Use Your Own Articles and Case Studies
to Attract the People and Organizations Important to You

This month I discussed how you can effectively enhance your professional credibility, connect with new prospects, and engage your audience with your articles and case studies.

Hi, this is Wayne Messick. Welcome to the article strategies conference call - a members' only online event of the MTI online conflict resolution and mediation community.

Having our articles published in national (and if we're lucky) international publications has been the number one way to enhance our reputations, connect with people we want to meet, and continue to assure of clients and employers that we are the right person for them.

Now articles posted on the Internet - a virtual army of tireless helpers - work to put you where the people are looking for the information you present and the expertise you provide.

The questions I will strive to answer here are -

Specifically, what's in it for you? Is it worth your time, effort, and investment? And should I attempt to write articles for publication - even if I've never done so?

To answer the first question - what's in it for you, I want each of you to write down the following.

It would be silly for me to try to answer that for you. It would end up being why I believe writing articles are important to me, something of no value to you. Is it important to you to connect with people and organizations you are uniquely qualified to serve?

To build awareness of your organization's mediation/ADR program among other professionals who will read your articles?

Or to grow your individual reputation for professional networking, and perhaps future employment opportunities?

I believe that by the end of this call you will have concluded what's important to you - and you'll have the tools and strategies firmly in your mind - so you can take your next step.

What if you're not a 'writer' or have never written anything you think anyone would publish? Should that be a stumbling block - if you've concluded that having articles working for you 24/7/365 is important? I don't think so - here are three ways to get started today.

1. -Find a co-author a collaborator. On a future conference call I will develop this idea in depth - for writing your next book, but for now - how about finding someone in your organization whose experience parallels yours - with whom to share the work and the fame?

Subscribe to a blog (like www.MediationWorksBlog.com) by using the Feedburner form on the site and when you see an article of interest - written by someone with parallel or complimentary skills, get in touch with them about co-authoring some articles you can both contribute to.

There must be a zillion ways to find collaborators in your organization or the industry or in the MTI Community. The more you think about it the more apparent they will be to you.

If you have a report, a white paper - created in a word document, you can use a free pdf generator # and convert it to a tamper proof PDF document and upload it to your organization's web site. Then, in the brief introduction you add the link so people can download it.

Or perhaps you send people to your web site first - a page where the document is located and then ask them to join your periodic announcement list, like the one I am using to connect with you #, in order to be reminded when you have other information that might be important to them. In short - you are using your brief posts to leverage the reach of the report and possibly build your opt in database.

These templates and the actionable strategies that accompany them offer keys for both the most experienced an the least. Their information is on the transcript page.

5. - Write a White Paper, either alone based on your experiences or with a collaborator. A white paper is strictly 'no-hype' educational content that helps people make decisions by describing problems and how to solve them. When you provide something of value to your readers - they will give you their time, their respect, their loyalty, and their consideration - when it comes time to purchase the products and services you offer.

Studies show that people 'pass along' well done white papers to their friends, associates, and contemporaries 60% of the time - that's phenomenal! And prospects early in the buying cycle - when it's most effective to connect with them - rank white papers as most valuable - more valuable that free trails and demos, analyst reports, and webinars.

There is an excellent tell-all book # 'everything you ever wanted to know about" writing white papers and using them to grow your practice is on the transcript page - along with the free pdf generator # that will easily convert your word doc reports and white papers into tamper-proof pdf documents you can upload to your organization's web site.

What's next?

Whether you are a veteran author of articles, books, and research reports - or if this is your first endeavor, the following are some very straightforward ways to achieve maximum leverage for your efforts.

Number one on my list - and I hope on yours as well - if for you to post your articles (long or short) on our web site's blog. The blog is powered by WordPress.com's really simple syndication interface - making it completely D.I.Y. Here are links to Wordpress's answers to frequently asked questions from users like you #.

It is simple to use and we've added additional features that will allow you to add search engine friendly bells and whistles to your posting if your wish - And as our conflict resolution dedicated content is seen as more and more relevant by the search engines - the stories posted there will turn up higher and higher when people search the Internet.

Here is a link to the "What's In It For Me?" page you received when you first joined the community. There are lots of how-to, what-to, and why-to information here to.

Of course if you have the interest, the commitment to post at least 3-4 times a week, and either the traffic or a way to get the traffic - you may want to start your own blog. Some of you already have blogs and if this is an option you want to consider there is a link to an ebook and many other blogging resources # created by blogging experts and based on their very successful blogging strategy - they are professionals who use their blog to attract new clients. I bought it and found it very informative and you will to.

Here is a link to a completely free system for setting up your blog from scratch. This Wordpress Tutorial is what I used to get started. I knew that the information I needed could be found to be free somewhere - and here it is.

Even if you have (or start) your own blog - write brief introductions on our blog and link to the full article or report or your blog. This sort of linking helps us all.

Writing the story,no matter how long or short - researching and creating the report or compiling the case study based on your results or that of a colleague - that's the hard part. Make the most of that effort - what you have already created.

Let others broadcast your efforts across the Internet.

Announce your story to the world. Online press release services will announce your next event, your most recent promotion, a notable achievement - and - announce your recent article or report. Once accepted and distributed across the Internet they stay out there - available to the search engines essentially forever.

As an example one release we submitted - about a conflict resolution event - was read 989 time, emailed 67 times, and printed out 371 times. Since many of those times were long after the event - having a link on the page where people could find out about future events was - as it turned out - more important than the information about THAT event.

I chose to use the conference call service we're using now # - in part because it is very inexpensive and they provided me with a three week trail for a dollar - primarily because the link that you clicked to get here is the same link that will contain the streaming audio tomorrow and for as long as I want it to. So, if someone joins the community later - this same link will have the audio on it - and I did nothing, the system did it. Or if one of you tells your contacts about the call - the audio is right there at the address you already have.

As you probably know there a tons of free PR distribution services - organizations who will post your news story on their web site, perhaps emailing it to their own list of media contacts, and all of whom provide at least one link back to your web site. Naturally there are the regular paid services - who to a greater or lesser degree, do the same thing.

I am not going to debate which is better - I use both - since different announcements seem to be picked up and promoted by different services every time. When we create a release, we alter it a bit and submit it to both using a simple software program for 20-30 free distribution sites and to one paid service.

Once I write the article we create the release that announces it.

One version is submitted using a simple software program # connected to over two dozen news distribute services worldwide. Submit the release and confirm the process - takes 5-10 minutes, and you're done. You just set it...and forget it.

Initially I went to Google.com and eventually located a dozen or so pretty authentic looking 'free' news release distribution services. Some were not really pushing their free service - they were continually trying to upsell me into higher and higher levels - each for a few dollars more.

In addition I lost the will to post my release on more than a few of them after a couple of times. This was not something I could sustain - so when I found this software (over 2 years ago) I began to do what I had always known would help me get attention - submit my news auuouncements to free news release distribution services.

The other version I submit to the news release wire service # I pay for. I chose this single service because it has numerous tools to help get my story on Google news and other services and they let me know a lot of things about the success of the distribution. And I pay a single annual fee - no matter how many releases I send, up to one a week.

To begin with I paid for submissions at www.PRWeb.com - once they went from a free to paid service - because it seemed that I had had my best results with them. They charge from $60.00 - $90.00 per release. At the same time I tried the news release distribution services from News Release Wire with the same or better results and lots more control of the process and a huge difference in how long the releases were active and receiving traffic. This is the service I have used since 2003 - this link provides you with a $100.00 discount off their annual (no per-release charge) service.

Next I submit the article to a huge article database #. There are lots and lots of them but I only submit to one. I'll tell you why in a minute. This free article directory has thousands of authors hundreds of article categories and tens of thousands of articles. They also have over a million impressions a month - publishers looking for articles to publish.

The link above takes you to my expert author profile where you'll see the articles live on their service along with the number of times they have been read and accessed.

Then I submit my article to the largest and most extensive article syndication serviceon the Internet #. This is a paid service, although they will let you try it out for free for the first so many articles - and unlike the article bank, they email the articles to specific newsletters and websites who have requested articles in specific categories.

And, if it suits your style, your story, your agenda, your audience - put the message in even more places where the people who are looking for it are most likely to find it - YouTube - Facebook - MySpace - LinkedIn etc.

Think of this entire process as a stone thrown into the middle of a pond - sending out endless ripples. Then another stone and another until the ripples tumble over one another - creating a wave of your knowledge, insights, and experiences - overwhelming your competitors and leaving no doubt in the searcher's mind that you are the one they are looking for.

One article can be posted on our blog, then announced to the worldwide media, then contributed to the largest article bank on the Internet, and finally syndicated to over 2,000 newsletters and web sites by the most powerful online syndication service - at zero cost, period.

By the way - I can't say this enough - always have your contact information - something that's very unlikely to change - on every article you have everywhere you have it.

And send links to the people and organizations you respect - for every one of them that links to your articles your relevance goes up, to the search engines where there are keyword searches and to the people who type in your name and that of a competitor into a search engine - and your results cover 20 pages, and theirs receives a question from the search engine - wanting to know if your spelling was accurate.

# The products & services mentioned are those that I have personally purchased and am using today. I recommend each one of them based on my experience. I have, whoever possible, negotiated a free trial, discounted access, or the best available price for each of them. Please don't make the mistake I did - and overlook them because of their hype filled sales pitches. Once you get past their over blown copy you'll see very competitively priced products with great potential value to you.