You’ve been working hard writing your latest book or have a great idea you want to share with the world beyond Tik Tok land and are wondering just what your best avenues are for getting the word out, right? Well, welcome to the internet – easy and yet so hard!

Having easy access to millions of readers across the globe is great, but it’s just potential. Your post can go viral and get seen by millions of viewers, or it can sit like ice cream on a scorching day and disappear in minutes – never enjoyed by anyone. What to do?

Blogging Still Rocks

To begin with, every writer should have a blog or website. It’s the most potent, consistent, and reliable way to attract readers and capture them for newsletters and repeat visits. And if you ever wondered how to start a blog from scratch in today’s market, it’s that not hard!

While you are adding your words of wisdom to the blogosphere, you might even make some money selling your products – or collect passive income from traffic to your well-designed and maintained site. Plus, it’s fun.

Blogging also teaches structure and consistency because you’ll need to make regular entries to your site – it’s what your readers are waiting for and what they expect. The best part is that you’ll learn discipline and at the same time you’ll be free to write what you want, not what someone else demands that you write.

Social Media Keys

There are many ways to stay in touch with the masses, but the biggest audiences on the web are Facebook, YouTube, and Whatsapp. Twitter may still get headlines, but their viewership is only about 15% of any one of the top three. Other top ten audiences include Tik Tok, Instagram, and Snapchat, which means a vast majority of information is shared in video form.

If you are spreading your wings to new Apps or trying to hit new audiences, videos are great. And they can drive traffic to your website or even your blog, so having a video on your blog hosted on YouTube can be very successful. Still, keep in mind that the key to social media is consistency. A tweet might not be attractive to a massive group of people, but if you tweet regularly, some tweets (or videos, articles, etc.) will hit the sweet spot and drive you readers.

The other thing to keep in mind is that different Apps have different demographics, so you’ll get different results. Don’t blow all your time or marketing dollars on a single platform unless you know they target the group you need!

Addressing Web Traffic

There’s a frustrating truth to web traffic every writer eventually learns. No matter how well you write, you’ve got to catch regular viewers to be successful. Once they get to your site and see how wonderful you are, they can sign up for email notices (I love WordPress for their easy capture of viewers) each time you post a new page or blog. But you have to get them to your site! It’s a Catch-22 situation. You can’t capture them if you can’t get them to your site!

Fortunately, you will get some free publicity from almost any blog-hosting site, but you’ll still need to lean on social media for any other free exposure, and that takes time.

My best advice is to print out a blank monthly calendar and fill it in every day with at least one social media provider that you link to your new content. You don’t need a new blog every day, but you need to let every outlet know about your latest post.

The calendar will keep you from spamming any platform, and you’ll know which one to go to each day which makes the process fast. Just be consistent. If your writing is fun and engaging, you’ll get readers who will join your email group, signup for newsletters, and even share your posts with their friends. The harder you work, the luckier you’ll get!