More Six Figure Mentor Tips! There are many ways to make a second income even if you don’t have a product or service, and you don’t have to quit your day job to do it! How do you take your passion or interests and monetize them? The obvious. Use the Internet! Millions of people are on it every day. But most of us don’t know where to start and even if we have a product or service, we struggle with effectively reaching our audience. So keep reading because in this blog I am going to give you a few things that you can do right now that are simple and FREE to get you started and start building a following that will turn into loyal buyers.
First, pick THAT ONE THING that you really love whether it’s a cause, an interest, hobby, or other peoples ‘stuff.’ If you aren’t sure, here is a quickie article to get you thinking. YOU CAN MAKE MONEY WITH IT and it won’t cost you a boatload of cash. It is critical to love what you want to share with the world because everyone knows when someone is just selling vs. truly loves and believes in what they offer. I was an investment banker, loved writing and FINALLY decided to write my first book and POW! It was a best seller, coming out as a movie, won 2 awards, and now I am officially a professional writer (my real passion) with 2 more books and more movies (I will share those secrets on how you can do the same in an upcoming blog)! One of our SFM members is very serious about conspiracy theories and he is reaching a huge audience that is totally into that and wants to hear what he has to say. He isn’t an expert and he doesn’t have to be. Your interests most likely aren’t that ‘unique,’ but I’ll bet you have something you dream of doing besides your current job. No matter what you love, there are thousands of people on the Internet EVERY DAY that want to see and hear about YOUR STUFF, and online retailers that want to sell your books, CD’s, products, and services.
HOW do you take something you love and turn it into a money maker and potentially full time career? You need to learn how the Internet works first. It isn’t a big task, but it takes some attention to understand who to target, what to say to them, and where and how to reach them (Here are some tools you can use). Once you understand the basics, you are off to the races. Trust me, having a ton of followers on a platform like Facebook doesn’t necessarily mean that they will buy from you. In fact, sometimes those are the people you shouldn’t approach to present your talent or interests. It could turn them off when you ‘sell’ your friends and family.
THE BIGGEST ACTION TO TAKE, and in my opinion the best platform, is to launch your own YouTube channel for FREE. If you don’t already have one, be sure to choose a good name that a person would type in as a search word, or use your name like I did (it’s a brand you can use for anything you want to sell or share). Remember that YouTube limits your channels so choose your branding wisely because you can’t just go in and change it. You don’t want the channel to be named Great Pets where you post cool videos of animals and then decide to launch cooking videos later on. Name the Channel as your overall Brand and then list the video playlists separately under that Channel Brand. For instance, your main account name (Channel) could be “Amy’s Video Blogs” and then you can create numerous Video Playlists under it. “Amy’s Video Blog” could have a “Great Pets” playlist, a “Cookin’ in the Kitchen” playlist and so on. Your audience will then subscribe to that list and will be able to go straight to that specific playlist that interests them. You can load as many videos under each playlist as you’d like. The more, the better because it will start putting you on YouTube’s ‘great customer’ list and up the SEO rankings. They love activity and uploads.
Once your Channel is set up, start video taping yourself, others (interviews are great), ‘how to’ videos, and anything you think will attract viewers and give them value. Those viewers will turn into subscribers whom you know are interested in that particular subject. And if you really don’t want to film your own videos, here is a super easy way to create them in minutes for super cheap (I made 8 for $34.95) and here is one of them. Note that the “click here” has a link that doesn’t work, but the one on the left of the video does. YouTube and Google Adwords are quirkie and don’t always coordinate their actions. I’m working on getting the middle click functional. More info on that when they work it out. Be sure to use the “click here” on the LEFT lower corner if you create a video like mine to make life easier.
NEXT, give, give, give! Give your audience tips, advice, make them laugh, whatever people will enjoy .Think about what YOU are interested in and want to follow online. If you are a musician, be super creative with your videos and present your songs. Don’t be jumping off of buildings or some “America’s Dumbest Videos” attempt. Just be yourself. You can shoot them right from your iPhone and download directly to YouTube. You can even link it to a website or wherever you want to send your audience. If they get to know and love you, when you direct them to something of interest that they will benefit from and can buy, you are in business! But first, build a relationship.
VIDEO BLOGGING is my favorite. I love to read, but I am hooked on YouTube and I will sit and go through dozens of videos on subjects that I love not to mention every ‘how to’ that I need. YouTube is THE SECOND BIGGEST SEARCH ENGINE next to Google and guess who owns it. . . Google. Yes, YouTube is a search engine, so use it and get clever. You can go into Google Keyword Planner to see what are the top search words that people use and them stick them in your keyword search on your YouTube channel so that when people use those words, your channel will be front and center. Start a video blog and be consistent with your subject matter. Video blogs are a series and should be posted no less than weekly. Each should be no longer than five minutes as most of us have a short attention span. When people subscribe, they will keep coming back to see what new, fun, and interesting video you have posted and they will know that you will be sharing the same subject that got them subscribed in the first place. So, remember to be consistent with your subject.
Next, be sure to be interesting. I can’t tell you how many times I ‘bug out’ when someone gets in front of a camera and drones on and on. Get the dog to join you in the video, shoot in crazy places, demonstrate your cooking or show your audience how to make a cool project. I love the DYI or HOW TO videos and they are big on YouTube. Do you know what the top viewed video on YouTube is? No joke, it is someone unpackaging Disney products. I’m serious. One of my mentors made it big by partnering with a magician. They posted magic tricks on YouTube and became a huge success, getting a big subscriber list and then offered books and products to them to buy and are both amazingly wealthy.
Don’t worry about the background or if you are a good speaker because people love it when someone is in a natural environment just being ‘themselves.’ Just be sure that you have good lighting and that it is in front of you, and not behind you. Here is an example of a really nice video that doesn’t work simply because of the lighting – WHAT NOT TO DO! This is one of my music industry icons sharing music publishing information as she is walking in Runyon Canyon in California. I posted it, but the back lighting is really, really annoying! We’ll be reshooting that soon. She is learning, but notice what a fun, relaxed and interesting speaker she is.
HERE IS A RECAP:
- Find what you love and think about how you can present it to the world. Blog, DIY, How To Videos, Funny Stuff
- Launch a FREE YouTube Channel and be sure to brand it well
- Link that Channel to a website if you have one, so that people know where to find you and get more information (or products & services along with a shopping cart so that they can buy from you); you can always add all of this later when you get a nice list of subscribers who love you
- Create ‘play lists’ under that channel if you have more than one interest and give them KeyWord Names that people would type in to find the kind of videos you are posting
- Start shooting videos right off of your iPhone and download them to your channel. You can edit it for free on YouTube
- List keywords that will bring searchers to your channel. This can be done when you load your video – YouTube will ask you what keywords relate to your video.
- Then watch the activity and subscribers, post weekly, and build your fan base!
- Finally, direct your subscribers to some cool things they can buy!
WHAT DO YOU LOVE? Put it in a video. Be careful with your YouTube account as you are limited to two and additional accounts require some tricks (which I will share upcoming). I have included some links below to help you. I will be sharing much, much more with you in future blogs. Now go, have fun, and feel free to let me know how it is going and if I can assist in any way! Landria, Your Six Figure Mentor Advisor
Check out more great Marketing Tools HERE, a SUPER AWESOME easy and FREE way to create videos HERE and check out my SFM YouTube Channel where I posted a video I made in 5 minutes that can help you to build a customer list!