7 Surprising Things I Learnt At The Problogger Training Day #Pbevent
The Problogger Training Day recently exploded in Melbourne, Australia and I was one of the lucky bloggers who secured a ticket.
While I heard quite a few things that didn’t surprise me it was fantastic to hear them again because, well sometimes we forget the basics like being authentic and passionate. But here are a few things that did surprise me …..
Remove the timestamp from your blog posts (Chris Garrett)
This ties back to the idea of making your content “evergreen” (also mentioned by Tim Ferris). An evergreen post is one that is still relevant 2 years from now and anything that dates your ideas can date your relevancy.
You don’t need to tell people their details are safe (Chris Garrett)
This surprised me as a lot of subscription windows have a short note about privacy. Chris Garrett suggested that just mentioning that you don’t do anything dodgy gets people thinking and it might just scare them out of subscribing. If you do want to mention it, put it in your opt-in confirmation message.
If you are serious about monetizing your blog, you need a media kit (Pheobe Montague)
Not just any media kit you need a professionally formatted media kit that tells potential advertisers that you know what your doing and their money will be well spent.
If you are thinking about an ebook topic, start with your regular subscribers (Darren Rowse)
Rather than starting with a topic and then finding readers, look at what your own tribe wants to learn. Review your most popular blog posts and think about ways to repurpose them into a longer format.
Engage with your ebook audience as you are writing the ebook (Darren Rowse)
Don’t worry about ruining the big launch. Start to engage with your audience and get them excited about what’s to come. Don’t just sell them the idea; make them part of the process by asking questions.
Don’t give away too much content for FREE (Chris Garrett)
While “free stuff” can help you build an audience you can also devalue your brand if you give too much away. You can strike a balance by offering a free webinar that introduces your specialist topic, leading into paid training or consulting for more detail.
Don’t be afraid to challenge people during webinar engagement (Chris Garrett)
While many of our online directives make it as easy as possible for the audience, more challenging interaction on a webinar will actually help you engage at a more meaningful level. You can use polls, quizzes and question boxes or step it up with challenges and homework.
If you are building a membership site, Don’t sell the community aspect (Sonia Simone)
While being part of a community is one of the key benefits of a membership site, that’s not enough to get people onboard. Focus on the other aspects of what you’re offering.
Networking is a lot easier than you think when you relax (Me)
There were a lot of people I wanted to meet at this event so I did have my networking hat on. But everyone was there to meet people so I just relaxed, smiled and said hi. It got me more than I could have hoped for.
So now it’s over to you. Were you surprised by anything in this post?
If you attended the event, were you surprised by other gems from the day? Let me know!
The Copy Detective
You might have noticed there are actually 8 things in this list. It turns out the last one wasn’t such a surprise when I really thought about it but I thought it was worth including none the less!
