Daisy Quaker is a Badass

10 Blogging Lessons from Street Performers

Blogging is an art that can be learned and perfected. Street performing or “busking” is also an art, you either entertain or amuse passers-by or you don’t make money. In both situations people are busy with their everyday lives and probably on the way to one thing or another and there you are trying to catch their attention. One is tougher than the other but I will let you decide.

It’s not that hard to get started in busking because, after all, anybody can hit the streets and put on a show. It’s not that hard to start a blog neither. What separates the successful buskers and bloggers from everyone else s they perfect their craft.

So here are 10 Lessons Bloggers can learn from the hardest job in showbiz –street performing:

1. Put together a great act

In busking this happens even before you get out on the streets to perform you figure out your act and practice, practice, practice. In blogging these goes on before you have the material on your blog by figuring out what to write, what is already out there on your topic of interest and what people are really interested in. It ranges from doing Google searches, listening in on forums or even the most popular blog posts on successful blogs or websites. What do the people want? And how can you deliver in a way that is unique?

2. Find a place to perform

The ideal busking spot (or pitch) is a fairly quiet place with plenty of foot traffic, for bloggers it is your means of spreading out your content. What spot has the most foot traffic than the internet after all? Will you focus on growing an audience through a blog, or e-mailing list? How will you get yourself on social media sites, what will your purpose be? Think carefully about where you place your content from your blog name, to its look and feel. Street performers need to find a pitch that suits their act, bloggers need to find a medium that can help them scale and grow their audience.

3. Gather a crowd

Just like in blogging, in street performing, “the art of getting people to notice you – the build—is fine art in itself” The basics to attracting attention might be promoting your blog on social media, and content. But consider off the beaten track methods like commenting on forums frequented by your target audience, or reaching out and doing guest posts for different websites or publications, all with the intent of drawing them back to your blog, and once there, encouraging them to sign up for mailing lists or subscribing to your blog.

4. Keep your crowd interested

Ideally you will find a niche, street performers usually figure out whether they will do music, dance or magic early on. The goal here is once you focus on one thing, you can improve with each post. Find creative ways to share your story. Street performers try to make each new tricks more amazing than the last, so build a content plan that starts off with relatively simple posts and gets into progressively harder posts as your audience grows. These can be your cornerstone subjects; if your blog is about Arts and Crafts what basics do people need to learn before you get into otherwise difficult projects? E.g. setting up a craft space, where to get supplies, safety concerns, DIY Hacks, quick fixes to common DIY problems. Think of it as creating a beginners class, so that even after hundreds of posts, people can still come back to the basics on how to get started, or your cornerstone categories.

5. Interact with your audience

In the beginning comments may be few and far in between, get in the habit of replying to every comment. Go out of your way to interact with your audience whether on your blog or other channels. If you send out e-mails encourage feedback or replies and respond in turn, it will go a long way to creating that connection with your content.

6. Build audience participation into your act

In busking audience participation makes the crowd happy. You may not have cute kids help with your blogging content, but encouraging guest posts, or even feedback in the comments or minimal effort feedback like reader polls can add the feeling of others paying attention to your content.

7. Sell merchandise

Maybe you are blogging as hobby, or as just a way to let out steam, but consider ways that can help your audience and earn something from your blog –even if it’s just pocket change. Take a step back and look at your blog as more than just an outlet for your thoughts. Once you have built an audience figure out what you want to sell. Seth Godin advocates that bloggers or content marketers should build an audience before they start selling products. Look to make your reader’s lives easier, they will reward you with their loyalty.

8. Keep track of your results

How many site views a day, do you get more traffic on certain days than others? Or what about certain topics? How do people arrive at your site, where are they coming from, what do they click on? Start early by keeping a record of all the blog posts you’ve written it can even be in something simple like an excel spreadsheet. The better you can track your results, the better you can get at fine-tuning your performance.

9. Learn everyday with every post

It’s not enough to learn from which posts do not receive any feedback. Sign up for creative and related email lists and read what others are writing about. Inspiration comes from many sources. This post for example was inspired by an old post on the PureDriven blog (an internet marketing company I work for). Pay attention to what works, but also what inspires. If after several attempts you are audience is not buying into your ideas, then change it up.

10. Keep at it

Street performers do not expect overnight success, neither should your blog. If you plan on generating some money from it then take it seriously and put your efforts into building your audience. Don’t think of selling to them right away, but establishing a connection and trust. Join other support groups to motivate you, print and keep this PDF poster somewhere visible. The rewards may not be immediate, but whatever you do keep writing.

All the great bloggers started out in the same place,, by writing and building their audience one reader at a time. Anybody can start a blog and build a big audience, but if you have a great show you could join the ranks of successful bloggers who turn their passion of writing into a career or side business. If you can entertain, inform or educate people on a continuous basis you can gain exposure and build your brand or business.

So after reading through all these tips and seeing the parallels which act is harder busking? Or blogging?

Credits:
Reference: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Money-Busking-(Street-Performing)

Image Credit: Flickr-Bondidwhat and Rrrrobie

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About the writer: Daisy Quaker is an Internet marketing consultant. She loves helping small businesses grow through marketing and by telling their unique stories online. She writes about various Internet marketing tactics and strategies. Connect with her on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

Content marketing

How To Stop Interrupting and Start Connecting (in your Marketing)

There’s an old-school communications concept that explains how we connect. It’s pretty simple, it’s old, and it’s still relevant. What’s more, is it can have a powerful effect on your business marketing if done right.

This model communicates a powerful message to marketers and business owners looking to connect with their customers. It can help business owners create strategic internet marketing plans.

It basically looks like this:

So on one end is the Sender and on the other end is the Receiver. The message goes through a channel whether it’s in person, through writing, video, audio or through signals. The Sender creates the message (encoding) and the receiver takes in the message (decoding). And along the way is noise which can interrupt the message, change it, or affect how the receiver gets the message.

Business owners need to figure out if they are the sender, or the noise.

Is Your Marketing the Noise?

You can use this model in your business and how you communicate with your audience. Are you directly communicating with your customers who are getting the message or are you the noise that is distracting them from what they want to hear? Are you that annoying pop-up, or banner ad that they shut out to focus on what they are actually reading or watching online, or are you the direct message that their eyes focus on?

Think of it as a bad cellphone connection. You’re business is either the voice one on the other hand that I’m straining to hear, or the annoying static and interruption that cuts through the conversation. Change that.

Marketing Noise vs. Marketing Messages

A quick way to figure out if you are the noise or the real message is to look at how people receive your message. Are they in the middle of something else when you pop up, or are they already looking for what you offer whether it’s a product or service when your name pops up?

The right Google ad for example can be the message because I’m looking for a service that you tell me you offer. The wrong ad, say in the middle of me reading something, well that’s just a distraction.

The right e-mail message or blog post when I’m looking for say fun sweaters or great holiday gifts can be a welcome message. The wrong e-mail or blog that talks exclusively about your stuff and how I need to buy it can be, well, annoying and quickly ignored or deleted.

It’s all about how you market your business and what you offer.

How to become the Sender

1. Stop sending noise

The problem with being a distraction is everyone attention goes to biggest and loudest. Most adverts just pass me most of the time. The old model of advertising (or as I call it: Spend, Spend, Spend and Cross Your Fingers) might still work but it’s not the most effective model especially you’re your small businesses.

2. Find a channel that connects you to customers

If you look at it a lot of the new technology is about connecting people. We live in an connected world and getting your voice out through a channel like social media, blogging, video or even online advertising (Pay-Per-Click). There are more opportunities to find a channel that communicates to your customers directly. Find a method that works for you.

3. Start sending messages your customers want to hear

If it’s on a social media network post pictures or links that they would find interesting. If it’s through a blog or e-mail list, write or produce fresh content that they would gain from reading. Writing just about your products is boring. Produce work that centers around the reader’s eco-system. Do your customers watch certain shows? Or maybe follow trends? Or have particular hobbies and interests? Offer to write guest blog posts on blogs in your target market. Consider producing material that talks about things other than your offering.

No one wants to hang around someone who talks all about themselves, nor do your customers or audience. Like I said earlier, it’s really great what your product can do, but talking about it non-stop will bore your readers out. So be interesting.

Spend your efforts wisely, and think of yourself and your business as the sender. It will bring you closer to really connecting with customers.

Image credit: ChangingOrganisations.com

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Content marketing

Is your content mobile friendly?

The latest smartphone releases from Apple and Samsung are set to shatter sales records, and with almost half the American population on a smartphone accessing content on mobile devices is becoming more and more common.

Creating content that’s optimized to transition well from a laptop screen to a smartphone or tablet screen, can mean the difference between content that’s shared, or forgotten. It’s a transition that any blogger, content marketer, or small business owner should be ready to take whether they write blog posts, or e-mail campaigns.

So you want to catch the eye of your tech savvy readers? Here’s are five questions to ask yourself before you pen your next post.

1. Is your site mobile device friendly?

Borrow a friend’s device and check out the look and feel of your site on some common mobile devices. “It’s elementary my dear Watson” and it helps you understand how readers actually see your content.

WordPress offers plenty of mobile friendly themes. Next time you are shopping around for themes look to those that already support mobile devices and are pre-designed to fit on to different screens right off the bat.

2. Is it hard to read?

The iPhone screen ranges from 3.5 to 4 inches, HTC Evo is but 4 inches, and the latest Samsung Galaxy is almost 5 inches. Keep these guidelines in mind when figuring out how much or how little to write. Technical pointers like keeping your text at 13pt or above are helpful, but also break text into bite-sized chunks helps make your posts reader-friendly.

Your mobile readers most likely have a few short minutes before bed, the elevator, their coffee or next meeting to check your stuff out so keeping track of your word count, formatting your writing to include subheading or bullets helps them wade through your content easier.

3. Are there too many images?

Unless pictures are essential to your message, focus on writing that can paint the picture for your readers without the need for too many images. Figure out how to place images so that not too many are clustered in one area of the message. Pictures appeal to readers, but too many can bog your message down.

4. Where is your Call-To-Action?

A Call-To-Action is basically what you want your readers to do. Whether you are trying to get people to subscribe, place an order, tweet your post or call you for a consultation good placement can affect how appealing your request is.

The higher the Call-To-Action buttons are placed the more chances people will buy what you ask them to. Google Analytics recently launched a Browser Size Analysis tool within analytics that can tell you which content is above the fold to help figure out how your content is seen on different screen dimensions.

5. Do you have customized sharing buttons?

Want to tweet this post? Click here.

Most smartphone users will have their social networks integrated to their phone. It’s standard to having sharing buttons in each post, to take it a step further create a customized message that users will post. Services like Click to Tweet help your readers share your post with your own customized message (like this). Share the link within your story to make it as easy as possible to spread the love.

And that’s it! Five short and sweet tips to help you capture the heart of your tech savvy readers.

Image credit: Flickr- Jorge Quinteros

This post is part of a series on Branding and Social Media for small business, follow me via Twitter or join me via E-mail to receive your fresh copy of helpful small business online marketing strategies.

Daisy Quaker is an Internet marketing consultant, specializing in social media strategy, content marketing, e-mail marketing, connect with her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Social Media

The New Currency and How It Affects Your Business

It used to be that money could buy you attention.

Spend enough on advertising ad promotions and you could badger people with your message, jingle, mascot, whatever.

Times are changing. The big guys can buy as many ads as they want, but with so many distractions one thing they can’t command as much anymore is our attention.

Yes, there are those that believe you just have to figure out how to advertise on the new media platforms, but in reality people tend to either ignore those ads or find them an irritating necessity to getting their free video, music or game.

How to Get Your Business/Products Attention

The new currency in today’s world is influence and trust, and it’s not automatically going to whoever spends the most. Instead it’s going to whoever can get the most authentic connection with people who genuinely care about what they are selling.

It’s marketing that’s not for the masses, there are just too many distractions. Today’s main target is the niche, because with just a small market of passionate fans you can go global.

Brand case study: BlackMilk Clothing

When leggings came back in style, you could get them for $10 at your local mall. They were not that hard to find. So how could an unknown one-man business from Australia, selling leggings at least $80 a piece, gain fans from all over the world in places as far and vast as New York, Thailand, Tokyo, Africa and Latin America?

Here’s how:

He grew a community of buyers through his blog that genuinely interested in and wanted to know about his products.
He included and appreciated this audience in his marketing which consists of uploading pictures of fans wearing the brand’s products through Facebook and Istagram.
He made his brand a cult item -avid fans were dubbed “sharkies”- and sold his products exclusively online. He even allowed the “sharkies” to sometimes vote for which pieces were brought back in the online store.

BlackMilk does not make products that cater to everybody, and it’s not trying to.

What the founder, James Lillis, understood is that the old method favored those with the most money to spend on mass advertising and promotions. He tried that and it failed. But with the right targeting he could get to the top influencers in his niche market gain their trust, and from there it trickled down to their followers who became his followers. Because of this people paid attention to what he offered, and trusted in his products and that brought in the customers.

The Empowered Marketer

Now more than ever you have a choice as marketer. You can beat the drum to an old tune and spend x amount of dollars advertising to get attention. Or you can grow that organically by allowing people to opt-in to your message and choose to hear what you have to say. You can build a geuine connection, and real interest by building a kid of trust that the old methods can’t buy.

It’s a new way of marketing that can apply to everything from a pastry shop to a clothing business. To command the loyalty and following that brands like BlackMilk have takes a more genuine and honest approach, not a catchy tune.

The top influencers in a niche market have something valuable that money can’t buy trust and loyalty. The takeaway for business, is to cut all the crap and tell genuine stories.

It’s that simple. But not that easy. Because it takes time, and effort and patience and the return on investment is not immediately clear.

But with the power that influence (convincing people to buy a product without having to advertise to them) and trust (genuine belief, connection and identity with your brand) have, it’s a currency that most businesses cannot afford to miss.

Tell your genuine story, appreciate your humble beginnings, and patiently grow your fan base one person at a time. Or find the people influencing your customers, and appeal to their genuine liking, and wait for the trickle down effect.

Trust and influence, that’s what buys you attention, that’s the new currency.

Image credit: Facebook-BlackMilk

Daisy Quaker is an internet marketing consultant, specializing in social media strategy, content marketing, e-mail marketing, connect with her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Content marketing

3 Ingredients That Help Your Blog Market Your Brand

Every marketing plan is like its own recipe to concoct the perfect dish, an audience that’s ready to eat it all up. If used correctly, your blog can help make your marketing plan a killer dish.

Using your blog for marketing research

Your blog gives you a great opportunity to study what your readers are doing beyond just how many site visits you receive in a day.

A review of the analytics can help figure out what your reader’s need before they even state it. Marketing surveys are notoriously flawed because there is often a disconnect between what the person thinks they do, and what they actually do when they are not being judged. Your blog gives you the opportunity to study what your readers are doing in their own element.

Things like where ae they coming from, or what do they exit to, can shed some insight into their behaviour. What posts or pages do readers check out the most. What do they share or email the most, what do they not respond to. This can help tailor your posts to meet their needs, and answer your own question: what problems do your readers face, and how can you help?

Using your blog for marketing your ideas

Be careful, because it’s not about you, it’s about your readers. By making your posts useful and relevant to them you can lead them to trust you as a resource and have them primed to buy what you sell.

Avoid self-praising posts, show don’t tell your audience why you are useful to their lives. Think of your site traffic or online visitors as window-shoppers, if they see enough on display to entice them into the store, then they will give you their trust by opting into your mailing list, and allow you to talk to them further, pulling them into making a buy.

But remember, it’s not about you, it’s about your usefulness to your customers and audience.

Using your blog for customer service

On a podcast the other day I heard about how the Hilton concierge service once helped save the life of one man’s dog, by telling them a good vet to take the dog via Twitter.

That’s remarkable. The guy was not even a customer nor did he direct the question to the Hilton hotel, but it’s a service he will most likely never forget, and will share with his friends and family. That is a proactive marketing and customer service approach, your blog can do it too.

By reaching out to people posting questions or tweets with a solution that does not include an immediate buy, you can help them develop a good impression of your brand and some goodwill towards your business. If it’s exceptional enough perhaps they’ll spread the great experience they had, spreading the goodwill about your business, and their personal stamp of approval. That’s something no amount of advertising can buy.

Business have been built on blogging by understanding their audience. Starting your blog off with some good advice, building trust, an establishing a great reputation can take you further than any advertising campaign ever could. Blogging could be that secret ingredient to your special marketing sauce.

Image credit: Flickr-Mrs Magic

This post is part of a series that will get published on Content Marketing or Blogging, follow me via Twitter or E-mail to receive your fresh copy of helpful small business online marketing strategies.

Daisy Quaker is an internet marketing consultant, specializing in social media strategy, content marketing, e-mail marketing and internet marketing strategy, connect with her on Twitter or LinkedIn.