Blogging Tips: How to promote products and events

The trick to professional blogging is to be personal and provide interest and value in each posting without being too personal.

Readers recognize an "ad blog" when they see it: no real stories, no authenticity, no information of real technique or value. Just links and information on how to get products, classes, services or whatever other way to spend money. Remember, people aren't reading blogs because they are window shopping. They are reading blogs to get value from them.

So give them that value. Stick to the professional topics at hand. If you are a professional hypnotherapist blogging, don't talk about your nephew's cute first-grade painting. We know it's overwhelmingly cute to you, but it doesn't fall into the realm of hypnotherapy.

So talk about things you've noticed in the industry, things that have worked for you and how they worked. Why do some things work and other not? How to tell the difference? What are the secrets, the behind-the-scenes information to the industry?

People love stories. They really, really love stories about transition and transformation - something which we as hypnotherapists happen to have a wealthy supply. Write each blog entry as a story: who's in it (hopefully you), what unfolds, the climax of conflict or change or "aha!", and the conclusion or resolution. A blog entry might be a chapter in the story (but keep those entries short!) or it might be the whole story for that particular thing. Story is a key, however. Real people, real events, real conflict, real resolution and real solutions. Real learning.

Now, if you are blogging professionally, you aren't doing it for fun or on a whim. You have a purpose: to establish new relationships with potential clients and customers. You have services and information and products to talk about and promote.

So now begin to think about the stories behind your services, products, conferences and daily professional life. What's the story of you deciding to become a professional hypnotherapist? What were the stories of your discoveries, jolts, epiphanies and conflicts while you attended hypnotherapy school? The stories of your challenges and successes?

Those will naturally lead to the stories of you creating your first product or writing your first book. Or opening your office. Or creating and teaching your workshops and classes. Tell the behind-the-scenes stories to it all, conveying the ups and downs of your journey, your challenges, your choices and the results.

When someone knows the story behind a product, and all the work, integrity, research and testing, hardships overcome and professional choices that went into creating that product, they are a fan for life. Of course they are going to choose that product over any other! They know more about that product than any other. They have more trust in that product than any other.

So leave out the terse ad-copy. Forget the blog blurbs of class offering schedules. Don't bother with the "personalized press release" blog entry announcing the availability of a new product. These will all push your readers to the conclusion that you are an "ad blog", not a real person blog, and they'll just click to the next blog or web site and not bother returning.

Tell your story, be authentic but professional, share the meaning and the passion you have with your readers, and you'll build great relationships, fans and customers for years to come.