Create If Writing

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One of the most frustrating things is when you create a great image for Facebook and then you can't make Facebook show the right blog image. I hate this. Bloggers hate this. Writers hate this. People email me about this and write questions in Facebook groups about how to make Facebook show the right blog image.

So I'm going to show you!

This is just one of two tips in this week's Create If Writing podcast episode, so you can listen here and watch the video blow to see a demonstration.

Step 1- Create the right sized image

If you are just sharing a photo on Facebook, square is best. But if you are creating an image for Facebook to pull into the feed to go along with your link, I always use 560 x 292 pixels. This pulls the correct image, beautifully sized and non-pixellated.

I use Picmonkey for this and you can watch my quick video on how to resize images for social media for more on this.

Step 2- Insert the image into the Yoast SEO plugin

I love this plugin. It is life. It helps guide you into making smart SEO choices, allows you to choose the heading when your post shows up in Google search, and lets you choose the image for Facebook. And more.

First, install the plugin and get familiar. You'll find that it creates a little box at the bottom of every post. You can click on the social share tab and then upload the image you just created for Facebook. (You should also create a great Facebook headline and description while you're there.) Publish the post as you normally would.

Step 3- Debug that mug

Facebook generally will NOT pull the correct image at first. Sometimes ever. Which is the super frustrating point most bloggers find themselves in. But Facebook made a tool for that! It's called the Open Graph Object Debugger. You plug in your url and then hit Show Existing Scrape Information. Then scroll to see what image and description it's pulling.

Then, when the image is NOT the one you wanted, you will put in the url again and click Fetch New Scrape Information. I do this as many times as it takes to get that image showing up in the preview. I also generally ignore any errors that it points out. I'm just interested in the image and usually the errors are a bunch of nonsense anyway.

And that, my friends, is how you make Facebook show the correct blog image. Ta DA! Share with all your friends. Bookmark the debugger. And use it. Often.

What you need to know about course creation, how to set up your blog's navigation, and writing catchy headlines. 

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What IS platform and how do you build it? Last week I spoke at Houston Baptist University's Writer's Conference all about platform. I had some great questions and thought it would be really great to unpack and define platform since it's a word that gets tossed around so much. What do you really need to have a platform? How can I deal with the struggle to promote my own work? Let's dive into that.

Listen to Episode 93 - What Is Platform and How Do You Build It

The idea of platform, for writers or bloggers, wasn't even a Thing years ago. If you were an author, you wrote books and a publisher (were you so lucky to find one) would handle most of the marketing for you. As a blogger, you would write blog posts and people would just appear to read. That's how it worked! 

Now, there is the need to build a bridge to connect with readers. You can either draw them into your site with SEO (search engine optimization) or be present with social media to push out your content. 

If you shudder at the idea of platform, stop thinking of it as a burden and consider it the way that you can directly build relationships with your readers. Who doesn't want that? 

So here is my three-step process for building your platform: your blog, your email list, and your social media. 

The beginning of your platform, whether you are an author or a blogger is your website. The term "blog" generally refers to a site with a series of posts, but these days, blog and website are more synonymous. Blogs look more like traditional websites and often are now a PART of a site, not found on the main page.

I would highly recommend if you HAVE  a blog, to integrate that into your main site. I'm a fan of using your real (or writer's) name dot com. If you have an awesome blog or brand name that's working for you, you could always own your name and have it redirect, or even have the blog page have your unique blog title.

When I started my parenting blog, it was called I Still Hate Pickles. People always said I would love pickles (my most hated food) when I was pregnant, and since I started the blog when I got pregnant (and STILL hate pickles), this seemed like the perfect name. Switching to Kirsten Oliphant made sense from a writer standpoint, but plenty of people missed the Pickle-Hating theme. And it is always a little weird to say, "Check out my blog, Kirsten Oliphant dot com!"

Whether you consider it a blog or a site with a blog on it, this will be the main hub online. People can find out the basic info about you and where to connect with you on social media and also sign up for your email list. At the most basic, your site should have a main page where people can find out basic info & sign up for your list, an about page, a shop page if you have books or products, and a blog page if you have a blog.

Here are some helpful resources if you're trying to get this whole thing started. I highly recommend starting with either Wordpress.org or Squarespace. Wordpress is great for the long term, but has a larger learning curve. Squarespace is GREAT for people just starting out, but not just for newbies. You can drag and drop and even set up a shop, all for about $8 a month.

• Jane Friedman on author platform
• A Newbie's Guide to Setting Up Your Wordpress blog*
  *I would NOT recommend BlueHost, who I used for years until my sites were constantly down, but Siteground for hosting. I'm an affiliate because I use and strongly believe in them! Click HERE to sign up with my affiliate link.
• What You Need to Know to Start a Wordpress Blog
• Megan Minns' Free Squarespace Course

Landing Pages

As an alternative to a whole blog, you could set up just a landing page just to collect email addresses. You could do that with an email service provider like ConvertKit (read why I love them so much!) or even Mailchimp, though it won't be so pretty. This will take some of the overwhelm out, but will still get you starting on having a central hub.

Though I mention your site first as the public face and place for people to connect online, your email list is the foundation that goes underneath it all. This is where you KEEP the connection you've made with people and retain it. Your email list is more permanent than anything else you have. It's your best digital asset.

I'M A HUGE EMAIL NERD, Y'ALL. And there's a reason. It's because I truly believe email is the most important and long-lasting connection you can make with your audience. (I literally wrote the--or A--book on email, Email Lists Made Easy for Writers and Bloggers.)

Don't wait to set this up. Set it up first and make sure you have some great opt-in places on your blog, not just a "Subscribe to Our Newsletter" thing in your sidebar.

No one is just going to find you, unless you are KILLER at SEO, which also requires usually being present online for some period of time. So you need to promote and connect with your audience. Social media is where you put yourself out there. It's where you talk to your audience and share your content. But it can be super overwhelming!

Start with ONE platform and rock that platform out. It's really hard to manage multiple platforms, even with great tools.

Things to consider:

• What do you love using?
• Where are your people?
• What can you create?

It's important to think about what YOU like, because if you don't want platform to be a huge burden. If you can find something that you enjoy, you'll interact better and resent it less. So take into account what platform speaks to you. 

People really are EVERYWHERE these days, but your people might be more likely to be on one platform than another. Everyone is on Facebook (at least 30 years old an above) and a lot of the world is on Twitter. LinkedIn tends to be much more traditional, both in terms of publishing and the corporate world. So consider your audience hangs out as well as where YOU want to be.

Consider what skills you need for each platform. Instagram, for example, needs great photos. For YouTube, you need video. If you can't easily integrate into the platforms because you don't have the tools or skills, then DON'T CHOOSE THAT PLATFORM. Or, take a course or really work to get your skills up to snuff for the platform.

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Last week I shared details about my disappointing course launch. Reader Kaitlin from Ink & Quills emailed me asking a question I hear a LOT: Should you pr sell your course before you build it? 

Course creators hotly debate this and I want to break down reasons why you should NOT and why you should presell your course before you build it. Plus one option you might try instead! 

Thanks to convertKit for sponsoring the show! Get a free month with my affiliate link: http://createifwriting.com/convertkit

I'm going to give you a spoiler alert here and say that I think you can do EITHER. Preslling before building might really work for you. Or it might not. I definitely DON'T think it's unethical. Unless, that is, you're running off to Paris with the money you make and not delivering the product. (Listen to the episode for more on THAT story.) 

1. Preselling Validates Your Idea. 
2. Preselling Motivates You to Finish. 
3. Preselling Can Finance the Course. 

Let's break those down into the dirty details. 

Preslling Validates Your Idea. 

Preselling your course before you build it shouldn't be the primary way you validate your course idea. You could be surveying or getting people on the phone (yes, the PHONE) or listening in groups to see what people are asking or paying attention to the responses of your email list for what they want from you. 

But preslling your course before you build it makes people put their money where their mouth is. I've heard many stories of people who build out what their audience SAYS they'll buy, but their audience doesn't actually buy when push comes to shove. Preselling before you build your course will let you know for SURE. Until you get paid, all that validation seems like guesswork. 

Preselling Motivates You to Finish. 

When people have given you money, it puts a mighty responsibility on you to finish. It lights a fire that makes you GET 'ER DONE. 

Contrast with people I know who have been building courses for months or years without finishing because there is no fire. Nothing is at stake for them. It's easy for life or kids or other projects to get in the way. 

WARNING: This isn't for everyone. Some people don't work this way and a deadline with this kind of pressure would paralyze them and shut them down rather than getting them to work. Only YOU know how YOU operate. 

Preselling Can Finance the Course. 

When I interviewed Bjork Ostrom from Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro, he talked about preselling memberships to Food Blogger Pro. They built the membership site with that money. 

Some courses or program may not have a lot of overhead, but the presale allows you to have money to invest back into the course you're finishing up to get things polished and in order. 

Be Clear That It's Not Complete! 

I totally bought a course in presale that I didn't realize hadn't been finished. It was a huge disappointment to me. I'm sure they made it clear, but you need to realize that some people (like me) skim and just click buy without reading the fine print. Make it bold and clear. The last thing you want is someone who is disappointed or feels cheated. 

Have a Good Portion Complete. 

Make you don't have the bells and whistles. Maybe your course isn't shiny. But your course should have an outline and a solid bunch of content before you presell it! Don't start from scratch after you have money in hand. That WOULD be paralyzing and too much pressure. Definitely have things in place. Otherwise, how would you present the course for sale to people? How would you have content for a lead magnet or webinar or anything to even PRESELL the thing in the first place? 

Relevant Links about Why You SHOULD Presell Your Course:

Presell Your Online Course and Get Paid to Make It - Halley Gray via Teachable

How to Sell a Product Online - Lewis Howse

Exactly How I Marketed My Online Course - Melyssa Griffin

1. You might not finish. 
2. You might ruin your reputation. 
3. You won't have validation that your course works. 

Again, let's break these objections down. 

You Might Not Finish.

Only YOU know how YOU work. For me, having that deadline and the money on the table mean that I had to finish and would do a killer job. For you? That might be too much pressure. It might be paralyzing. If you don't work well with this kind of pressure, please do yourself a favor and don't presell!

You Might Ruin Your Reputation. 

If you don't finish or don't finish on time or don't have people find your course awesome, you may really affect how people see you and talk about you online. That's never a good thing. This is a big risk. Make sure it's a well-calculated one.

You Won't Have Validated Results That Your Course Works. 

This is the biggest reason many have for NOT recommending a course sale before it's built. If you haven't had people go through the course, how can you promise results? (I'll get to my OWN problem with that statement in a minute.) You won't have testimonials or feedback. In a sense, your course won't be PROVEN. This is a valid point! You're selling something blind, in a sense. 

Tweak as necessary.

Take the feedback and change from it. Let those first people really help you with the updates that you need to make. 

Ask if your course is about information or transformation. 

For some courses, this idea of transformation (ex: I went from 10,000 pvs a month to 100,ooo after taking this course!) is more important than in other courses. Some courses may be more about INFORMATION. We are in a period where the transformation seems like the big sell. I get it. But sometimes you just need to KNOW something. Like the tech behind running a webinar. Period.

Don't oversell.

I personally hate when people promise results, through testimonials or just flat-out saying that you'll get them. To me, these don't give the full picture either. Success and change depends on the student as much as the course. I think there are so many factors that THIS makes me way more uncomfortable than selling something that isn't done yet. I hate overpromises.

This looks different for different people, but overall, you would have either an application process or a smaller payment to get people in beta. You wouldn't fully be launching without a product, but maybe you would start with the first week and drip out the content rather than having everything ready as you plan to do on launch day. 

I personally recommend having people pay. I have not had good experiences with people doing something for free in order to give a testimonial or give feedback. There is no skin in the game. No push to DO it. So unless you have someone SUPER motivated (this is where an application process could come in handy), you may get nothing from letting people in for free. 

However you plan to sell your course, do it in a way that doesn't feel smarmy to YOU. Keep your integrity. Be smart. Make intentional choices. I stand by the idea that there isn't a right one, just a right one for YOU. 

How have you (or would you) launch YOUR course? Presell without a product or no? 

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Today I'm getting real about something that makes me feel INCREDIBLY vulnerable. Mostly because I don't read a lot about this from other people. I'm going to share what you do when your launch fails. 

Recently, I re-launched my email course, Own Your List, and it totally failed to meet my expectations. I want to share my own personal thoughts on this and on why I think this happened so that I can help YOU succeed with your launch. Or so you can get back up on your feet if and when your launch fails. 

Get a free month of ConvertKit with my affiliate link! Thanks for sponsoring the show! Read WHY I love ConvertKit here!

In the podcast episode, I share all the nitty gritty about the background from this course, how it started as a terribly named course (How to Build an Authentic Email List) that didn't sell well and was built on one password protected Wordpress page. It had good content, but I clearly had NOT taken enough courses to see different ways to build them or what should be included. 

Now, 18 months later, I updated the course to a full video course built on full course software on a webpage dedicated to courses. (See my course site here!) I had some reservations about rebuilding, just because I never validated this idea in the first place to see if it was something people wanted when I created it the first time. 

It was really important to ME to redo the course into something I was proud of, and I stand behind the content. It's pretty stellar. But in the back of my mind, I knew that I was again creating something that people didn't necessarily say they were NEEDING. And I decided to build it anyway. 

That's the back story. 

In a ten day launch, I added about ten people to the course. My goal was to make $5000. And I fell super short of that. Clearly. 

SO WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THAT? 

I'll share what I did and what I suggest YOU do at the end, but first: let me help you avoid getting to the point when your launch fails. 

Before you build a course or write a book, you should first do the best you can to make sure that people can and want to buy it. If you still want to create it even without validation, realize that it's a passion project and you're doing it for YOU. 

Tips for Validating Your Idea

• Do NOT just present your idea and ask if people will buy it. They will likely say yes because of the psychology of wanting to confirm. Ex: Would you guys be interested in buying a course on email lists? 
• DO ask more targeted yet open ended questions to help you see what people DO want. Ex: What are you struggling with the most right now in terms of connecting with your audience? <- Email is really about audience connection, but this question will help you find out if your audience is more concerned with blog traffic or email subscribers. 
• DON'T try to convince people of what they NEED. In the above example, maybe people NEED to be concerned about email as much as they need to be concerned with pageviews. (Or MORE.) You aren't likely to convince them of this, as least not in order to buy your course. Maybe over time. But not in a launch. 
• DO hang out in your own and other Facebook groups and see what questions people are asking related to your potential topic and how popular the threads are. How many people have issues? Are there easy answers that people share in the group? Do you NEED a course or book on this topic? 
• DO create a survey asking about what people are wanting to learn this year and what price point they want to pay. 
• DO get some of your people on the phone or a video call to ask about their struggles and pain points. 
• DO give people a choice. When you narrow your idea down (doing the above things) then you can ask if people are more likely to buy A or B. Do NOT do this at the very beginning. 
• DO presell. I know some people say not to and that's totally okay. But as long as you are up front that it's a presale, this is a great way to see who is interested in buying your course before you invest the time and the money to DO it. 

This is really a part of validating that idea. If your people cannot afford the price point that you were planning, you should really reconsider. 

Tips for finding your audience's price point

• See what they have bought from you in the past. Was it a $200 course or a $20 product? 
• Know where they are in their journey. Are they just starting out? Are they five years into building a business? 
• Consider your niche. Are you in a niche that helps people MAKE money? Is this a hobby?

It's also important to note that people may SAY they can't afford it, but what they MAY MEAN is that they have the money, but not for your particular product. Really hear what they mean, not just what they say. I had some people say in the follow-up survey that they didn't have the money, but that they were interested in my one-on-one coaching, which has a high price point that might exceed the cost of the course, depending on the option they choose. 

When you are selling, you need to show people the benefits (the transformation that will occur as a result of taking your course or buying your book) and the features (the details about what exactly they will get). Typically, the benefits sell a course. But I know that I am not alone in being a features girl. I look for how many modules, how long it will take to complete, and the exact subjects. I totally skip all the long sales page stuff with all its benefits. 

The benefit is why MOST people buy. They want to know what will happen as a result. They will start out stressed and confused and finish your course with an exact strategy that's easy. That is how you need to present your course in terms of benefits. 

Be sure that you are accurately presenting BOTH. I missed out on some sales by not letting people know that every video had an audio MP3 for those people who don't want to watch. I also didn't explain fully why my course was different than my book, Email Lists Made Easy for Writers and Bloggers, which is only $4.99. (The difference: monetization is not included in the book, but plays a significant role in the course. Among other things.) 

It's important to think about whether or not you have a sales copy problem as well. You can always improve and work on this, so print out any copy you used in email or watch back your video to see what you said and how you could sell better. 

When I started doing what I'm doing now almost two years ago, the webinar space was much less crowded. I had 200 people sometimes show up for a live workshop. My attendance and registration this time were MUCH lower, I think because of the crowds. There are also way more courses, and a lot of people communicated that they already had too many courses to go through. 

While many people are still having success with webinars and with courses (and it's still not too late to start), it's MUCH MORE CROWDED. That means you have to do more work to stand out and succeed. Just keep in mind the context of what's going on in the space that you're in. It matters. 

Those are some great ideas to avoid this, but if your launch DOES fail, here are some things you should do afterward to recover. 

I really do think it's important to spend some time mourning or being bitter or angry or depressed. I feel depressed whenever I finish ANY project, whether it was a raging success or not. Give yourself some time to complain to a friend or just be miserable. But no more than 24 hours or so. Then get up and do the rest of these things. 

Stop saying that it failed. Say that it failed to meet your expectations. When I started talking to friends who are NOT in this space about my launch, they were blown away. "You just made money doing WHAT?" was a common response. It IS pretty awesome that I can create something online once and sell it again and again. It was amazing to get some emails during a night out with friends, letting me know I just made money while having dinner. Give yourself grace. 

I knew almost immediately WHY my launch didn't work well. I identified those four things up above pretty quickly. You may have some insight right away into what went wrong. 

I created a super quick, three question survey asking why people didn't buy, what would have made them buy, and what they WOULD be interested in. Those three questions alone tell me so much! I did a random drawing to give away one spot in the course to the winner. Then I followed up and offered all of those people a free copy of my book Email Lists Made Easy for Writers and Bloggers as well as a coupon code if they DID want to buy the course. I also let them know about my coaching packages (though there is a wait list). 

One great thing about creating something is that you can keep on using it. My course does rock. And I have a few ideas on how I can continue to get revenue from it in the coming months and year. I'm not sure if I'm going to do a bigger joint venture launch in the later part of the year because of how low the response was. I'll share more about how I plan to use the course in the future, but for NOW, you can check out the episode I did last week on repurposing content to see how I've done this in the past (not a launch failure, but just a repurposing). 

Don't give up when your launch fails. Don't. Learn lessons. Get up. Keep moving in a forward direction. There are so many lessons to learn when something fails to meet your expectations. If you give up on something, you'll never learn the lessons and get better. 

Have you had a launch that failed your expectations? Let's talk about it in the Facebook group. It's a safe space, I promise.