New media new market

Chapter 6 explains to writers how to use social media to drive audience engagement. In addition to this advice Matthew Barker an author at travel-writers-exchange advises writers to expand their portfolios to access new markets, particularly online avenues. Barker shares,

For an online publisher, your article is only half of your product. They are also looking for writers with extensive social media reach and name authority that can be used to cross-promote their contributions.
You can provide this by:
▪ Choosing a niche and become an authority: post frequently about your subject on your own blog, and in guest posts on other blogs and sites. Aim to become known as “the expert” in your niche, whatever that may be (Peruvian cuisine, SE Asian beaches, French walking holidays, etc).
▪ Building your blog’s traffic & subscribers. Tell editors that you can link to your contributions from your own blog, to send extra traffic and discussion to their site.
▪ Developing a professional social media following, especially on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Demonstrate to editors that you have wide networks on all three, and that you can share your contributions on your own networks.
▪ Registering with Google Authorship to develop your position as an authority. Use your profile in your contributions to increase the publisher’s social connections. The more Google+ followers you have, the more useful this will be.