Marketing Your Work: The Law of Attraction

Posted by Lima Al-Azzeh Mar 24, 2009

Last week we talked about online journalism as a game of “Survival of the Fittest”. Here at Suite101, we understand that the switch from print journalism to online may be difficult to get accustomed to as it does require major changes in a writer’s mode of operation.

Writing for print publications is a fairly clear-cut process. The writer’s responsibility is virtually over once they’ve done the research and submitted the piece; leaving things like marketing and sales for a separate department of specialists. In the world of online journalism, writers take on new roles as they are forced to champion their own works.

In a discussion with Suite writers about this paradigm shift, Renee Carver, Children’s TV Feature Writer, reveals that “the biggest thing to keep in mind is that writing for the web is different than writing for print because [online] we don't necessarily have a built-in audience: we have to attract them from search engines.” So, other than building good SEO habits, how does this attraction work?

Thankfully, there are loads of great resources out there dedicated to helping online journalists better understand how to market their work- here’s a sampling of some of the most helpful resources on the web:

- Suite101- You didn’t think we’d leave our own resources out of this one did you? Also make sure to check out previous Limelight blog posts by our resident Search Marketing expert Marc Bitanga.

- Copyblogger.com- We’ve mentioned this site in previous posts, but it was worth another mention in case it was missed the first time around. Copyblogger offers easy-to-follow advice without too much technical mumbo-jumbo.

- Content Marketing Today- The best thing about this site is that they don’t just tell you how content marketing works; they show you. Content Marketing Today offers up numerous success stories from how to write eye-catching headlines to sharing “The Secret of Online Marketing in the 21st Century”

- Influential Marketing Blog- Here, Rohit Bhargava, author of the very successful marketing book Personality Not Included, writes candidly and humorously about how to market oneself successfully.

In the field of online journalism the old adage certainly rings true: “It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know.”