Designing 101 - Episode 4: Advertisement

We talked about branding, identity & marketing. But how does that come together? With advertisement! For every blogger that wants to start their brand its good to understand the basics of good advertisement and how it can help you.

As a blogger on Steemit you need promotion. You need followers and gain some revenue. Having a good advertisement will give you a lot of new followers while a bad one will lose you followers. I want to save you that pain or losing but more important, I want to give you that boost in expanding your brand with effective advertising.

First off, what makes you stand out from your competition?

People are seeing a lot of things on Steemit and come in contact with them all the time. So the question is, why should your followers or potential followers read your stuff? What do you offer more than your competitors? That’s what you have to figure out and stay focused on with your advertisement. You have to show your (potential) followers why your blog is their number one pick and go with you!

Example

There are a lot of giveaways on Steemit. People stating to give away 100% of their revenue to all followers. But what might be different? Well @stefanarud got the trick just right! He offers a small amount of SBD to everyone who follows / Resteems his post and on top of that he will give away 5 SBD to the one that has the best article. Like this, he curates / promotes good content and rewards it. This inspires people that follow him to deliver great content thus his own advertisement helps and in the process he helps the quality of Steemit go up.

Your headline is your advertising

A powerful headline grabs the attention of the crowd. People tend to scan things very quickly and they see so many posts. They can’t read each blog so your title should say it all and your thumbnail should be on point. This is why your advertisement should grab the attention and have a little bit of clickbait in them.

The Call to Action

Don’t just tell your followers what you have to offer. You have to encourage them to take action! A Call to Action can encourage people to follow you, to engage with you or to up vote your post. You need to use exciting words and a persuasive language that gives that boost.

Make it seem urgent!

You don’t want people to think of your blogpost, but to take action. Make it seem urgent so that people want to do it right away. The example of @stefanarud is a great one because he offers it in a time limit of 24 hours. You have to let your followers know that the time is now and they have to go forward.

Offer a value

So many of the advertisement done here is to get followers through giveaways. But what else can you do? You have to offer a value! Everyone has it specialty. Mine is design, for some others it might be writing, vlogging, talking or something else. Share your own knowledge and help people further. When you don’t advertise your blog but yourself you will see and exponential growth in followers.

Use exciting graphics

People are visual. That’s a fact. A image says more than 1000 words. Add exciting graphics to your post and offer them something exciting. Have something to is totally you, and you want to bring forward. Something that makes your blog post personal. @oleg326756 does that with his image of himself and his Minnowsfeed. Try to get something like that in your blog post, a point of recognition.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of Designing 101. And if you want an exciting graphic yourself, comment below or on the Steemit Chat and we can work something out! Cheers!