Posts Tagged ‘Blog’
Are You Sitting Still?
Here is my first Blog post of 2010, most of the time a message to share with you only comes after I have failed (learned), so here is something you need to consider. After reading a number of books over the Christmas break on Blogging, Marketing and building brand, one thing stands out over all the tips and tricks you can execute to being a successful blogger. You will read and hear that blogging is hard work, and takes effort and persistance. It does, it takes work & effort to the tenth degree, you can’t just poke a stick at your blog and expect utopia results. I know you know this, you’ve read it, you’ve heard it, but do you realize what it truly means.
Building a business, a Blog or anything of value has a price, you will pay a price, nothing ever comes that easy nor is it free. The truth is, you wouldn’t appreciate it if you didn’t know the value of having to pay the price. It’s the same thing as teaching your kids delayed gratification, learning the value of the dollar and saving money. It all takes time and effort.
The same can be said for building traffic to your blog, there is a misconception that you can go from 100 to 2000 readers overnight. A well established Internet Marketer, the Gary Vaynerchuk’s of the world probably can, Chris Brogan has the ability to create a stir like that too. They will tell you, especially if you’re starting out, it’s not that easy or simple. It takes a well thought out strategy, a plan that makes sense. You would serve yourself well reading Beyond Blogging By Nathan Nangen & Mike Cliffe Jones, you will read insight from 15 very successful bloggers, business owners, speakers and what have you. I mentioned two of these 15 above in this paragraph, they tell they’re stories, what they did and some of how they did it. Worth reading in my humble opinion.
We all start out with eyes of grandeur with our Blogs, thinking it won’t take that long to realize success. I’ve been blogging now for almost two years and only now am I looking at monetizing my efforts. I’m a smart guy, I recognize I don’t know everything, I’m seeking help through various reading materials, joining a number forums, membership sites and learning from those 15 Bloggers in Beyond Blogging. Including the writer’s of the eBook.
I know how to build a traditional business, I know how to build I.T. Strategic Plans, but I don’t know all the tricks to monetizing, building a large readership, or direct large volumes of traffic to my Blog here online. Some things seem logical, but not everything is, there are tricky parts to building a strong following, building large networks of dedicated readers. I’m certain you don’t know everything too, that’s why I recommend and sell books on my blog, I also recommend other products and services. I realize you too may be looking for help, that’s why I’m here, to help that’s it that’s all.
So I ask you, are you sitting still? Setting up a Blog is easy, building a website is a little harder, building a Blog that brings value to those around you is even harder. Building a large following that generates revenue you can live on is a whole nother story. People always come back to things that bring them value. So are you providing value? Are making all the moving parts move?
This takes effort, hard work and patience. You can’t build an online business or a large following and readership if you are sitting still, not doing the doing the work and spending the time it takes to get it done. You must become a student of your business, study those who have gone before you and even better, try to connect with them or meet them whenever possible. Building your following and readership means you are always on the move, connecting, meeting and helping all you come into contact with, you can’t be sitting still!
Review of The New E-Book “Beyond Blogging”
I rarely ever review Books and or eBooks, in fact, this is probably 1st one I have ever taken the time to write about that I can remember. At my age I wouldn’t be surprised if I reviewed a book a week ago. <grin> Now, I’m not saying books or ebooks are good, bad or otherwise, but lets face it, books are not what they used to be due to the Internet and the digital movement. I do like to having something in my hands I can use a highlighter on, so many times I’ll print the ebook off just to put chicken scratches all over it, but not usually. Enough about my stuff, let’s talk about this new ebook by Nathan Hangen & Mike Cliffe Jones called, Beyond Blogging – The Secrets to Blogging Success! (Affiliate Link)
I have to admit I was hesitant to spend $47 bones on this digital effort, but sometimes your gut talks to you and you just have to invest in your future based on that alone. I bought the ebook, afterall I have some serious goals set for 2010 so invest I did. I started going through it and for some reason I felt kinda weird and deja vu-ish. Maybe it’s because I have been following those interviewed in this ebook and knew alot of their content based on videos, interviews and reading their Blogs. I’ll even admit I didn’t know some of these successful bloggers even existed.
You’ve probably heard already that this ebook is not a step-by-step how to ebook on Blogging. Its actually written more like Think and Grow Rich, you have to actually dig in and figure out what your passion is and what track you should be on. Oh, these guys even include a worksheet to help you work through the exercise. The layout & presentation of this ebook is actually pleasing and easy to read, color choices are pretty good too. After reading through the table of contents I felt like this ebook was more about name dropping and leveraging relationships. But I moved on and to my surprise I found myself enjoying the stories and struggles behind some of these successful bloggers.
There is actually some solid content and advice given throughout the ebook, some smart interesting ways to monetize a blog or website. You will read much of what you may have already learned in Social Media circles. One thing you will get from this ebook, blogging is hard work and requires patience. Blogging is not for everyone, much like driving a forklift, you have to have a passion for what you do.
I recommend you use the shopping cart method when it comes to reading this ebook, some things you buy into and some things you won’t. The things you don’t buy into, just leave them on the shelf and keep the things you do agree with in your cart.
Like Norman Vincent Peale’s Think & Grow Rich, you have to study the book and read between the lines alot to figure out why your stomach has a nervous feeling. That feeling is the not knowing whats coming, it’s ambiguity, it’s knowing there’s something there but you just can’t put your finger on it. You will feel something similar when you read Beyond Blogging, I think there is value in this ebook and what it’s trying to show, tell and lead you through. You will also see a common denominator throughout this ebook, there is a system, a plan needs to be developed, a road map if you will, you need to know what the end will look like to make the principles in this ebook work for you. Keep the end in mind.
You will invest in something, it should be you, it should be books or ebooks, systems,and strategies that provide knowledge you don’t have already. Don’t get stuck on price, approach your journey with a positive attitude and humility, you will go much further than a bad attitude will ever take you.
So, I recommend this ebook as I do Chris Brogan’s Trust Agents and Gary Vaynerchuk’s CRUSH IT! (both affiliate links) I even make them all available for you here on my Blog. Enjoy Beyond Blogging – The Secrets To Blogging Success, I’m certain you will earn, learn and make more than the amount you pay for this 202 paged ebook.
I hope you like the ebook, I would like to hear what you think of the ebook as well.
Happy Learning and Happy Blogging.
Do You Promote Your Blog Everyday?
I’ve been thinking about how much time a person or company should spend on Marketing / Promoting their Blog. Is everything you do on your Blog considered Marketing and or Promoting? I mean everyday you do things like branding, PR, adding content and making sure your name (company name / brand) is everywhere. Is there ever a time when marketing what you sell or do is too much marketing? I can’t imagine an executive ever saying we are advertising to much, we have our name out there too much we have saturated the marketplace with our Brand. If you do have someone like that, he or she probably won’t be there very long. I would rather have the problem of too much business and too much awareness than not enough.
Some of the tasks involved in marketing & PR today are changing subtly, because the rules are changing, now that Social Media has become mainstream you can’t just set it and leave it. You have to listen more than you do anything in todays new marketing environment. So, how much time should you spend listening? More than you are probably willing to spend time doing I’ll bet. If you aren’t willing to listen, how will you know what to do? How will you know when to do it?
So I keep asking myself, how much time should I spend doing PR & Marketing my blog? I think you should invest more time listening and then figuring out how you can solve what you just heard that day. So, do you market your blog everyday? How much time do you alot for that task?
Do you promote your blog everyday? I would love your input so please leave a comment below.
If You Had To Choose One, Which Would It Be?
Do find yourself sitting at the computer for hours on end chatting, writing, posting, researching and or just surfing the NET? It has occurred to me that I spend roughly 10 – 12 hours a day here online, I like to believe I’m actually getting something done or helping someone with whatever challenge they might be having. What is it that makes me want to be here for you hour after hour. I mean, there are so many things I could be doing but no, I sit here and indulge in my passion. Is this smart or am I missing something?
I spend most of my time on my Blog, then I spend considerable time in Twitter Search, Twitter itself, FriendFeed and it’s Search, FaceBook has been getting more of my time lately with it’s efforts to be more like FriendFeed. If I had to choose one over the other, I would have to say Twitter is the most appealing for me because it’s as Real-Time as you can get. So that got me to wondering, just because a Social Media Network has 50 million or 300 million user accounts doesn’t really mean it’s the favorite or the best does it? You see I’m addicted to Real-Time, therefore I’m online looking for information of value, most of it is more than 24 hours old, but the juicy stuff is current as seconds ago. I use Google Reader to track RSS Subscriptions but Twitter is faster to me, and I get information as it happens for the most part there.
So, if you could only pick one Social Media Network, which one would you pick? As much as it pains me I would have to pick Twitter as of this writing, FriendFeed has been my choice but for effectiveness and real-time information Twitter is it for me today.
I want to hear from you, leave your answer in the comments area below please.
What’s your favorite Social Media Network & why?
My 100th Blog Post!
It seemed like it’s taken forever to reach the century mark on my Blog, maybe it’s because writing is labor to me. I love to write but I didn’t master the English language like so many others that have gone before me here on the Internet. I set a goal this month to write an article or post everyday, so how am I doing? Let’s see, it’s October 21st so that means I should have 21 posts this month right? This post would make #20 for the month of October so I should say something deep and important so that it matters. 🙂
I will say this, if you haven’t started a Blog or are thinking about it, talk to a few veteran Blogger’s who have been doing it for awhile before embarking. I don’t mean that in a negative way, I didn’t ask and just jumped in, so I’ve made a ton of mistakes. The good news is, I overcame the blunders for the most part and things seem to be moving in the right direction.
The #1 best thing I did was to adopt Social Media Networks, all my reader’s have come from Twitter, FriendFeed, FaceBook & Google. Now I haven’t paid for traffic in any way, it’s all organic in nature, so I’m not lighting it up.
The secret to Social Media is service, help people, provide good information and resources and you will build credibility and trust over time. I’m still in the infancy stages of my Blog, afterall, 100 Blog posts isn’t much in the grand scheme of things. In the end you must keep your word and care for each and every person you come into contact with, do whatever it takes to keep those relationships healthy. In the end, that’s all that matters…the relationship.
A couple great books on this topic belong to two people I would consider Mentor’s, Chris Brogan & Julien Smith’s TRUST AGENTS and Gary Vaynerchuk’s CRUSH IT! (Amazon links) They are as solid as you get on building relationship’s online and working insane hours on your passion.
So, THANK YOU all who have clicked the RSS button my Blog, those who keep coming back to see what I’m yakking about now and especially those who follow me on all the Social Media Networks on the Internet, without you I would have no reason to write and be here. Thank you and Many Blessings to you from every part of my heart!
Always ask yourself this question when you wake up everyday:
How Many People Are Better Off Because You Lived?