Guesting is one of the easiest ways to grow your business! You’ve probably heard about guest blogging and how it can help you get more traffic to your site, grow your list, and help position your brand. However, you may not have heard about ALL the different ways you can “guest.”  Watch today’s video and find out the other ways you can use “guesting” to grow your business. You may find one that’s a great fit for you and help take your business to the next level.

Here are a few great ways you can use GUESTING to grow your traffic, increase your social media following, build your email list, tell a new audience about an event you’re having, share a new resource you’ve created, or increase sign-ups to a class you’re hosting.

GUEST LIVE-You can GUEST LIVE, which is where you do a live broadcast on someone else’s Facebook page. You can find a person, brand, or business that aligns with your area of expertise, and ask them if they would like to do an interview together, or if you could go solo on their page with information about “XYZ.” The goal of the live is to provide value to their audience.  Much like a guest blog, but you’d be delivering the content via video on Facebook instead.  Their audience gets to know you much better and faster with video than with a written guest blog post. You can guest live on Facebook pages as well as in Facebook groups. Another option if the page doesn’t want to do a guest live, is to ask if you can create a video for them that they could share with their audience.

GUEST on A PODCAST-Not a big fan of video? That’s okay because PODCASTS are audio based and this platform is exploding! Search out podcasts that speak to your ideal audience and send them pitch to be on their show. BEFORE YOU PITCH, make sure to listen to at least 3 of their episodes to find out their style and what they share in their podcast. This is also great research for you because you can find out if they will allow you to share a resource that they can link back to in the podcast notes to help you grow your email list. It’s extremely important that you tailor your pitch to their audience.

INSTAGRAM TAKEOVER-you can grow your following on Instagram substantially by participating in an Instagram Takeover. The key here is that the Instagram account needs to have followers that consist of your ideal followers. It also needs to be a good fit, meaning you’re talking about a topic that will benefit their audience. The account also needs to have a lot of followers for it to give you any sort of bump.  Chrissa over at Physical Kitchness grew her Instagram account by 30,000 by doing an Instagram Takeover on the right account.  This is a great example of how to leverage another audience to grow your own by providing amazing value to their audience.

GUEST on A YOUTUBE SHOW-There are a ton of channels on YOUTUBE right now with your ideal readers, listeners, and customers watching.  Find them and ask to be a guest on their show.

GUEST BLOGGING-The pioneer of “Guesting” is guest blogging. This is often the easiest way to land a GUEST spot and you’ll find many bloggers that love to have guests because it means less content they have to create for their own site. I recommend only guest blogging on websites with a lot of traffic. The reason I say this is that you need to ensure that you’re putting out your best work in a guest blog post. Plus, if you want to grow your traffic or your email list, you need to be getting yourself out in front of HUGE audiences. Otherwise, you’re spending a lot of time, writing great posts and not seeing a return on it. Your guest blog post needs to be original work and more often than not, the blog you guest on will not allow you to reuse this post on your site. You can share it all over the place but you can’t use it as a post on your own site. You don’t want to anyway because it’s not good for SEO.

THE SECRET TO GUESTING:  Whichever platform you choose, BE GOOD AT IT! If you go live, practice going live on your own page.  If you do a guest blog post, make sure it’s your BEST WORK. If you do an interview, make sure to PREP big time beforehand. These people have allowed you to come on their platform, the better you are, the more you’ll be invited back, the more you’ll grow your platform, and word of mouth will spread about how great or NOT great you are to work with. Be prepared and make sure you provide them with whatever information they need ahead of time in a very timely manner. Do your research on their platform and be very familiar with what they talk about before you pitch.

HOW TO FIND PLATFORMS THAT ALLOW GUESTING: 

1. Do your research.  Google is a great way to find out what platforms allow guests.
2. Join groups on Facebook. Network to find out which bloggers, podcasters, and social media platforms allow guests.
3. Find out who does regular LIVES on their Facebook pages and see who interviews others.

HOW TO GET THE MOST VALUE OUT OF YOUR GUESTING:

1. Provide VALUE. Give out your best tips. No need to hold back here. SO many people give out fluff and save the good stuff for their paid programs. Don’t do that. Show your best work and people will want to work with you even more.
2. Make sure to have a call to action where they can find out more about you. Do you have a free class coming up? Do you have a free downloadable resource they can have?  Can you create a discount code for your products? DO IT! If you want to grow your list, you have to have a freebie of some sort to offer their audience.
3. Timing is important. If you are launching a new website or a new product soon, try to line up your interviews right as you launch. This will get you a bigger boost to what you’ve got going on.
4. Before, during, and after you ” GUEST” make sure to promote the heck out of it. The person you’re guesting on will LOVE IT and it shows you’re more of a partner than just using their platform to grow your own business. It’s a win/win for everyone if you co-promote.

NEXT STEPS:

1. Make a list of 10 potential pages, groups, websites, and social media platforms that you’d like to be a guest on.
2. Do your research. See if they have a page on their site about guest blogging or how to become a guest on their podcast.
3. Listen and Follow. Hang out in their groups, subscribe to their blog, download their podcast and follow them on their social media platforms. Start commenting on their platforms so they know who you are before you pitch.
4. Send the pitch.

GO FOR IT!!! Have an awesome day and I’d LOVE to hear how you’ve used GUESTING to grow your business. Comment below and tell me about it.