As more and more people turn towards social media to socialize with others, popularity over the idea of sharing ideas and building a platform online has only grown. Socialization on the Internet started out with text based chats, and then grew when multimedia platforms like Facebook were launched.

People would share photos and captions that showcased their lives and personal thoughts about the world. Then, video creation grew in popularity and became a main form of content creation throughout many social media apps.

Each social site would adapt and come up with new features that focused on shorter video production. As more and more people begin to focus on becoming creators and entrepreneurs in the online world, they’ll have to learn how to evolve with content trends.

Audio social media sites enable people to take in new content and ideas while working on the things that they need to focus on, completing two tasks at once. This opens up a completely new world for content creators.

These audio sites have been bringing in a huge increase in traffic, which gives businesses and entrepreneurs a new platform to take on. While other niche marketers are still stuck on Facebook, you can position yourself as a top leader on audio socials that have a hungry target audience.

Use Social Audio to Conduct Market Research

When you join an audio social media app, you gain the opportunity to conduct market research in order to learn more about your target audience. You don’t even have to participate in the discussions.

Just join different rooms or groups that are talking about topics that pertain to your business and career. This is a free way to gather information about your audience, and to learn how to become as approachable and as efficient as you can be.

Taking advantage of the opportunities that audio social media apps produce will be rewarding for your business as an entrepreneur. Listen in on real time live conversations with those who fit your audience.

Take notes on their desires and dislikes, so that you can build your business into something that makes a majority of your target audience happy. Focus on what problems they have with products or ideas that are a part of your business, and work to cater to their needs.

This method requires patience. You may hear things you don’t want to hear, and it can be challenging to accept negative opinions about your own business or the niche that your content fits.

But the importance of this method is to observe and listen, and make sure your followers’ opinions are heard. You can ask questions, but spend some time gather information instead of entering an audio room just to hear yourself speak.

Build a Rapport with Your Audience

Building a solid rapport with your audience is essential when searching for a loyal audience that will always support you and your entrepreneurial endeavors. There are a few methods you can try in order to establish a relationship with your audience.

Personalize your brand. Your business and brand needs a human presence behind it, so that people can feel more connected to your goals and overall mission. Putting a voice out there and talking about your passions and goals will draw people in.

Everyone loves to see someone succeed when they have worked hard to get to where they are. Allow your viewers to see the full picture of why you do what you do. You can be transparent and share your previous struggles to show vulnerability and how strong you are now.

Build a bond with your followers. Interact with your followers to let them know that you care about what they think, so that they feel as if the relationship goes both ways. And if you show genuine kindness and support towards the people who support you, it will be a strong bond that won’t ever become one-sided.

It doesn’t hurt to become friends with those who want you to succeed, and you may find some people who can help you along the way that you wouldn’t have had by your side without the effort coming from you.

Share personal advice and experiences. If you have been working on your business and career for awhile, you will have insight on getting started and mistakes to avoid along the way.

You can share your journey with others and the things you have learned, which will likely inspire others and bring in an audience that admires you. You can earn other people’s respect when you show your credibility as a creator.

You can also use audio social media sites as a place to share experiences and advice with other creators in a type of collaboration. This is a great way to network for cross-promotion opportunities, guest blogging and even product partnerships.

Interact with your audience to answer their concerns. People will always have questions, and some may be skeptical about supporting a business or creator that they don’t know enough about.

When you work to answer your audience’s questions truthfully and informatively, it will give them more of a reason to give you their full support and attention. With audio social apps, it’s a live interaction, so you can have a back-and-forth conversation that really helps your listener.

Build a close-knit community. Establishing a type of exclusivity with your audience will make other people want to join in. Using live rooms to build unique experiences can make other members want to tune in so they don’t end up hearing how they “should have been there” to hear the funny jokes and interesting stories that you shared.

Make your audience feel like they are special and show them your appreciation so that they can feel as if they are a part of something incredible. Make your schedule known so people can set aside time to attend an audio event you’ve set up.

How to Use Clubhouse to Your Advantage

Clubhouse is an app that offers a space to discuss a wide variety of topics with people around the world, with only one major rule: you can only use your voice. With no camera or text option, you are left to improve your speech and communicate your thoughts and opinions as you would with in-person conversations.

This walkthrough will help you get things started so that you can make the most of social audio. First, get set up. You need to sign up as a creator through the app (which can be found for both Android and iOS) with your full name and phone number.

Customize your personal profile. In order to draw others in and grow your engagement, it’s recommended that you create a bio and include a friendly profile photo that will make you seem more personable.

Create a club. When you create your own club, you can begin to market and build on your brand. Make sure that you fully customize your club to show everything that your business or brand is about, so that the niche your business fits will be shown.

Once you’re set up, you’ll start using the app. Invite people to join your club that you’ve created. If you know of any members who may be interested in your business, or even have some friends or colleagues who are willing to join and set a base following for you, make sure to invite them.

Finding an initial following may be challenging at first. Set up your first meetup or show. Setting up a meetup will allow members to converse with you about your business and the topic of your creator niche.

This could be helpful with building a community and answering any frequently asked questions that may come up along the way. Setting up a show is a great way to build a following by talking about your product and giving members as much information on that topic as possible.

You will be able to host a show that will be informative and draw people into your business. Host more events, meetups, and shows over time. Don’t make it a one time occurrence.

Your members and guests will have something to look forward to when you schedule new events, meetups, and shows for them to attend and it gives them time to think of questions.

You can talk about products or different topics that go along with your business, so that you can reach a wider audience. You also need to consider strategies for the marketing aspect of Clubhouse.

Attend other events and join other creator’s clubs. This will allow you to market with other creators that may have similar businesses and goals in mind. You may be able to talk to other creators and learn strategies or helpful tips, and it could bring some valuable friendships or partnerships into your life.

As you communicate with others in the same industry, you’ll be able to gain a larger audience as well. Collaborate with other creators. If you join a room and get along well with the creator who has a business similar to yours, you may want to consider co-hosting some events or meetings.

This method will be beneficial for both of you, since you will be able to join your audiences together. Make sure you know and trust the other individual because you don’t want to be associated with someone consumers find untrustworthy.

Spotify’s Greenroom Isn’t Just for Musicians

Spotify’s Greenroom is another social media app that utilizes live audio feeds to bring people together based on their interests. Besides niche leader, this app is also targeted towards musicians who can use this addition of Spotify to connect with fans.

There was an app called Locker Room that focused more on sports, but Spotify bought it and used the original coding to develop Greenroom. This walkthrough will take you through the steps of getting set up, and reaping the full benefits of this audio social media app.

Get set up by connecting your Spotify account. If you have a Spotify account, you can easily login and continue on. Greenroom utilizes Spotify’s personalization strategies, so content you see will be chosen for you based on your history and interests.

Create an account. If you don’t have a Spotify account, that’s okay! You can simply sign up for a new account on the Greenroom app. Create a room. Anyone can create a room, and all you’ll need is a title and topic.

Once you’ve picked a topic, you will be able to go live and allow other people to join. Make sure to go with a topic that goes along with your content or business. Keep the recording.

Spotify records each room session for moderation purposes, but you can use that for your own benefit. You’re able to save the recording and edit it, and turn it into a podcast. This will give you more content for your other social media platforms.

Strategize your marketing of Spotify’s Greenroom. Select featured topics. Greenroom enables you to select specific topics to get notifications and updates about, so you can always stay educated about news in your niche or specific target audience.

These topics will also help creators listen in on other creators and work together by sharing ideas. If you can remain constant in some groups with specific creators, you may be able to work together to produce content for both of your businesses.

Fuel a Growing Audience with a Fireside Chat

Fireside Chat is an exclusive audio social media app that requires an invite in order for you to talk live. There is also an option to apply, and you will answer some questions to see if you qualify for now.

Mark Cuban’s podcasting platform is designed to showcase notable people and the stories and ideas that they have to share. Getting set up requires you to request access first.

In order to become a creator on this app, you have to fill out a questionnaire with some personal information and state your business on the app. Once you have been accepted, you can go forward to creating your profile and customizing your content space.

When you’ve been accepted and gained access to Fireside Chat, the rest of the journey is easy. You’ll just need to set up a fully customized profile, and then you’re ready to go. Start by picking a topic.

Select a topic that fits the industry you are involved in, get ready, and then go live. If you can schedule out a later date for your talk, you can build anticipation and future views by sharing it on other social media platforms and encouraging your followers to tune in.

Strategize your marketing and business building aspect of Fireside Chat by selling tickets to events. This app allows you to sell tickets for your live events to generate extra revenue.

If you can build a crowd of fans that anticipate your live shows and talks, then this will be a great way to make more money for your business. Stream your show to other platforms.

Fireside Chat enables the live stream to stream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. This allows you to reach a wider variety in audience, and expand your platform. Insert ad breaks to generate revenue.

If you’re looking to make some extra money to support your business, inserting ad breaks after you’ve gained a solid following will help you out. Embrace the app’s reputation.

Fireside Chat boasts about their drive for only quality content, so users are drawn to the app to listen. Since the app has less creators than others, your platform will appear more exclusive, which will draw in an audience.

Share Audio Snippets on Racket

Racket is an audio social media site that allows short micro podcasts that can last up to 99 seconds. This will keep viewers engaged and open up the opportunity to explore content from many different creators in one sitting.

The following walkthrough will give you an idea of what to expect from Racket, and how to make the most out of this option. Get set up by signing up first. You’ll have to come up with your own username and password, but getting signed up is simple.

Once you’ve signed up, you can customize and edit your profile. Creating a post that’s 99 seconds (early versions of the app gave you up to 9 minutes). Once you’ve created an audio file that you want to post, you just have to supply a cover photo and title, and then you can post it.

The whole process can be completed in less than a minute. Utilize tags. Like many other social media apps, tags are important in order to send yourself onto other people’s explore pages.

As long as you choose tags that fit your topics and industry, the right audience will find you. Strategize for the business building aspect of Racket. Much like TikTok, this app explores the idea of an algorithm that enables members to find many different unique content creators, by bringing the creators’ content to them.

You do have shorter times for content. By limiting the length of audio podcasting, users will be able to take in more content by different creators, instead of listening to an hour long podcast that is by one singular creator. This also makes the editing process simpler, which means you will be able to release more content that focuses over a wider variety of topics.

The business model of coaching isn’t reserved for famous experts or those who have a PhD and can tout decades of experience and endless publications. Any niche leader who wants to utilize the Internet as their platform for working with groups and individuals can create and sell coaching programs.

It’s really not very different from putting out a digital info product, except in the way it can be delivered (and even then, sometimes there may be no difference). Don’t let the concept of becoming a coach intimidate you.

In order to thrive with this business model, though, you need to understand what decisions you’ll need to make, such as pricing and delivery – and learn what makes this a wonderful experience for your client so that they’ll continue buying coaching sessions from you and spread the word of your coaching to others.

Decide on Your Online Teaching Method

The first thing you want to do when planning your online coaching business is to select a teaching method that works best for you. There are a few different aspects to this decision.

First, you need to decide what type of coaching you will offer in terms of the number of participants. You can choose to have a one on one coaching arrangement with each client, or offer group coaching if the topic allows for it.

Next, you will need to decide how you want the coaching to proceed. You can develop coaching programs that are dripped out to your customers in a way where they are prerecorded or prewritten.

Or, you can choose to have a live coaching session with your client or group. If you choose to deliver your coaching advice in a live setting, then you can decide what kind of tool you would like to use to connect you with your customer.

There are a number of different types of tools, including Zoom, Skype, and more. Some of them are free and some of them have paid tiers. You may not need more than the free version – but if you do, make sure that the one you are paying for has all of the features that you require.

Set Up Your Coaching Workspace

Whether you are recording the coaching or conducting it live, you’ll want to have a workspace that not only reflects professionalism to your client in terms of background, but also gives you the proper surroundings to work free of clutter.

When you’re in a messy workspace, it serves as a distraction for both you and your client. You want to choose a space where you’ll be comfortable physically. Make sure you have ergonomic furniture and good lighting so that you don’t strain your eyes.

If you don’t feel as if your background is clean or nice enough looking, you can always buy a screen or room divider on a site like Amazon that has the look you want. Worst case scenario, just record or hold your session in front of a blank wall.

You may want to get a whiteboard with markers that you can hang on the wall and be able to jot things down for your coaching client, or draw something to showcase an idea or concept.

Position Yourself as a Go to Expert

When you are going to launch a coaching program where you recruit clients, you have to be confident enough to position yourself as an authority figure in your niche. You can’t be shy about your expertise.

It doesn’t matter if there are dozens of other leaders in that niche. You have to be willing and able to add your name to that list so that your prospective client has a choice about who they hire as an online coach.

You don’t have to go so far as to say you are the absolute best in the business. What you can do is be transparent with your site visitors about why you chose to be a coach, what you can do for them, etc.

Branding will be a benefit to you online because it gives you the opportunity to set yourself apart for what you want to be known for. You can develop a unique selling proposition (USP) that helps people differentiate you from what other coaches have to offer.

Price Your Offer Competitively and Professionally

Pricing is one sticking point that many online entrepreneurs struggle with, regardless of which business model they choose. You will have to put a number on your coaching sessions, no matter how intimidating the process seems.

Keep in mind that coaching, whether it is one on one or in a group setting, is a step above simply purchasing a digital info product and being left on your own to implement it.

With coaching, the client is able to have a little more handholding and feedback on what they should do as well as what they may be doing wrong. So it should be priced at more than what an info product would cost.

You can scout out coaching programs from your competitors and see what the going rate is in your niche. You have to make sure that the coaching is comparable. For example, if they are offering half an hour, and you plan to offer an hour, then that will affect the pricing plan.

If you are just starting out, you’ll want to be competitive with your pricing, yet still choose a professional number. Underpricing your coaching program doesn’t always impress the prospective client.

It may make them see you as a lesser coach. Sometimes, people are willing to pay a little more for someone who values their skill and talent. They may not want the bottom of the barrel, yet they still want a good deal.

Put Your Client at Ease Before Their Session

When you do have clients who have signed up for coaching, you will want to put them at ease before their session. For many of your customers, this will be their first experience in hiring a coach of any kind.

The first thing they need to know is that coaching with you will be conducted in confidentiality. They need to feel reassured that you will not create videos and discuss their problems and personal issues with the general public.

Another thing you need to do is make sure that you understand their expectations. Be sure and talk to them before they sign up for coaching about what they hope to see from your guidance.

That way, you’ll be able to meet their needs without having to guess at what they want to achieve. In most cases, coaching will be a hybrid of established lessons, mixed with those that are tailored for each individual.

You need to discuss with your coaching client the things they need to do ahead of time, before each session in order to be prepared. What do they need to show up with, or what do they need to be thinking about?

They don’t want to sit and waste a bunch of time brainstorming while on the coaching call. If they have these preliminary requirements mapped out, they will be able to show up and immediately begin discussing them with you without hesitation.

You also want to make sure that you, as a coach, are prepared before each session. Time is valuable for everyone, not just you. They need to know that they can get on a coaching call with you and you will not be searching for supplies or scripts that you want to work from.

Show Your Clients That You’re Present for Their Needs

Whenever someone signs up for coaching, it’s usually because they don’t want to take a journey alone. They need that extra handholding and guidance that comes from hiring a coach to tailor their mission for them.

You want to prove to your clients that you are there for them and that you are tuned into their needs. That means that there are moments where you will focus on listening to what they have to say, rather than speaking over them or interrupting them.

You don’t want to be multitasking during the coaching session. If you are constantly looking away from the camera at your computer to do something else, or otherwise not focused on them during the session, they will feel as if your attention is being misdirected and they aren’t getting their money’s worth.

Have Positive Energy That Motivates Your Client

The people who are hiring you to conduct coaching sessions with them may be coming to you in a state where they lack confidence or the right mindset to succeed with their goals.

It is imperative that you show up ready to serve them with an attitude that supports them when they are feeling down or unsure of themselves. Even if you have had a rough day, you should show up to your coaching sessions with an abundance of positive energy.

If you come to the coaching session feeling unsure of yourself as a coach or burdened by negativity, it will be visible and apparent to your client. They will be more apt to purchase additional coaching sessions from you if they leave feeling as if they are uplifted and ready to tackle the world.

Each of your coaching sessions should end on a good note. You want to boost their mood before they hang up with you so that they are armed with enough confidence and positivity to carry out the action steps that will put them closer to their goals.

Supplement Text with Images, Audios and Video Components

Regardless of whether you conduct live video coaching sessions or you create the coaching programs ahead of time, you want to use a variety of media formats. Using live video interaction does not replace supplemental learning materials.

You can use a mixture of image, audio, and video components to help explain a certain concept or simply give them something they can see, watch or listen to after the coaching session is over to reinforce the lesson.

You can use infographics, slide presentations, screen capture videos, podcast episodes and more to add additional elements to your coaching program. It’s really not very different from someone who signs up for a class where a professor teaches a lesson, but the student also has additional materials such as a textbook or workbook.

Sell More Sessions

When you attract a client to your coaching program, you don’t want to simply sell one coaching session. You want to have repeated business with each client or group. In order to achieve that, you have to have some way of enticing them to purchase more.

You can start by developing package deals for your coaching program. Instead of just charging $100 for a single coaching session, you could have a package deal where they get $50 off if they purchase five sessions.

You can have different tiers for this, too. For example, if you wanted to, you could have an even steeper discount if the client purchased a package of 10 coaching sessions. Or, you can have a deal where if they purchase a certain number of sessions, they get one free.

Another thing you can do in regards to increasing your profits in your coaching business is to develop certain upgrades for your coaching program. For example, you might have a coaching program where you help someone through the process of launching their own digital info product.

An upgrade idea for that might be for you to personally evaluate their product thoroughly and give feedback on what they could do different or better. You might be able to throw in certain services, such as copywriting or graphics for their site.

Prepare for Coaching Interruptions

Make sure that when you are getting ready for your coaching business, you’re also preparing for things that can get in the way of it. If you are writing an info product, interruptions aren’t as damaging.

But if you are on a live coaching call with one or more individuals, interruptions and delays can make it appear unprofessional. There are some things that you may not be able to avoid.

For example, if the Internet happens to go out in your area, you may not have a way around that. But if there’s anything you can do, such as getting on your smartphone and using data, you should do it to avoid missing a coaching call.

Some things, such as interruptions by family that lives with you or even pets, can be handled ahead of time so that you don’t have to deal with them in the middle of a call. You need to make sure that everyone understands the boundaries and that you have done everything possible, such as feeding or taking the dog out before your call so that they are not whining while you are on with a client.

Illness is another thing that can interrupt your coaching business. It’s inevitable that everyone will suffer from a minor or major illness at some time. If you are not feeling well, or need to take off for some reason, make sure you notify your client as soon as possible and make up the session with them.

In the world of online marketing, there are products and there are challenges. A challenge, in this regard, is not a negative thing such as an obstacle is. Instead, a challenge is an event where you are able to push yourself in order to achieve a goal.

For some people, having others lead them in a challenge where they can build camaraderie with others is very motivating. As a senior online marketer, you can use a challenge to your benefit in two different ways.

First, you can host a challenge in order to get more subscribers and to showcase your expertise. Second, you can host a paid challenge where you charge for entry and guidance.

One of the great things about hosting a challenge is that your lessons do not necessarily have to be completed ahead of time. So you could start today and work on the challenge as you go.

Challenges can have daily or even weekly content for participants to absorb. You can give them how-to tutorials, motivational tips and inspiration, and have check-ins to gauge how participants are coming along.

Challenges Increase Engagement and Excitement

When you are the host of a challenge event, it excites your core audience because it’s an opportunity for them to achieve something they’ve been struggling with. They know they won’t be alone and they know they will have an expert helping them along the way.

If you’re using this event to build a list, then you may want to host a free challenge so that you get more subscribers onboard to test out your leadership and knowledge. Your reputation will only grow as participants in the challenge exchange comments and share their successes and struggles.

In these moments, you will either have social proof that what you are teaching is working or the opportunity to help get a subscriber on the right track for all to see. This is a good way for nervous senior online entrepreneurs to build confidence in their ability to lead, too.

You can host your challenge publicly or privately. If you host it privately, others will not be able to see the engagement. However, it makes it more exclusive. It gives people a reason to get on your list to have access.

And just like a marathon where the streets are lined with others cheering them on, your participants will enjoy receiving the support of others who have joined in to have access to your guidance so they can meet their goals.

Get Them to Declare Their Goals and Hold Them Accountable

One thing you never want to do is leave a challenge wide open to where participants have no set finish line. You want them to have a measurable goal that can be attained through your leadership in this event.

Otherwise, they may not achieve the milestones they need to complete their goal, leaving them feeling disappointed in the challenge – and in you. Early on in the event, after you explain what the process will be and how it will work, you want to have each participant declare a specific goal.

They can do this publicly or privately with you, but you need to be able to see where they want to go so that you can help them get there. You’ll also be able to see if their goal is unrealistic or too easy.

Don’t let them set a vague goal. It need to be specific, like the completion of a 50-page eBook, the loss of 20 pounds, or 100 sales of their first fiction publication. It needs to be detailed.

Some will need you to help them set their goals for the timeframe within which they’ll be working. For example, if you are hosting a weight loss challenge, and they need to lose 100 pounds total, you would help them set a mini goal for the 60 day challenge.

Your challenge can be any length that you want. It can be a set number of days or a certain number of lessons. It can also be to achieve one specific goal without a timeframe, such as writing and publishing the first fiction novel.

They can always go at their own pace. Different participants will have different time available to devote to the challenge, so it’s best not to force them to stay on a certain timeline to complete the challenge lessons.

Once the reader has set their goal and conveyed it to you, you’ll need to hold them accountable as time goes on. This does not mean you routinely scold them to the point where they feel shame and guilt.

It simply means you are able to motivate them and remind them of what they want to achieve, and why. Knowing why they have set their goals is important for you to be able to tap in to the emotions that will help drive them.

Periodically within your challenge, you might have everyone check in with their current milestones to see who is struggling and who is ahead of the curve. Often, you will be able to use the participants who are succeeding as examples and even fellow leaders who can assist you with the needs of those who are being left behind.

Your challenge group will be like a community for them, rather than an individual journey. The camaraderie they will enjoy is part of what will make your blog feel like “home” to them online.

Showcase Your Expertise By Providing Guidance Throughout

As the challenge host, it will be your job to help them achieve a goal that they otherwise couldn’t do on their own. They may have taken courses, read books, and tested things that just didn’t work out.

They’ll be looking to you for the right information that holds the key to their success. Therefore, before you even get started with your challenge, you need to have your lesson plans mapped out.

You can create a course of your own for this challenge, curate lessons from other individuals who have given good advice to the public, or use a hybrid model of the two. Always make sure that you are giving credit to other leaders if you are pulling their advice (not their content) into your challenge.

This does not negate your own leadership and expertise. It merely shows that you are good at sourcing the best information for their needs. One thing you don’t want to do in a challenge situation is throw too much at your audience at once.

Your lessons should be bite sized and easy to implement. Because these people have struggled with their goal in the past, they will already have a mindset of defeat. You want to give them baby steps to absorb so that they accumulate many small successes along the way.

This will boost their confidence and allow them to reach the finish line easier. So for instance, if you were hosting a challenge about how to publish your first info product, you wouldn’t just have lessons for product creation, sales copy, affiliate recruitment, etc.

Each one of those topics would be broken down into miniature lessons for your participants. For info product creation, you would have one lesson on idea brainstorming.

You might even have multiple lessons on that if you have different methods of brainstorming, so they’re not all grouped into one. You would have another lesson on outlining your product.

Another lesson could talk about how to format the book or course. If there are multiple ways to do something, then you would split those ideas up into separate lessons rather than present a buffet of choices all at once.

You never want them to end a day in your challenge feeling overwhelmed and confused. Each lesson should be clear and concise. Don’t worry if the lesson seems short.

This is more doable for your audience than if you presented them with hour long lessons every day that they would find hard to work into their schedule. Every time your audience reaches out to you through the group or in a one on one email, you want to take account of what it is they’re asking for help with.

At times, you will realize that your lesson has missed the mark in some way. Maybe it wasn’t clear, or a question went left unanswered. These are opportunities for you to create additional bonus lessons to share with your audience.

This is one reason why it works to create your challenge as you go. If you did a lesson on brainstorming your info product, and received several questions about that topic, you would be able to create an additional lesson to send out the following day, rather than moving onto the next topic.

Then, after the challenge is complete, future participants would find everything laid out in a logical order. After the initial challenge is complete, you can bring on a second wave of participants, or leave it open for people to join at any time.

Make a Big Deal Out of the Winners and Participants

Whenever people sign up to participate in any event, they like to be recognized for their hard work. Even those who are shy and take a back seat to public engagement usually like to be acknowledged by the host.

Consider it like a dinner party where you would greet every guest upon arrival and thank them for coming at the end. It’s no different when hosting a challenge. You want to welcome everyone and individually get to know your participants so that you can offer personalized assistance.

Be sure to keep the confidentiality of each of your participants during the challenge. There will be some who feel more than comfortable sharing everything with the group. There will also be those who privately communicate with you because they are shy or simply don’t want their information put out there.

If someone asks a personal question they need help with via email, either ask them if it’s okay to share with the group – or, if the question needs to be turned into a complete lesson, make sure you do it anonymously.

Anytime a participant helps a fellow participant or answers a question that you feel is beneficial for the group, make sure you give them credit and thank them publicly for stepping in to lift up those who are struggling.

They will be the ones who are making your challenge that much more special. They will be cultivating the feeling of community that you want your challenge participants to experience.

At the end of the challenge, you may have people who have achieves their goals or won a competition, if you set your challenge up to have a leaderboard of some sort. Sometimes, having winners wouldn’t be feasible.

But other times, it might help push your audience to perform. For example, you could do one for the most pounds lost, the most sales for an info product creation, etc. But if you are in a niche like relationships, there’s no measurable goals you can use to determine who has won ahead of others.

You want to make a big deal out of those who win. You can have prizes, recognition, etc. If you’re teaching your participants how to publish their first fiction book, then you might pay for them to have some promotional graphics made or simply write a review blog post about their upcoming release.

It doesn’t have to be a monetary prize. Recognition and acknowledgment can go a long way, too. While you want to highlight those who have succeeded with your advice and pushed themselves to achieve their goals, you always want to make sure that others who failed in the task do not feel ashamed or left behind.

They may be suffering from guilt or frustration at their lack of being able to succeed when everyone else around them seems to have achieved their goal. Make sure you acknowledge the advances they have made toward their goal, and offer to stay in touch and help them until they reach the finish line.

Have an Ending That Leads to More Great Things

As your first challenge, and subsequent challenges come to an end, you want to snowball your success into something more. If you have hosted a free challenge, then you can parlay this expertise you have shared freely into sales of your paid, and more advanced courses.

This is one reason why it’s so important to share extreme value in your free gifts and free challenges. If you are willing to give a lot of value at no cost, customers will trust you and be willing to send you money for a paid product.

You now have a list of subscribers who have participated in your challenge. You can turn these into profits in the future by recommending courses and tools that others have put on the marketplace as well.

As an affiliate marketer, they will be able to trust your advice and want to spend money on things you recommend because you have stayed above the board throughout your challenge in guiding them previously.

Always make sure that you never stray from giving good advice, even after the challenge is complete. You don’t want to ruin your reputation after you have worked so hard to prove your worth to your target audience.

One thing you can do is continue rolling out more courses that are created as challenges. You don’t have to simply sell video modules or eBook courses for them to consume on their own.

Many people will love and appreciate the challenge format, where they are drip fed lessons along the way, and have the opportunity to engage with you and others who are on the same journey.

If this format works well for you, then you might want to leave your first challenge as a free option, and subsequent ones as paid challenges. You can even have tiers of challenge participants if you would like to.

For example, a top-tier entry into your challenge, which costs a little more, might include a phone or zoom consultation once a week. Instead of having winners who were acknowledged, you might offer some perks to different tiers.

For example, an upper tier participant who completed his or her goal might receive a set of five customized blog posts they can use, or a review of their product in its finished form.

What you don’t want to do is complete your hosted challenge, only to disappear into the background of your niche when it’s over. You want to stay at the forefront as a leader, always developing new lessons to help guide your audience.

You don’t have to do another challenge. You can create eBooks, courses, offer both individual and group coaching, and more. Keep the momentum going and you will develop a loyal fanbase who is eager to consume everything you put out.

Try to have a game plan for your follow up monetization strategy before you even create your first challenge. This first one can be used for list building and branding. But subsequent ones should deliver a monetary reward for you.

This can snowball into more online income if you create an entire line of challenges. Make sure you emphasize the personal care and consideration they will receive when they sign up, because this is one area often lacking in a consumer’s journey of learning how to do something.

Regardless of which niche you’re in, or which business model, there’s a high chance that content will be the foundation of how you brand yourself, generate traffic and convert visitors into sales.

The volume of content you need to succeed is enormous, ranging from lead magnets to info products, email autoresponders and more. While many of your competitors are struggling to figure out what to say, and what to do with their content, you want to have a plan in place so that your content marketing is strategic and effective.

Very little thought goes into most marketers’ content. They might look for a keyword phrase, but that’s about all they do. If you take 30 days to set up a systematic approach to your content creation and usage, you’ll be outperforming your competitors right out of the gate.

The following tasks include a mix of action-oriented steps and tactical decisions that will help you attract the lion’s share of audience attention in your niche. It will also speed up the implementation of your content creation and usage so that you’re leading the way in terms of consistency and creativity.

Day 1: Have a Customer Avatar in Mind for Your Content Marketing Strategy

One of the most important things you can do before creating content is to think about who you are writing or recording it for. Many marketers make the mistake of coming up with an idea and writing it for their own point of view.

But as a niche marketing leader, you may have a different viewpoint than that of the person following you. For example, you may be coming at a topic from a position of experience and expertise, while your reader is uninformed about the topic and needs more clarification.

One thing that can help you create content with your reader in mind is to come up with an avatar of the individuals who will be consuming your written and recorded words. There are many things you can consider when you begin developing this avatar.

For example you can take into consideration their gender, age, financial status, marital status, geographic location, interests, and more. You can even factor in specific things such as pain points or successes that they may have experienced in the past.

Once you have this avatar, or multiple avatars in place, it will help you create content that is more targeted to your readers, rather than just spoken from a position of authority in the niche. Your audience will feel as if you “get them” more than if you simply stated facts or shared ideas from your sole perspective.

Day 2: Create a Content Marketing Schedule You Can Work With

When it comes to creating a viable content marketing strategy, consistency will be your biggest blunder if you neglect to include it in your planning stages. Whether you are looking to cater to search bots or human visitors, both will want to see frequent content coming from the leaders they respect and listen to.

Don’t feel as if you have to publish dozens of pieces of content each and every day. Daily content is definitely a goal to aim for, but even if you can’t publish content that frequently, putting yourself on a consistent schedule, such as three days per week to publish blog posts, it will go far in establishing your commitment to guide your audience.

It’s better for you to devote yourself to a schedule that has fewer days, but allows you to thoughtfully and thoroughly create content that your audience appreciates than it is to force the process to be so rushed that you are frantically slapping up subpar content just to stick to a schedule.

Day 3: Analyze Your Content Creation Skills in Four Media Formats

On this day, you need to see where you truly stand when it comes to your content creation skills. There is no shame in admitting that you don’t have what it takes at this time to write well, create videos that appeal to your audience, churn out images, or record audio files.

All of these skills can be learned and improved upon, as long as you know where you’re starting and what needs to be worked on. A good way to examine this is to have an honest critique provided to you from friends or acquaintances who are willing to be blunt.

The last thing you want is for someone to tell you that your content is good, when inside they are really cringing. If you don’t know anyone personally who can do this, you may want to ask a wider audience in a marketing forum to provide you with constructive criticism for a sample that you upload.

With your written content, it will need to be conversational for an online audience, yet polished enough that it looks professional at the same time. For audio files, it needs to be free and clear of any impediments that will irritate a listening audience, such as too many “um” pauses or sounds such as sipping your coffee.

With images and graphics, the only thing that can really hold you back here is whether or not your finished work looks like an amateur created it. There are templates online that can help you learn how to create and work with graphics.

Video is one of the most consumed media formats in this day and age. You have to get the timing right, the lighting, the sound, and the message itself to a place where your audience responds well to it.

Day 4: Use Content to Help Your Site Rank in the SERPs

One way you want to use your content strategically is to help you boost your website in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines are definitely looking for consistency with how often you publish, but they also want relevancy and quality.

Many marketers make the mistake of shooting for a certain word count, and focus more on how often their keyword phrases are used then they do the actual value of the content piece.

Your reader is never going to absorb a well written and valuable article that is 300 words and scoff add it because you didn’t add 500 more words of fluff and filler. However, it is important that you commit to providing your readers with enough information that they can walk away feeling fulfilled.

It is important to learn how to set up your content for SEO purposes. And that will include utilizing keyword phrases strategically so that search engines know who to present your content to.

But you never want to focus on the technical aspect alone. In fact, when you adhere to a content strategy that includes ensuring a level of quality is met for your readers, it can help you rise in the SERPs because your content will be shared and have backlinks pointing to it that are organic due to an impressed audience.

Day 5: Create Content That Proves Your Worth to Your Audience

Quality is an issue that can be different things to different people. Some people may be content with very little value, but that’s not the audience that you want to cater to. Your goal is to overdeliver to your visitors so that even the hardest to please individuals walk away satisfied.

A good piece of content not only provides facts and data to your readers, but it also weaves personality throughout and addresses the visitors’ needs, whether emotional or otherwise.

There are many people in the online universe who are competing for the attention of your site visitors. When you sit down to create a piece of content for them, you have to understand how you can keep eyes on your content when others are vying for the same thing.

Good content not only educates and informs an audience, but it inspires and motivates them to take action on what you have just shared. If you can do that with each and every piece you deliver, you will be changing lives and helping people achieve their goals.

Day 6: Develop a Content Piece Worth Signing Up to Your List For

One of the most important pieces of content that you will create for your business is that of a lead magnet or opt in freebie offer. This is a tempting report or series of articles or videos that you create in an effort to build your email subscriber list.

There are not many things that people feel interested in that to hand over their name and email address. Most are sick of spammers and the way in which their contact details are handled.

You have to make sure that the lead magnet you create is of high caliber content and a slant that makes the risk worth it for them. Spend some time investigating their most harrowing problems and present a targeted solution as your enticement offer.

Day 7: Let Content Marketing Turn a Profit for You

Whenever you are developing your content, part of your marketing strategy should be to always look at how it can be monetized. For some odd reason, many marketers create tons of content for their blogs, emails, and social media profiles, only to fail at making sure it has some sort of profit generator attached to it.

Whether it drives people back to your site for a product review for which you are an affiliate, adds them to a subscriber list so that you can earn from them overtime, helps you earn ad revenue, or sends them directly to a product that you created, you want to create and publish your content with the intent to earn money from it.

It doesn’t have to be a direct or instant sale. You can monetize content by creating a series of engaging pieces that build trust and loyalty with your audience, allowing them to spend money with you in the near future.

Day 8: Learn How to Write a Proper Review Piece

One of the best ways to monetize your content is to review products. These can be digital or tangible products, but you have to know the right way to review a product in order to help the reader lower their defenses and convince them to buy.

Every consumer has a wall up that needs to be broken through in an effort to sway them into a purchase. You need to find out what the reservations are and address them individually.

Sometimes, it’s not just about the benefits of a product, but the hesitation they feel about making sure they are spending their money on the right product. It might be a price point, brand or vendor, or even a personal recommendation that tips them over the edge and allows them to open up their wallet.

Day 9: Create a Swipe File of Effective Content Headlines

Because you will be developing content on an ongoing basis for many different areas of your business, it’s important that you figure out ways to hasten the process. One of those strategies is to create a swipe file that you can pull from and tweak whenever you need effective headlines that will convert.

You can pull swipe files together based on content that you have seen online from your competitors, using list of action or power words, or even by brainstorming words, phrases, and sentences based on knowledge you gained by studying how to be an effective copywriter.

Day 10: Use Low Content Publishing in Your Marketing Efforts

Content that you publish online is not always long. You may be used to developing long blog posts in an effort to appease the search engines, or even to thoroughly educate and inform your readers.

But not all content has to be lengthy. There are many effective low content pieces that you can publish online for your audience that will help them achieve their goals. These may include things like checklists, cheat sheets, journals, and other printables that they can download and use to track or change things.

Day 11: Find Ways to Educate, Motivate or Entertain Your Readers

When you create new content for your audience, you want to do one of three things. Educating and informing them about your niche topic is important for you to do as a leading expert.

They will be turning to you for ideas and insight because they feel they can’t trust other sources. Facts alone are not enough to help them. You will need to motivate and inspire them to take action on the information you provide to them.

This is how they will actually make changes in their life and succeed with their goals. It’s also important that you entertain your readers. That doesn’t mean you have to become a comedian and make them laugh.

Entertainment can be more than just laughter. It’s a way for the audience to bond with you and feel as if they know you on a different level. Just make sure you have plenty of your own personality woven into your content so that whether they are reading an email from you or watching a video that you have created, they feel as if the content was made just for them on some level.

Day 12: Make Sure Your Content Marketing Includes Social Sharing Options

Content marketing is about more than just the creation of the content itself. You can create hundreds or even thousands of pages of articles, but if you don’t know how to use them strategically, they will not benefit your business.

One of the most effective strategies online is to create content that gets shared by your audience with others. Not only does the content have to be valuable and amazing enough that it makes people want to share it, but you have to make sure you provide them with a strategy to do it easily.

If you have a blog that you are using for content marketing, you want to install a plug in that enables social sharing buttons for sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and other places.

You can place the social sharing buttons above and below your blog post. You can even have them floating with the reader as they scroll down through your post. Just make sure you remind them to share your content with those who may enjoy it, because the call to action you deliver maybe the reminder they need to take action.

Day 13: Get Good at Storytelling for Increased Content Appeal

Storytelling is an important art that you need to master for your content marketing strategy. This is not a strategy where you have to make up stories out of thin air. For most nonfiction niches, it’s about sharing your own experiences and connecting them with those of your audience.

Not only are you able to paint a picture of what they are going through to show that you can empathize or sympathize with them, but you are also able to help them envision what their life will be like if they can achieve the goals they’ve set for themselves with your help.

Day 14: Set a Goal for Each Piece of Content You Create

Just as your audience has a goal in mind when they turn to you, you should have a goal for every piece of content that you create. It’s not enough to simply assume everything you create will help you gain exposure.

Instead, you want to have a specific goal about whether you want to use this piece of content as a way to elevate your expertise, help you build a list of subscribers, or convince someone to purchase something through your link.

If you have a goal in mind before you begin creating the content, it helps you with your outlining process and in allowing the information to unfold in the best way possible. Sometimes, you may have more than one goal associated with your content, and that is okay, too.

Day 15: Tips for Sharing Your Content on Facebook

When you create content, you can either create it on your blog or elsewhere and then share it on social media, or you can create it directly on social media itself. Facebook is still one of the most popular social media sites for niche content.

When you create content and share it on this social site, make sure you pair it with an image so that it stands out in everyone’s feed better. You can also format the text so that it has bold or italic lettering if you want to.

Don’t go crazy with tagging people, but if there is someone who it makes sense to tag because they are mentioned in the content, for example, that’s okay. You can share your content on this site on your personal profile, your page, or in a group that you create or that has allowed others to post in it.

Day 16: How to Make the Most of Hashtags for Content Marketing

When you create content, part of your strategy needs to be to help it get found by the right audience. Online, that is often done with keywords and hashtags when you are using sites such as social media.

A hashtag is simply a # sign followed by a keyword or phrase that you want people to use when searching for your content. For example, if you wrote a blog post about the keto diet, you might use the following hashtags: #ketodiet, #ketodiettips, #ketodietsuccess, etc.

On most of the social media platforms, you can search for popular hashtags that are being used for your niche. Make a list of what is included and then pick and choose each one that can be used in every piece of content that you create.

Day 17: Set a Budget for Content Marketing Elements You’re Not Good At

When you are developing your own systems and strategies for any part of your business, part of what you want to do is set aside a budget for things you may need to outsource or acquire tools for.

With content creation, you may want to invest in certain tools that can help you in the editing and polishing your written work, such as Pro Writing Aid. Or, you may want a tool such as Camtasia to help you create amazing videos.

There are tools for audio as well as images. Many of these tools have free options, but in order to fully utilize them, you will have to pay a minimal monthly or annual fee. If you don’t want to do the work yourself, then you can set aside a budget to outsource the work to a freelance individual.

Day 18: Learn How to Utilize Free and Paid Online Content Creation Tools

if you don’t have the ability to save up for tools yet, you want to start with some free versions that can help you improve and quicken your content creation. Grammarly is a free writing tool that can help you with spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

When and if you want to level up, you can consider a premium or business account that will help you with more advanced writing issues. Canva is another tool that has both a free and paid option.

Using this tool, you can create graphics that you need for your content such as blog images, social media images, eCovers for your lead magnets and info products, and more.

If you can’t afford Camtasia yet, you can start with the freeware version called CamStudio. using this, you can edit and perfect your videos, whether you are using screen capture or on camera methods.

If you are creating audio content, you will want to use a tool like Audacity. This is a free tool that you can use to edit, add special effects, and improve sound quality for your audio files.

Day 19: Pay Attention to Success Metrics for Content

The creation of your content is not the sole indicator of whether or not your content strategy is successful. You can’t just look at the volume of content that you are putting out.

You have to look at the metrics it generates to see whether or not the content you are creating is performing to the best of its ability. If it’s not, you will be able to tweak your efforts until it does.

You will be looking for things such as whether or not your audience engaged with your content, how often and how many people shared it with others, and what the comments and feedback were about your pieces.

When you start seeing an analysis of all of the little details, such as where your readers bounced from your site while reading your blog post, or where they exited a video that you created, it will help you understand more about the kind of content they respond best to.

You will be able to see whether they like longer or shorter pieces of content in terms of word count, what time length they are willing to sit through to absorb information, what color patterns they notice more in a feed so that they can engage with your social media content, etc.

Day 20: Develop an Editorial Plan for Your Content

In order to achieve your goals for consistency with content creation, you will need to put yourself on an editorial schedule. This will not only dictate what days your content is published, but also on what platform it will be placed on.

You can organize your content publishing schedule so that topics are rotated to keep things fresh for your audience, and then type of slant or media format is also strategically placed within your calendar to mix things up.

Day 21: Polish Your Content to Perfection

It’s good to have tools that you can use to perfect your content, but some of what you will be doing in terms of polishing it to perfection will be up to you during the creation process.

For example, you can’t just absorb information in regurgitate it back to your audience. It’s your responsibility to do some fact checking to ensure that the information you are conveying is accurate.

Another thing you need to do is proofread your work and notate any sources or citations where it makes sense to do so. It’s okay for an expert to have outside sources that they utilize for their audience, so don’t feel like you have to cover that up.

Day 22: Curate Content Instead of Plagiarizing It

One way that you can leverage the expertise of others is to curate content from around the web. Curation is a way of pulling in snippets of content from other producers, making sure to give them credit, and then expanding on everything that you have created with commentary of your own.

This is much better than what many online marketers do, simply lifting content from other people’s websites and sharing it as their own. There’s no excuse for stealing from others when curation is a viable option for you.

Day 23: Make Sure Your Content Marketing Strategy Includes Personality

Personality is one of the most important things you can inject into your content to really make it take off. We spoke of using it in the form of entertainment previously, but whether or not you are entertaining or simply informing and enlightening your audience, a personality must shine through in order to help you form a bond with your target audience.

Some ways you can do this are by weaving your own personal stories into the content to show that you understand what they are going through, cheering the members of your community on publicly with their permission, and utilizing multimedia format content so that they can get to know you in terms of the way you look, your voice, your mannerisms, and your tone.

Day 24: Split Test Your Content Creations

When you create content online, if you have time (and you should make time), you should begin the process of split testing certain pieces to see which strategies or elements work better than others.

Split testing is simply pitting two different things against one another to see which one emerges as a top performer. You only want to alter one thing at a time so that you can pinpoint the exact changes that make a difference.

Day 25: Weed Out What’s Not Working for Your Content Marketing Strategy

Increasing the churn out of content that is working well for you is only part of the equation. You also need to weed out what’s not working with your content strategy. You might find that your audience does not respond well on certain channels or platforms.

It’s better to focus your efforts on places where they do hang out and are likely to notice your content. Another thing you may notice is that certain media formats are not engaging for your audience, such as a preference for video over text or vice versa.

You may also start to gain a better understanding about what types of slants and what tone your content should take for your target audience. Even with something like personal development, you can have a slant that is coddling when it motivates or one that kicks their butt into gear.

Day 26: Engaging Your Audience for Increased Content Success

Part of your content marketing strategy will be to maximize the engagement with your audience. This is a two way street. Many marketers believe they can simply sit back and watch comments, shares, and other forms of engagement take place without participating.

But ideally, you are helping to form those bonds with your audience by responding to their comments whenever possible. This is easier when you are just starting out and have a smaller audience, but you should do it as long as you can and periodically engage with several people in the comments section even once they grow to an enormous number because this shows that you still care about their opinions.

Day 27: Use PLR as a Content Marketing Springboard

If you are trying to publish an enormous amount of content for one or more niches, you may want to utilize private label rights (PLR) as a tool that can help you. This is pre-written content that is sold to more than one buyer.

When you buy PLR, which comes in many different formats including text, video, audio, and images, you usually have the right to put your name on the content as if you created it and edit it to your liking.

Day 28: Take Content You’ve Created and Repurpose It

Another great way to improve your content marketing strategy is to simply repurpose what you have already created. For example, if you wrote a blog post that is getting great engagement from your audience, you can take that and use it as a transcript to create a video or video series as well as a podcast.

You can also take the content and summarize it in the form of an infographic that can be shared on sites like Instagram or Pinterest. You can also repurpose video, graphics, and audio and turn them into text based content pieces as well.

This allows you to capture the interest of a wider audience. While you may have many loyal blog readers who are content with the written word, you may be missing out on a larger audience that is logged into YouTube and searching for video content instead.

Day 29: Make Sure Your Content Is Mobile-Friendly

While you are making sure that your content is perfectly polished, well written, and valuable to your audience, you also want to ensure that they are able to access it adequately.

This means making sure that your content shows up correctly for mobile users. If you are using a blog theme that you selected, make sure it is responsive for mobile readers and all browsers.

Day 30: Measure the Success of Your Content

Every so often, you want to stop and spend a day taking stock of all of the content that you have been publishing to see which direction you need to take next. You may need to continue on the same path, or your content may need to take a new direction, such as different topics, improved media, or even more in depth than what you had been serving to them before.