There is a secret ingredient that makes relationship building work. It makes sharing work. Referred, too.
I will be transparent about it and its links. Links make the web work. It's called a web in the first place.
Votes of confidence are the result of good websites linking to you. You have to get enough votes to win.
The hard part? Getting enough links from the right people. You need two things to do that.
We give you advice on #1. I'm going to talk about #2 today.
Digital Commerce Partners is an agency that delivers targeted organic traffic for growing digital businesses.
LEARN MOREYou develop a collection of assets when you are online and interacting with other humans.
Hopefully you have a website on your own. You might have a few social media accounts. It's important to have a list for email marketing. You could have a website, a channel on a video website, or both.
Your reputation is more valuable than any other asset.
Do people know who you are? Do they want to spend more time with you?
You have a relationship-building problem if the answer is largely No.
Reputations are built with content, but maintained with relationships. If you publish good work and you are a good, honorable, and trustworthy human being, your reputation will grow.
You need to get connected in the first place to build relationships.
There is only one reason to build a relationship with a publisher, and that is that you enjoy their content.
Don’t try to connect with web publishers because they have giant audiences or massive influence. Connect with the ones you have a “content crush” on — the ones building something you find exciting and juicy.
Some of these people will have large audiences because of their exciting work. Others will have small audiences. Some sites are growing. Some sites are more active than others.
You aren't going to try to become one of them. That would be offensive. You could try to find a place for yourself in their system.
What makes their work turn you on? Is it their values? Their approach to the topic? Their voice? Some combination of those?
Your own work becomes more exciting when you take in a lot of exciting work. You're inspired by different approaches to your subject, not because you're copying.
If you immediately head over to their site, you will be weirded out because they are decent human beings.
All of the problems we have are shared by people who make content. Good people don't like being treated like gods.
If you want your content to be popular, make it about your topic.
Good conversations and relationship building can be achieved by writing about the subjects we write about. Talk about the post structure, the visual detail of the videos, and the over-the-topness of the rant.
When you talk about the work, it’s interesting. Talking about the topic is engaging. When you talk about how awesome and amazing and godlike the person is, it’s just awkward.
We have all done that. I have. Don't be embarrassed about what you might have done in the past, just move forward with a different approach.
A lot of them teach either part-time or full-time.
Maybe they are speaking at a conference or running a workshop. You won't be able to make every one, but I bet you can make at least one or two a year. Meeting people in real life makes an impression that can be duplicated online, as much as I might love my cozy digital reality.
Online connections are an important part of how we connect. See if your crush has online classes. Try to attend if they do.
You will get a closer look at why their work looks like it does, and it can be a great place to share your own experiences, polish your craft, and maybe even show off your own online business ideas.
Gary Shteyngart's writing is evocative and hilarious.
I also like the work of Salman Rushdie.
I was able to watch the pair of them play a game of writing a letter and tossing it back and forth in a rush.
I fangirled. Quietly.
Social media sites are great places for creativity.
Many writers love the immediacy of the social networking site. Don't overlook a more niche playground like Sktchy if you want to find a home for a visual artist.
Facebook has thriving groups for almost any endeavor you can think of.
Where do you find your content crush?
You can also go there. You can play in the same area. Maybe you will connect with your content crush, and maybe you won't. Either way, you will strengthen your relationship-building skills.
Which brings us to an important point.
“Be kind to everyone on the way up; you’ll meet the same people on the way down.” – playwright Wilson Mizner
I won't judge you if you have a secret fantasy of sailing off into the sunset together. All of us have been there.
Trying to ignore everyone else in the room is obnoxious.
As you work on building relationships with your content crush, you are also building relationships with all of the other people in the ecosystem, and that is often where you find the greatest value.
Maybe you are not a brilliant expert in your own right. That's fine. Writing better content requires lots of practice.
Working and playing within a creative community makes relationship-building practice more deliberate and inspired.
You will meet other people to share your obsessions. Your wealth comes from the relationships you have with those people.
I think all of these would go without saying, but I have to tell you, people surprise me every day.
Relationships can collapse in an instant. You can keep the friends that you form with wise relationship habits.
Reminders can be useful, even though you already know all of the relationship-building pointers. Let's look at an example of how these ideas play out.
There is a lot going on today. She has a video due, a storyselling copy to write, an employee review to conduct, and two client calls.
And then it arrives. There was a person who said, "Ding."
An email from a man.
Maybe he's a sales pro trying to set up a quick meeting to discuss his company's solutions, but it's clear he has no idea what Polly does.
Maybe he needs a job because he is her secondcousin and her college roommate. Even though he doesn't understand the audience or the topic, he wants to write for her company's website.
He might want to pick her brain.
Polly took her teeth out and then deleted the message. She feels kind-hearted today, even though she considers it to be a waste of time.
She will never answer Steve's email.
Why? Steve didn't respect her time with his writing. He didn't do his homework.
When you approach someone without doing your homework, you send a clear message: You think your time is more valuable than theirs.
It's annoying for Polly, but it's murder on Steve. Sometimes we need to ask for things when building a relationship. There is nothing wrong with that. Helping one another out is an important part of business.
Polly would have been more likely to consider it if Steve had spent a few minutes preparing for it.
If you don't do your homework, you will end up like Steve.
I can't tell you how many cold sales emails I get from people who don't know what I do.
I often mark them as junk.
Take the time to understand the work of the person or organization you are approaching.
If they have a blog … read it. Not just a week’s worth of posts — really look at it. Have they identified their most popular posts? Read those. Yes, all of them.
Look over their website, their podcast, their YouTube videos, their digital products. If it is an individual, look at what they post on social platforms.
What recurring themes do they address? What is the moral if their content tells stories? Do they have a winning difference? What language do they use to talk about that?
How do they make money? Who are their customers? How do they serve those customers?
“You can observe a lot by just watching.” – Yogi Berra
That brings us to the second point.
Even if people don't do it, taking some time to look through a company's website is common-sense.
smart networkers know that it is just the beginning.
Take a look at who their audience is, whether you are trying to reach a person or an organization.
If you want to connect with a popular YouTuber, or if you want to start a business, these are the people you need to know.
Influence comes from an audience. The audience is the battery of the system.
Social media has made it much simpler to do this.
Do they have any comments on their website? Read them.
Do they have a social media presence? The audience conversations aren't just what the influencer is saying.
And when I say “tune in,” realize I’m talking more about listening than I am about weighing in.
It is a good idea to socialize later. Understand who you are socializing with.
You are looking for something that will make this audience happy. What are their problems? What problem do they have to solve? How is that going?
If you understand the audience, you understand the influencer. If you understand the customers, you understand the company.
You won't always have this option available to you, but if you do, take it.
What is the amount of time you spend thinking about these days?
Do they have a new product or promotion? Is there a book out? Maybe there is a challenge going on. They are doing a lot of work with a charity.
If you can connect what you have to offer with something they care about, it’s a lot easier for them to hear what you have to say.
You can find what has been publicly posted online. Stalking is not good for relationship building.
It would probably take about as much time to approach five people as it would to approach 100.
You will be more likely to stop and listen to those five people because you have respected their time with relevant, pertinent communication.
Most of the stuff in our inboxes is paintball after paintball.
Now that you have a lot of friends, acquaintances, and professional writers who publish content about your subject, you will just email them 10 or 15 times a week asking for links, right?
That's not the answer.
I don't think you have to wait for your masterpiece to be noticed. Not everything you create is a masterpiece.
Let your community know what you're working on. It's fine if you point people to your content, but you need to do more.
You don’t want to be a self-promotional boor, but you also don’t want to be so polite that no one has the faintest idea what you do. Keep it balanced.
Relationships are wonderful, but they are just one side of the equation.
You won't get good links if you don't have something on your own site that's worth linking to.
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