How to Make Your Online Content Earn You Money and Recognition 1: Why Add Friends

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The first question we need to clear up is this one. Why add friends? Why do I need friends if all I’m doing is attempting to share my work with the public?

Well, if all you want to do is see your work published on screen, and you have no interest in having anyone read it, you do not need to add friends.  If you have no interest in earning money from your online content, but merely like to see your creativity displayed on the internet scene, you do not need to add friends.

However, if you are working towards becoming a serious web content creator, who earns a portion of your income from your content, one of the first things you have to do when you sign up with a publishing site, is to add some friends.

What do friends do?

They are the first people who will read your work when it’s published. If they have you on their list of friends, on most content writing sites, anything you publish will immediately show up on their dashboard/ community page. Even if all you have is a blog, people who’ve subscribed to your blog, will be notified every time you post something new.

Friends will usually leave you feedback, an ingredient which every writer needs to soothe the inherent ego which exists inside everyone who creates. If there is something amiss, a good friend will let you know about it and may even suggest ways to edit or change the content. Friends prepare your articles/creations for the rest of the world and will often submit your work to social networking sites, where it’s viewed by hundreds of thousands of clients. These are people (your potential fans) who are looking for work that’s been already read, vetted and recommended. Who reads and recommends? Your friends.

Do I still need friends if I create outstanding content?

You need friends, especially if you create fantastic content. How else is the world going to know about it? So your content is flawless and your writing (pictures, art, sculptures) unique. So what? There are literally thousands of other people creating the very same content as you are, who are just as great – even better! The people who are your friends are the ones who will place yours where the right people can see them. You cannot and must not do it all, because this makes you a spammer, someone with whom no one wants to be associated.

So, how do I make friends?

The worst way to make friends is to ask someone to be your friend, or to add you as a friend. The best way to make a friend is to continually seek out the work of people you genuinely like, and show an interest in it. Many people do this, but not in the correct way. I’ve had people dive right in and make comments on five of my projects, only to disappear completely and never look at anything else I’d done.

People are generally wiser than we think. Showing an interest once, is saying to the person, “Look, I want you to be my friend, because you’re popular, but I’m not really interested in you, so I’m going to comment on a handful of your work. There, I’ve done my bit, now over to you.” The popular people have already put in their hard graft for years, they have a right to be where they are. You can expect to have to do the same, if you’re serious about getting anywhere.

With whom do I make friends?

The last thing you want to do is to make friends with the entire community. You’ll be informed each time every one of them posts something new, and be so overwhelmed, that you will not be able to keep up with the works that are really important to you.  Most sites have subject/topic divisions. Make friends with the people who publish the same things as you do. If someone is a popular writer on internet topics, they may have no interest in someone who publishes poetry, for example. You will be wasting your time following them. Choose someone who is most likely to want to read the type of things you create. Don’t be stupid. A barrel of friends does not mean a barrel of reads.

What do I do for my friends?

This, my friend; this, is the most important part of the topic. So, you’ve made friends with one of the popular guys/gals. What next? Make sure you read, comment and promote their work. If they see you doing this, they will do the same for you. Simple isn’t it?

Always keep in mind that you promoting their stuff, does very little for them because people do not yet know who you are. However, when they promote your projects, this works in your favour a hundred times over. This is a fact that they are fully aware of, so savour it.

Be smart and progressive with this. Don’t be afraid to un-friend anyone who’s no longer active or who seems not to be interested in your work anymore, and put someone else in their place.

Make sure your work is well-presented and superior

“Hang on,” you say, “What does this have to do with making friends. Have you lost your marbles on this one?”The answer is, no, I haven’t. Why not? Plain and simple, I don’t want to make friends with people whose work I’m ashamed of. In addition to this, I want to be certain that if there is an error in something I’m promoting, I can write to my online friend and suggest a change, and she/he will know exactly where I’m coming from. Many times, I’ve calmly suggested grammar corrections to writers, only to find out that they thought I was being nasty. If they were serious about their content, and knew the grammatical rules in the first place, they would’ve known that I was doing quite the opposite. 

This is the perfect way to find serious creators online. Everyone has typos, as it is very difficult to edit your own work, but the difference between someone who knows their stuff and someone who doesn’t, is the way they behave when you point their mistakes out. Popular creators, the people you want to befriend you, will not look at your work if it’s substandard. If they’re worth their status, they also will not leave you comments that say, ‘Great work,’ ‘Amazing piece,’ ‘You’ve done it again!’  if your work is rubbish. I know I don’t, because if I did, what does that tell the public  about my taste?

Friends make useful and cheap editors

Professional/semi professional career writers know how expensive and difficult it is to get a good editor to give your work the once over. If you’ve ever written a book of more than 90,000 (or a magazine article of 2,000) words, you know that it’s impossible to edit your own work. If you’re lucky enough to have made one such friend online, you’ve hooked yourself an instant, cheap editor on your side. Use them.

If you’re a serious writer, you’ll understand that a person cannot tell you what doesn’t work in your article, unless he/she has actually taken time off to read the work you slaved on. Be thankful on the rare occasions this happens, consider the suggestions seriously and edit if need be. It’s better to have the mistake (or correction that will make your work stand out) taken care of after ten people have seen it, rather than be judged as a crappy writer by the thousands of people you hope will eventually read it. This makes perfect sense, so do not let your ego trick you into believing it’s not. The first time you say to someone who’s offered you constructive editing advice, ‘I like it just how it is, because it’s me.’ Is the last time you get any help from them.

Online publishing success comes with lots of unwritten laws. Many of us have had to learn them the hard way, over years of grafting and research. Making friends is just as important as producing superior and classy pieces. They both go the full mile in getting you noticed.

Stay tuned for another in the series of how to make your online content earn you money and recognition. We have only touched the surface.

Revision

1. If I’m serious about making it as a web content provider, I cannot do it on my own.
2. My online friends are the ones who first read and vet my content before it goes out into the world.
3. Creating fantastic content does not necessarily mean that my content will find its way to the top of the internet slush pile.
4. Trying to make friends the wrong way can hinder my chances at being great, and can place me in the circuit of the spammer.
5. Making friends with everyone on the site is stupid. I’ve got to choose my friends carefully and wisely.
6. Making friends is just as important as keeping them.
7. Good, intelligent friends will sometimes offer suggestions for edit before the work goes out to thousands of people who will judge me harshly for mistakes.

Find more on writing and publishing at A Blogger’s Books.com

Other works in this series

Part two – How to keep people reading your work

Part three – How to keep the ideas coming

Part four – Developing skill and technique

Part five – Setting out your article for internet skimming