Sunday, December 11, 2011

Blog Critique: Julie Hedlund

In this series I give constructive feedback about the look and function of an author blog from a marketing perspective. As always, I rely on help from graphic designers Tom Barnes (my hubby) and Joe LaRue. To review the blog elements we look at or to submit your own blog for critique, go here.

Today begins 5 days of blog critiquing awesomeness. Are you ready for it? We're starting off with a bang with the amazing pre-published author Julie Hedlund. Check out her blog real quick and come back to see what we're gonna chat about today.
Okay, Julie's blog is pretty much perfect.  She has a great title, it's beautifully laid out, easy to read, easy on the eyes, organized very well, and so on and so on. Take special note on how she handles her blog roll -even though she has a lot of names, they are very cleanly listed and don't seem cluttered at all. (My only grievance is that I didn't find my name listed among them... :) 

Anyway, I'm breezing through this part because this isn't what we're going to talk about in regards to Julie's blog. What we are going to talk about is that little box that says "Vote For My Story!" See, last week when I stopped by her blog, I noticed Julie was in the middle of a MeeGenius Author challenge. She entered a contest with MeeGenius that required her to do some of her own promoting and getting people to vote for her picture book. Problem was, she wasn't promoting her story very much. That vote for my story box wasn't there. I'm not saying she was doing nothing - she was tweeting and encouraging people to vote through a few mentions on her blog - but I sensed she needed a bit more of a push. So with only a week left for gathering votes, I decided to give Julie some ideas to get the word out about her book. Hopefully the tips I gave her are also helpful to all of you whether promoting for a contest or a newly released published book. Here's the highlights of what I told Julie last week:
  1. Run a contest on your blog. The winner will get something cool.  To enter to win, readers must tweet, facebook or blog about your book entry at MeeGenius. They must include a link to your entry to be counted as an entry. They get one chance to win with each that they do. Have them put in the comments links to where they facebooked, blogged, or tweeted about your book. 
  2. Set up a mini-blog tour. Yes, it's short notice, but you could tweet or blog out a call for anyone who might want to help.  Be sure to post a schedule of your blog tour. .
  3. If you don't get enough bites on the blog tour, you could offer to do joint promotion with one of the other entry winners. Now this sounds devious, but pick someone who doesn't have a lot of votes. You don't want to help out someone who is already winning! Anyway, contact the author and ask if they would like to write a post on your blog about their book in exchange for you writing a post on their blog about your book. It seems like you are shooting yourself in the foot, but it actually is a great way to reach out to your fellow authors and show support. I believe in author karma and this will get you a ton of it. 
  4. Make sure you get optimum traffic to your blog this next week, whatever methods of promoting you decide to do there, by commenting on lots of other blogs. Look at all your followers and try to leave meaningful comments on all of their blogs. A lot of bloggers will visit you because you have recently visited them. The more comments you leave on other blogs, the more likely it is they will visit you. 
  5. You need a button/badge in your sidebar near the top directing people to your entry. Don't make them read your posts to find out about your book

As you may have noticed, Julie's already implemented many of those ideas. Consider sharing her link and entering her contest. And then, I urge you to check out her story at MeeGenius, not only to vote, but also to keep track of her votes. This is sort of like an experiment for all of us. I'm very excited to see how it works out for her. As I type this, she has 206 votes and is ranked at 45. The first round voting ends Dec. 18th. The first round finalists are chosen by an unknown combination of votes and MeeGenius staff. If Julie makes the first round, her story will be professionally edited, illustrated and animated and reposted for the finals in March. LET'S GET JULIE TO THE FINALS AND DISCOVER THE POWER OF ONLINE MARKETING.

What do you say? Do you have any ideas to help Julie? Please share!

34 comments:

Lynda R. Young said...

They are fantastic marketing ideas. I also agree with your assessment of Julie's blog. It's lovely and clean and easy to read.

Cathy said...

I do not think this applies in Julie's case with the MeeGenius contest, but you must carefully read the contest rules and make certain that you are not disqualifying your entry by offering incentives for votes. Some contests explicit state that your entry will be disqualified for such actions. Certainly you must spread the word about the contest and ask people to read your entry, but be cautious about the specific phraseology if you are offering tangible rewards in exchange for their consideration.

That said, I've voted and FB'ed for Julie already!

Julie Hedlund said...

Thank you SO MUCH Laura! What a great post! Also, I am off to put you on my blogroll ASAP! It hasn't been updated in a while, so you've given me a good prompt. :-)

To Cathy's point, I hadn't thought of that, so I'm going to go back and read the rules now. I don't remember seeing any rules about incentives, but that is a very good point!

Just so your readers know, for the two days prior to receiving your suggestions, I got a total of 3 votes. In the 36 hours since implementing some of your suggestions, I've gotten 26 votes and moved up 5 places in the overall rankings.

In other words, LAURA IS A MARKETING GENIUS!

Susanna Leonard Hill said...

These are great ideas. I look forward to having a reason to implement them! Meanwhile, good luck to Julie!!!

Hannah Holt said...

Go Julie, Go! Also I'm glad your doing this because it was fun to find your blog Laura. I'm interested to see the results of the adventure.

Elizabethannewrites said...

I already love Julie's blog -- any improvements are just icing on an already delicious cake. (And I'm pleased to say I had voted for Julie's story before voting was "cool"! ;) )

The tips you give are fantastic, Laura. I've already implemented some of them on my own blog, and may get up nerve one of these days to request a Blog critique of my own!

Julie Hedlund said...

That's right Beth! You are a trendsetter! :-)


Julie Hedlund
http://www.writeupmylife.com


________________________________
From: Disqus <>
To: jhedlund33@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 8:24 AM
Subject: [laurabwriter] Re: Laura B Writer: Blog Critique: Julie Hedlund

Disqus generic email template

Julie Hedlund said...

Isn't Laura's blog great! I found her when she critiqued the blog of a friend of mine, so it's nice to keep the line moving and have more people discover her.

Julie Hedlund said...

I'm glad you raised that issue Cathy. Just to be safe, I emailed MeeGenius and asked them to send me the contest rules (they'd taken them off the site). Better to be safe...

Julie Hedlund said...

Aww - thanks Linda!

Julie Hedlund said...

I now have you on my blogroll in 2 places - marketing and kidlit writers. :-) Also FB friended and Followed you on Twitter. Whew! How is it that we hadn't connected in those places yet? Oh well, all rectified now. :-)

Diane Capri said...

For busy readers, is there a way to make the "vote here" message crystal clear?

LauraBarnes said...

Very good point, Cathy. Yes, read the rules carefully! In this instance, MeeGenius seems to be interested in how well an author can market themselves and want to see votes for that reason, but many contests do not want any incentives for voting. That's also why Julie is giving the contest for people who share her link, not for people who vote for her. Excellent point.

LauraBarnes said...

LOL! It pays to be a whiny wheel! And my blog roll just shows the first 25 people I follow in order of who has updated recently (in other words, it rotates) so I totally got the better part of this deal! LOL!!

LauraBarnes said...

Diane, do you mean on my site in this post or on Julie's? On Julie's the box that says vote here will lead to the vote. Good point to have it clear for busy readers!

Robyn said...

Excellent advice here, Laura. Julie's story and blog are already winners with me. I can't wait to see how all this works out.

I have made some improvements based on your advice to others. Your suggestions are spot-on!

Julie Hedlund said...

Thanks Robyn, and I'm not surprised you got some great tips from Laura's suggestions.

Julie Hedlund said...

Update: I'm now up to 213 votes. 8 more and I'll make the Top 40 for the first time since the contest began. Before Laura's tips, I was at 181 and #48 in the rankings. It works!

Laura Barnes said...

I was just going to check out the stats! Thanks for making it easy :) Maybe a fun counter on your website would be fun. I don't know where you find that though...

Laura Barnes said...

Thanks, Lynda!

Laura Barnes said...

You are so welcome!! It's totally fun. I love this stuff!

Laura Barnes said...

I can't wait to see what happens through our efforts!

Laura Barnes said...

Thanks, Hannah!

Laura Barnes said...

Just send me an email when you're ready. I'll be glad to add you to the schedule!

Stacy S. Jensen said...

I like these tips for a contest and marketing. I added you on my resource page this morning after I saw your note about Julie's blog roll. (Also this reminded me I need to spend some time updating that page.) Plus, I want to be ready whenever I ask you to critique my blog. I mentioned you today on my blog today as I discuss following other blogs and your kind help recently to help me sort through how to follow WordPress blogs. Thanks again.

Laura Barnes said...

Thank you so much, Stacy! And you're welcome. I love how the writing community is always willing to help each other out :)

Julie Hedlund said...

I don't know how to do a counter, nor do I have time to figure it out, but if it's okay with you Laura, I can periodically provide updates in the comments section here. As it stands, I now have 223 votes and am ranked #40! That's a full 40 votes more than I had before I implemented your strategy and a position ranking jump of 8. And it's only Monday! I have three days left of guest blogs scheduled and the contest runs through Sunday.

Feeling somewhat hopeful...

Laura Barnes said...

Of course that's okay! I didn't mean to suggest you needed more to do :) Love getting your updates. It's great to see that your word of mouth is getting you places and I can't wait to see where it takes you in this week!

Coleen Patrick said...

Julie's blog is great! I especially love her gratitude posts. Thanks Laura for the tips--I always find them helpful. I am slowly incorporating . . .:)

Laura Barnes said...

Great to hear! Thanks for being a follower :)

Julie Hedlund said...

Quick update: I am now at 280 votes - 99 more than before I implemented Laura's suggestions. I'm also at #34 in the rankings, up from #47 where I started. Go social media! :-)

Laura Barnes said...

YAY!!!! Thanks so much for updating!

Julie Hedlund said...

You won't believe this, but I now have 342 votes and am ranked #23. I'm sorry if I'm being too crazy about the updates, but I'm SO excited. Amazing to see how this starts to accumulate - and then WORK! :-)

Laura Barnes said...

No, I love the updates! I keep checking when I haven't heard from you!! WOW on the progress!!!

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