Greg Reynoso launched Linq Magazine nearly a decade ago and has since featured hundreds of independent creators in that time on his platform. Throughout the years Greg Reynso has worked with various rising creators ranging from music artists, business owners, tattoo artists and apparel brands from around the world. Being an individual who leverages technology and the creative tools available, paired with nearly a decade of watching independents reach their audience, Greg Reynoso shares 5 ways that independent creators can amplify their offering.
It’s 2021, it is imperative that you have a website.
Listen, there is no excuse you can give for not owning a website in 2021. This is imperative if you are a digital creator, a music artist, a brand owner, and you local business owners. Some of you may be reading this thinking to yourself, come on now this is elementary, however, you would be surprised how many music artists, digital creators and local business owners do not have their website for potential fans, clients or customers to visit.
Owning your space on the internet will help amplify your reach in more ways than one. For starters, a website opens the opportunity for free traffic from searchers all over the world. This creates an opportunity to gain new fans of your music, more sales of your artwork, or more potential customers reaching out for your local services. How do you expect to grow and prosper if you do not have a place on the internet telling your prospects hey internet, this is me and this is what I offer?
Owning and maintaining a website helps create brand awareness and authority by serving as the official online space for what it is that you offer. There are more than a handful of inexpensive services you can sign up for today to easily create a website, even with little to no experience using intuitive What You See Is What You Get site builders.
Solidify your brand presentation.
You have a website where you can showcase your offering, now what? Take a moment to solidify your brand presentation. This is where you will want to spend some time analyzing your current online presentation for visual and verbal cohesiveness. Ensure you dig deep and check out how your competitors or like-artists are presenting their offering.
Begin with ensuring each of your social media handles are the same across all channels that you plan on utilizing. This may be a tough obstacle to overcome for some and may require some creativity, however an easy to remember social handle will help set yourself up for success when trying to be found. Stay clear of using long, over complex social handles and avoid including numbers, underscores and other special characters that will make it difficult for your audience to decipher if this is your profile or not.
Consider updating your profile photo across each active social media profile so that they match, or that they include your logo. Does your brand or business have a branded color profile, sometimes referred to as brand colors, and are these colors being used in a consistent manner across all social media profiles?
Lastly, review the verbal components of your social media profiles. This is often your profile “bio” area, and a best practice that I follow is to keep your bio uniform and concise, and include a branded hashtag. Always include your website or the URL that you want your audience to visit, and familiarize yourself with the tools and features available to engage in new ways with your audience, like adding a booking button to your Instagram profile that your audience can easily utilize to book your services, for example.
Become an authority in your niche through outreach.
You have spent some time reviewing and refining your brand presentation, your website is live and ready for traffic, now you are ready to build and become an authority within your niche. I recommend taking a look at which, if any, online press articles your competitors or like-artists currently have when you perform a web search against their name.
If you find press for your competitors, use this as an opportunity to sell your offering to the editor. Once you compile a list of publications, reach out and pitch your offering for a story. This is a numbers game and the more publications you reach out to, the greater your chances will be of getting a feature. This press will show up on web searches when potential fans, clients, or customers search for your brand and will show that you are an authority within your niche.
This same approach can be applied to find podcasts within your niche, and this is an approach that I personally recommend based on my experience as a guest on podcasts, as well as hosting my own podcast. You will be amazed at the amplification and authority a single podcast episode can bring your offering.
Activate your offering using branded digital assets.
Each of us have interacted with our favorite artists, creators, or brands online using branded digital assets. Think branded gifs that your audience can use and share in their own creative ways. Do not undervalue a custom branded story filter either. Both gifs and branded story filters are easy to create on your own with some time and a few video tutorials. If you are not up to creating your own digital assets, you can search online marketplaces for designers to create assets of your own for relatively affordable costs.
Launch a branded podcast.
Once you have the aforementioned basics completed, you can consider launching a branded podcast of your own. Self-producing a podcast is easier than ever with more than a dozen different podcast distribution channels available to choose from, and being relatively affordable to launch. Focus on value-centric episodes, or topics that you are certain your audience will be receptive of. With a branded podcast, you will be able to amplify your offering by having the opportunity to reach more prospects through voice, one of the fastest growing channels of content consumption.
As Greg continues to work with independent creators through his platform and podcast, you can follow him on Instagram, @gregreckless, and check out his website, gregreynoso.com to keep up with what he is working on.
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