This is a guest article by Ben Sword, head coach at Music Marketing Classroom. Go here for more free training http://www.musicmarketingclassroom.com
Chances are that if you’ve ever dabbled in the wonderful world of online music marketing you might have set up a blog at some point.
After playing with the fonts and colours for 7 hours (or was that just me?) you got to work eagerly bashing away at the keyboard week after week until finally that sinking feeling hit you like a sucker punch from Grandma…
“Hot Dang’ …Nobody is reading my Shizzle!”
Kinda feels like playing the best show of your life with only the bar staff watching! Not Cool.
But why the radio silence?
Well recently I spent around 3 months talking to every smart and successful blogger I could find in an effort to try and CRACK THE CODE for my latest book.
(which you’re getting below)
But you wanna know the “Magical Formula” right now?
Ok here goes…
To run a world class blog you need to build a big enthusiastic audience who suck up your every word like I drink Oreo Milkshake…and the only way there is HARD WORK.
That ain’t a very sexy thing for me to tell you, and I’m sure I would shift a lot more Classroom memberships if I was peddling a “fast-forward button” that gave you a Bagillion fans overnight.
But it don’t exist…
Sure there are examples of fast success, but relying on that is like saying “one day I’ll win the lottery and everything will be cool” rather than designing a real career (and business) that will sustain your hunger for Apple macs even when the five minutes of fame are over. (or is that just me again?)
Right…so now we got the reality check out the way, the question remains…can you really use blogging as your path to speedy full time musician status?
And the answer to that question my Interweby friend is 100% YES, but a well thought out Guest Blogging strategy will get you there faster.
Guest Blogging? What The FUNK?
The big idea here is that rather than spending four hundred years posting on your own site trying to build an audience, you first find relevant websites who have already got a bunch of visitors and become a valued content provider for them.
So WELL DONE because you just got a promotion, and your new job title is “Creator of super-awesome interesting stuff to be posted wherever there is a crowd”.
I believe EPIC Stuff should be the focus with any kind of sensible online marketing right now, in fact it’s not really about using a Blog at all, or a YouTube channel or even a Twitter feed…it’s your commitment to consistently producing inspiring and share-worthy articles, videos and music that will put you on the yellow brick road to a thriving audience.
Just to be clear…this strategy is NOT about using other sites JUST for their crowd like some fun sucking mind leech, but asking yourself how you can become a trusted and valued content producer to those websites and their followers?
Once you have a crowd of interested people collected on an email list from your guest posting exploits you’re free to focus on your own website if you like, because now you have a captive audience ready and waiting for what you have coming out.
So that’s the snazzy intro in the can, but I made you the following video and action-plan to help you get to work:
Your Action Plan
Pick a topic that gets you all hot under the collar, then read the top three articles on Google for inspiration.
Set a timer for 25 minutes and write down everything you can think of based on your chosen topic. Don’t stop writing or edit anything yet.
Leave it overnight and go bake a cake or something, then come back the next day to edit your masterpiece ready for posting.
Make it easy for your promo partners by setting up the code in your own blog first so they can post instantly.
Don’t forget to link back to a page on your site where you can collect new email subscribers by offering them something killer.
Contact popular websites to pitch your guest content. Search tools: Follower Wonk, Similar Site Search and good ol’ Google.
If you hear nothing follow-up with a friendly reminder.
Use the feedback you get to improve your pitch and then rinse and repeat the process until you’ve gotten all the hits you can from the content you created.
If right now you’re pumped and feel confident that guest posting is going to be totally badass for you then I suggest you commit to it as your main promo method for at least three months and focus. (Six days a week if possible.)
Only then will you have a proper indication of your success.
Remember the words of Bruce Lee…
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times…and Ben Sword is totally AWESOME!”
OK I made up the last bit, but you get the idea 
A few more goodies…
When you’re on a guest blogging mission it’s all about “how much coolness can I put in my posts”… so with that in mind I decided to make you another video packed with all the little details you’re going to need to get started with your promotion:
…and if at this point you’re thinking “Oh yeah, like I’m really going to do my full time job and be a dedicated guest blogger as well”…
…then below is a little process I’ve been using to get up at 4.45am every morning giving me plenty of time to work before my two year old son stage dives out of the cot onto my head, while still swinging his guitar!
And Finally…
Whoa we made it, thanks for sticking with me!
You’ll remember that right at the start of this post I mentioned a book I’ve been working on to seek out smart bloggers and grill them for advice.
And just for kicks…you can download a full free copy of that below.
Click on the book to download:
Once you’re done with this lesson I’d love you to leave me a comment and let me know how you plan to use guest blogging in your marketing plan, or what you’ve been doing to build a buzz around your music recently.
Related Articles:
Music Success in Nine Weeks Blogging Challenge V.2!
Reality Check: Blogging Won’t Work Unless You Are Dedicated
MSi9W Blogging Contest: First Round Contestants Announced!