Imagine! You are a movie director. You make a movie…and you think it is a brilliant film. You plan the release date 60 days from now and your movie is ready. What would you do to ensure that people know about the movie and watch it? Would you write on a piece of paper, ‘Hey, you know what? I have made a fabulous movie, please watch it at the theater, thank you’ and drop that piece of paper in the middle of a busy street?
Again…imagine! You are a writer. You write a fabulous book…about something. You know and believe that the book is very, very good. How would you get people to read your book? Would you give a copy of the book to an interested reader and expect the rest fo the world to know about your book and read it too?
I guess not! You would ideally promote your film and book, right? Aggressively, if I may add, given the time and effort invested in creating them.
So, why should it be any different online, say for a piece of video, music or blog post you have created?
I agree that things we do online may not be in the same scale as a film or a book, but without your work being read/viewed/heard by people, it may not go anywhere. You may perhaps lose motivation to continue producing material like that too (which would be great, if you suck – just saying!).
So, how would/should you promote your work online? I had briefly touched upon this topic earlier this week under the guise of ‘social currency’.
The major difference between those examples and something online is the fact that the former had gatekeepers who decided such content’s quality. Online, you perhaps own the whole process yourself – of content creation and promotion.
What efforts do you take to promote your work – any kind of work – online? It could be any kind of effort – paid, promoted, spammy, intrusive…anything…don’t judge the tactic or mode yet. Let us only look at listing the tactics and perhaps adding a note on what worked and what didn’t. Please do let me know in the comments.
I intend to collate them, add my own (from my experience of running 2 blogs and a website) and make a master list for the benefit of all/others.
Picture by Serlunar via Flickr