So, you've got great content! Right? Well, if you've been following #Dolphinschool Bootcamp, you've got some pretty good ideas about how to do it, at least and you're improving, but you're still not getting the views, votes, follows, comments and payouts that you want.

First, it takes time!

Remember, you're article is one of a quarter million pieces added to the platform that day. That means if I was to pick a random post out of all the posts posted through the poster on this posting day, (say that four times fast) ...no, seriously, say it, I'll wait...Did you say it? Okay, moving on.

If I picked a random post the odds of me landing on yours are 250,000 to one, you've got a .004 % chance of me finding it.

We've already learned how to find great followers on day one.

I showed you how to "weaponize" your content for best results on day two.

We built a toolkit for audience engagement on day three!

You learned how to make them laugh on day four.

I gave you 12 great free picture sites and talked about using images on day five.

And yesterday, we talked about posting frequency and how to create enough content to fill your calendar.

So, now you've got a week's worth of great content and some of it is about to payout! That's either exciting, or disappointing, depending on your audience's response to your work, but it's not too late!

In fact, you can get new votes right up to the wire!

Creating good content, putting it in the right place, and engaging your readers are a great way to steadily build a slow growing, but faithful audience on steemit. It can be done. But, wouldn't you like to add a little rocket fuel? Me too.

Today, I'm going to share some promotion tips to make the most of existing content!

Writing and posting is only half the job, and if you're an artist at heart, like me, you don't want to hear what I'm going to say next.

No one is going to sell you, if you don't sell yourself.

It is a fact, I've tried a million ways to get around it for 25 years of an arts career.

People will invest as much in your work, as you invest in it yourself. You cannot expect anyone to believe in your dream as much or more than you, EVEN If YOU PAY THEM!

That's one reason I got out of social media marketing. We realized that if the owners weren't invested in their brand, we'd never have the collateral we needed to effectively reach their audience and build community. They had to be engaged.

Steemit is no different.

There is nowhere in the world wide web, that you can just drop articles, videos, or photos and expect them to go viral. Not saying it NEVER happens, but your odds are about as good as me finding your one steemit among 250k daily post. They suck.

And as any king knows, the Queen is the real boss.

So, how do you promote yourself?

Rule # 1 Absolutely no spam!!!

Never do any of the following!

• Spam comment threads with links to unrelated material, without being asked.
• Leave links in groups,or chat rooms that are off topic.
• Dominate any group, or thread by repeatedly sharing your content.

I think most of us are clear by now what Spam is. If it would potentially piss you off, then do unto others as you would have do unto you. It's simple. If you don't want anyone spamming your blog, your tip messages,or your chat groups, don't do it. You reap what you sow!

Rule # 2 Don't be Shy!

Love your content, or don't produce. Seriously, if you're not proud to share your link, go back to the drawing board and produce better content. "Um, maybe, if you don't have anything else going on that would keep you from checking me out, could you just stop by and look at my headlines? MY blog kind of sucks, but if you like, that would be cool." Is not going to cut it!

No one will sell you if you don't sell yourself!

If there is an open forum, or an on topic conversation where a promo for your content fits, you've got as much right as anyone to promote it!

Share, share, and share some more, just find more than one place to share!

Rule # 3 Create inviting promos

If you've created solid content and a good headline, this should be easy. For instance, "Hey, your new, you should check out #Dolphinschool. It's helping a lot of steemit authors get started!" I can leave that anywhere that's appropriate and feel confident they will find something good!

• Use images and formating when possible, make it stand out, steemit comments are markdown enabled, go for it.
• Ask questions in your promotions. "Would you be interested in getting more followers?"
• Make them an offer they can't refuse. "Visit my blog, I guarantee you'll laugh out loud." Who doesn't like to laugh?

Where, when and how to promote!

Here are some great ideas about where to promote your work, with links. Check out the resources and add any others in the comments! Thanks!

Promote your own content, on your own blog

If you haven't already, build some links to paste into the bottom of EVERY SINGLE POST you make. I need to do this better. Some of you #Dolphinschool Bootcamp students have this down.

Leave links to recent content, or a favorite piece, like your introduction, if you want. If they like you, you might be surprised how many will upvote all of the links in a series! If you're not doing this, you're missing out on the biggest sales secret in the world!

It is always, 100% of the time, easier to sell to a repeat customer!

• Businesses that establish "subscription" models know this
• They already trust you
• If they liked your first piece, odds are, they might like more of your work.
• This one costs you zero time or pain, other than the set up. Keep that code snippet where you can find it and paste away.

Promote to new users!

I know, their votes are not worth much, but in about fifteen minutes a day, you could be getting 100 new followers a week, or more! Here's how you do it.

1. First, create an attractive link to a piece that's useful for newcomers.
2. Next, visit the "introduce yourself" category and find legit instroductions.
3. Read, or at least scan the intro. Copy/paste your link into the comments.
4. Leave room in your promo for a custom comment

Example

"Hey, Welcome to steemit! I love working with new users! Check out #Dolphinschool for great tips on getting started! @markrmorrisjr"

Becomes

"Hey @steemituserxyz, welcome to steemit! I love your photo and what a story abou your sister! I have two sisters. I love working with new users! Check out #Dolphinschool for great tips on getting started! @markrmorrisjr"

Bam!

More than half the people you leave a comment like this for, will follow it! You could do the same in a lot of categories, with a little tweaking,

"Hey @joeblow, Great pictures of the mountains, we used to have a view of Elk Mt in souther Wyoming when I was a kid. You might like to check out this photography challenge, by the way (hyper link in this line) see you around! @markrmorrisjr"

These comments take about 30 seconds each to customize, add ten minutes to peruse the material of the post and you can do 5 to 10 of these in one hour! If you did three per day, that's 21 per week, or 84 in a month. If half the people follow the link (they will) you could be bringing in over 500 visitors in one year!

Cross Promote to Other Social Sites

This may sound counterintuitive, after all, you came here to get away from Facebook, right? But, the audience numbers of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and even Google Plus are too big to be ignored!

This is one of the biggest things smart social media marketers do.

Cross promotion is huge. It's the reason you sit through 20+ minutes of movie previews. As long as you do it in groups and on boards that appeal to the audience you want, you can't really go wrong.

• Brand yourself across all platforms and add some content now and then
• Do your promoting all at one time to make it more efficient.
• Try schedule posting tools that cover more than one platform to save time.

Here are some great places to start

• Facebook groups,there are dozens of Steemit facebook groups, but what about groups that promote your kind of content?
• Groups on Google plus are easy to get into and post to.
• Twitter hashtags help people find your content, find some good ones

I know I promised links, but you know where to find these sites and how to use them. Also, I was going to recommend my favorite social media scheduler, only to find out, it closed as of the end of January, arrrggghh!

Use Steemit.chat

This one is easy, although doesn't seem to provide as good of results as it did early on. You'll need to sign up for an account. I suggest creating a separate password. Lastpass is a great free tool for generating and saving all of your passwords in one, easy to access place.

Once inside, take a minute to check through the categories

• There are rules for each chat room, read them
• Choose all of the ones that make sense for your content, including begging for votes, steemvotes, anything that says "Vote" in the title
• You can resend your links here pretty often if you want to. Some rooms say no more than once per hour.

The Discord App

You'll need to create an account and download the chat app. It's available for mobile, or desktop. I must confess, I've not spent any time on this one, but it's my understanding that most offsite steemit conversations happen here.

• There is a video chat
• Private messages between users is possible
• Discord is also a live group hangout tool
• You could even create a channnel for your fans, or project partners!

I thought about adding a discord channel to this project, but, I didn't have time to learn it before I jumped in with both feet. So, next time, there will probably be some discord elements to this course.

So, what now?

My recommendation, for new users especially, is to establish a promotions protocol. If you can automate some of it, so much the better. Decide which content you want to put through the protocol, it could be all of it, or only branded content, only once a week in a digest post mentioning your other content, etc.

• Make a list of links to the places you want to promote, or add them to your bookmarks.
• Build your promotional link before you start. Create one that can be customized for comment promoting.
• Set aside time to do your promoting.
• Don't forget, you'll need to schedule a time to check back and reply to any responses.

And that's a wrap

Doesn't seem possible I'm posting day seven already! One week! You'll start getting payouts from #dolphinschool posts after today! I hope you're all still having fun. I'm tired, but still enjoying every second and calculating ways to make next time more fun, and much easier to manage! LOL

Homework Day 7

First the questions

1. How are you doing?
2. Tell me the greatest achievement you've made this week in dolphinschool
3. What is your biggest disappointment about the course?
4. What would you suggest be different for next time?
5. How many followers have you gained in the whole seven days?
6. What is the total payouts for your dolphinschool assignments? Use this link

Part Two Actions

Choose at least two places, off of steemit and promote at least one piece of your dolphinschool content there.

Choose a second piece of content and promote in links, inside steemit somewhere. It can be new users.

Part Three Posting

Summarize your experience this week. Examples, 5 things I learned from posting daily on steemit, or new people I've met while posting this week, etc. Link to at least two of your own dolphinschool pieces.

Now, promote this piece using at least one of the techniques above. The goal is to increase views, upvotes and comments on today's post. Go for it!

If you have not, turn in day assignments by 1 pm CST. The sixth revenue split post will be going up this evening.

At the end of your post, please link to dolphin school. If you know how, create a hyperlink.

When you post your blog

1. Use the tags #dolphinschool and #markrmorrisjr as two of the five for your post. Writing is a good primary category option. This is the other part of your price of admission.
2. Come back HERE and leave a link to your blog in the comments, on the HOMEWORK POST HERE.
3. If you have the bandwidth, comment on at least three or four of the other posts here, resteem and upvote if you feel it's warranted.

But, don't expect others to support you, if you DON'T support them!

I'll visit your blog and leave a comment so you'll know I was there.

If you don't see me by 5 pm CST, please let me know. I've missed you somehow.

I'll leave the critique of your post in a reply on your post. Okay? Any questions?

DOLPHIN SCHOOL BOOTCAMP DISMISSED!

Curious about #dolphinschool? Follow this link!

If you'd like to read more of my work, follow @markrmorrisjr or click on my screen name to visit my blog.

Help support Minnows and Plankton in #Dolphinschool with your upvotes, resteems and encouraging comments!

There will be a special Homework post on my blog. No need to resteem or upvote it. Leave all of your homework in the comments there, bring conversation about it, here, deal? Also, you can leave everything in one comment to conserve bandwidth and make it easy for me. I'll make a new one for each day.

HOMEWORK POST DAY 7

If you have not, turn in day five assignments by 1 pm CST. The fifth revenue split post will be going up this evening.

Curious about #dolphinschool? Follow this link!

If you'd like to read more of my work, follow @markrmorrisjr or click on my screen name to visit my blog.

Help support Minnows and Plankton in #Dolphinschool with your upvotes, resteems and encouraging comments!

Follow these authors to see the results of #dolphinschool

@manuelmendez
@chieppa1
@mawit07
@jampresents
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