Secrets to Getting People to Spread the Word About Your Work

Guest Post by Stephanie Ward, FireFly Coaching

As a business owner you’ve got something you want the world to know about.

Maybe it’s your new book, an upcoming workshop, or a special course.

And you know that getting people in your network to tell others about it is a great way to increase the reach about your offer and make sure more people know about it.

But in order for people to be willing to help you spread the word about your cool new thing, you must do two things:

1. Make it easy for them to do it

2. Give them many options to choose from

1. Make It Easy

You know how busy people are these days; even if they do want to help if you make it too complicated they simply aren’t going to do it.

You have to make is super simple for people who support your offer to share the information.

Yes, asking people to forward an e-mail to friends is easy enough but it does take time to think up who might be interested. And people don’t want to send promotions out to their friends too often using e-mail.

Plus there are fabulous alternatives to asking people to forward e-mails, namely using social media and content suggestions.

2. Give Lots of Options

You want to offer a range of options that take from just a few seconds up a couple of minutes. That way people can choose what works for them.

Let me share a fabulous example of a request for support that offers many options. Becky McCray, author of the recently published book Small Town Rules, created this fantastic website page to give several options to people for spreading the word. And here is another example of a share page I created for my new program 5 Low-Cost Ways to Get Clients Now.

Here are additional options per platform that make sharing simple and fast.

Facebook


Respond
For people who want to comment on or ‘Like’ what you’ve already posted about your offer it’s best to give them a direct link.

To get this direct link on Facebook, once you’ve posted the information click on the time stamp (which is in grey below the post, examples: ‘about an hour ago’ or date with time ‘March 20th at 3:30pm’) and then copy that url and paste it into a url shortener like bitly. This is for tidiness and tracking click throughs.

Initiate
For people who want to post the information directly on their own Facebook page give them two or three options for text they can copy and paste.

And also mention the option to write their own promo and which link to include with it.

Twitter
Respond

For people who want to ReTweet what you’ve already Tweeted about your offer it’s best to give them a direct link.

Here’s how you get a direct link to a particular Tweet then once you have the link, be sure to use a url shortener like bitly to shorten the link so you can track how many clicks it gets.

Initiate
For people who want to promote your offer with a Tweet directly from their own account you can give them two or three different versions to choose from and usehttp://clicktotweet.com/ to make it even easier (so they don’t have to copy and paste).

Here is one example (provide two or three to choose from):

Click here to Tweet the text below.
'Ready to learn how to use Social Media? Check out this product http://bit.ly/mPwSr7 from @fireflycoaching'

And also include an option for them to write their own Tweet with a link to include with the Tweet.

LinkedIn
Create two or three versions of text that people can copy and paste into their LinkedIn profile.

Also include the option for them to create their own update and give them the link to include with their update.

And if you’ve created a video for your offer be sure to add the option to share it on each of the platforms mentioned above. Here is an example of a video for an information product from Jo Parfitt and a video book trailer for Carolyn Vines’ book.

People love video and enjoy sharing it. Creating video is easier than you think, find out morehere.

Don’t be shy, ask people to help you share your offer just be sure you follow the two rules to make it super simple and offer a variety of choices. Do that and you’ll be surprised how much help you’ll get.

So get to it and create your ‘spread the word’ guide, share it in an e-mail or on a website page, and revel in the success of your launch

Stephanie Ward is the Marketing Coach for Entrepreneurs who want to create meaningful and prosperous businesses.  Grab your FREE copy of the special report ’7 Steps to Attract More Clients in Less Time’ plus business building tips, at: http://www.fireflycoaching.com.