Expert Storyteller Advice: Melody

Melody Robinson Wright, a Lifestyle blogger and owner of Being Melody, has participated in over ten Linqia programs with great success. Catherine shares her advice for reaching your program milestone, finding your tribe, and finding creativity in sponsored content.

You frequently overperform on your Linqia campaigns. What is your best advice to someone who is struggling with meeting their milestone?
My best advice would be to take your content where your audience is. If your audience is more on Twitter than Facebook then focus on Twitter. One thing that I like to do is use relevant catchy phrases and tie them back to the campaign. Using photos and phrases resonates with my audience and will lead them to want to check out more of what I’m sharing.

What are your favorite blogging tools?

Autoschedulars. They are absolute lifesavers. A lot of people think that I’m constantly sitting at my computer posting to social media. The truth is I sit down once a week and schedule out the content that I want to go out using an auto-scheduling program. I identify my best traffic times for each platform and have content going out at those times to maximize exposure.

Do you get writer’s block? What advice would you give to someone struggling to come up with fresh content ideas?

Take a break! A lot of bloggers feel that they have to post on a set schedule. Unfortunately, that is the quickest way to get burnt out. If you run out of fresh ideas take a step back from your blog and give it a day or two. While you’re taking a break to pick up a magazine and look at what’s trending. Make a list of everything that catches your eye and then brainstorm on how you can flip that into something that would perfect for your blog.

Do you think the visual look of a blog is important? Why or why not?

Absolutely, nothing will make me click the “x” faster than a blog that isn’t in some type of order. I think blogs should show who you are, and still be aesthetically appealing to the reader. You want your blog to invite the reader to stay and look around some more after reading the article they originally came for. It’s not always about the visuals on a blog. You’ll find most bloggers will have an Internet Marketing Company helping them with their rankings and keyword analysis to keep them one step ahead of the competition. If you’re considering starting a blog, or you’ve started out but not seen much movement, this could be something to consider looking into.
What is your first piece of advice to a blogger who wants to monetize their blog?

Do your research! Even when designing the website for your blog, there is a lot to take into consideration. You might, therefore, want to begin by using a website builder tool. You can read more about what to look out for when designing a website by heading to makeawebsitehub.com. Furthermore, there are so many different avenues for optimization that it’s important for bloggers to know which one will work best for them. Ask yourself if your readers are buyers or are they browsers? Talk with other bloggers who use different monetizing platforms. They are your best resource for finding out the pros and cons of different programs. Also, don’t commit yourself to one form of monetization. At any time, I have between five to six forms of monetization going on within a blog post or on my blog. Monetizing is a great way to create passive income and the more traffic you generate the more passive income you can earn on your blog. You’ll also want to check these reviews if you’re just starting out blogging and also looking for tips and tricks to do with everything from initial set-up, to applying monetization on your sites.