sites in your niche with large followings and making pertinent remarks, even finding out who owns the site and sending them a personal note on what a remarkable website they have. Be real and be genuine, you won't be the only person that they have received compliments from.

If you are interesting enough, they will search you out. This is what it means to be an authority in your niche. Don't be afraid of that word, 'authority' it just means you have some valuable advice on some area of the market. We all have opinions and yours is just as valid as the next person's especially as it is in the field you know about.

(If you are selling online marketing don't join online marketing groups, they are already doing it, they are not your audience).

If you want people to be interested in you then you have to be interested in them. They will not check you out if all you say is 'Nice website' or words to that effect because that is not useful to the website owner. What they want is detail.

You often think that you have to do this with thousands of websites. No you don't. You do this with a few authority sites that you know have a huge following and work them. Do reviews and let the owner know about it. If you write a very informative review that shows them in a good light, chances are they will do a link to your post.

I did one for a Steampunk coffee shop in South Africa and all of a sudden I had a large influx of people to my website because they had put a link to my post into their website. I didn't even ask them, they just did it.

Why did this happen?

Remember that people use Google alerts for their business and I must have popped up on their radar. Nothing is private on the internet.

Moving on...

If you look at Kyle's pay it forward system, this is exactly what he is talking about, engagement. Giving detailed site comments and site feedback.

Site comments and site feedback is gold. Take a look at my tutorial on this;

Pay It Forward

Collecting followers is a waste of time in my opinion. I noticed that some people have followed others in the tens of thousands and the follow back is substantially less. If you follow 25,000 people you may get 5,000 people follow you back. Don't waste your time.

I follow people who follow me. I started the ball rolling but now it rolls all by itself.

You will notice this on social media, when you look at the engagement it is abysmal. On average I get around 30 people who engage on my posts and I have around 2,000 followers. This is not something I can take to the bank. But it is more engagement than some who have over 10,000 followers. Look on Twitter you'll see what I mean.

If you follow someone you need to engage with them, not just click the button. I always read people's profile and make a comment relevant to their profile. I can't do a lot if all they say is "Hi, I am here..."

Now you understand how important engagement is, you have to be first.

Here I have done a tutorial on a different way to get people to sign up to your website;

Intriguing Sign Up Forms

My 3rd rule is about sales. Don't be afraid. If you've done the work this is the logical conclusion.

3 Rules for Success - Rule 3

I hope you are all having a stupendous weekend.