Musings of Erin

When we hear some *new and improved* marketing technique, we all want to jump on the bandwagon. Technorati.com estimates that there is a blog created every second, and ProBlogger.com estimates that many of those blogs die within three months. Why do those blogs die? Maybe the owner didn’t have sufficient time to keep it up. The owner may have chosen a topic that was far too narrow and ran out of things to talk about; or they may have chosen one that was far too wide and couldn’t get focus.

Blogging is perceived as ‘easy’

Many people who choose to blog begin doing so because it’s so easy, and so cheap, to get started. Blogging is a credible marketing vehicle – it is a great way for the search engines to stay keen on looking at your website, it provides valuable information to your clients and prospects, and can even make money through affiliate income.

How do you know if blogging is right for you?

1. Will your target market respond to a blog?
   If your market doesn’t know what a blog is, doesn’t care what a blog is, or doesn’t have the time to learn – don’t even attempt a blog. Seriously. Of course we need to educate our customers, but using technology for technology’s sake is just a little too self-absorbed. Let’s keep it real.
2. Do you have the time to devote to the upkeep of a blog?
   If you can’t post at least once a week – whether it’s a long post or a short article, you won’t get return readers. Readers want to depend on your information, and if you can’t post at least once a week your ROI will suffer tremendously.
3. Can you define a blog niche for yourself?
   You need to have a content niche – and something that’s wide enough for you to be able to post on regularly, and narrow enough where your readers won’t think you’re jumping all over the place. You can’t depend on free-reprint articles for your blog – your readers want to hear from you! (Believe me, I’ve been down that road, it doesn’t work no matter how hard I wanted it to) If you can’t devote time to finding and developing great content, then blogging isn’t for you.
4. Do you know (or are you willing to learn) how to market your blog?
   As with any other venture, blogs can be very lucrative, but you need to know how to market them. While, yes, business blogs are a marketing tool, no one will be able to find a blog without proper marketing. So, learn what you need to do in order to properly market your blog to get readers.
5. Do you know (or are you willing to learn) all the technological needs of your blog?
   Chances are going into blogging you aren’t going to know what half the terms mean. If you can’t invest the time, make sure you have someone available to help you who can (or already knows it). If you’re not savvy on the platform before jumping into it, you will spend a considerable amount of time learning.

As you can see, blogging isn’t as easy as many will lead you to think. Many customers won’t respond to blogging, because it’s not part of their worldview. For those customers that will respond to it you need to ensure that you’re able to give them the content they want – or they’ll go somewhere else for it. The beauty in blogging is the possibility to inform subscribers and ‘wanderers of the internet’ about you, your expertise, and your passions – with the simple click of a button.

If you don’t have the time, or your customers aren’t ready for the world of blogging, then don’t waste your valuable energy and resources creating and maintaining a blog. Instead, you should focus your efforts on things that will bring you a high return on income – and not something as labor-intensive as a blog.

If your market will respond to a blog, then by all means go ahead and begin one. However, if you do not have the time and energy to expend in learning the various aspects of blogging, then you must either hire someone to help you or wait until it’s more feasible in your business. There are many people available (myself included) to help you in your blogging efforts – inclusive of everything from creating and maintaining to helping you write your blog. Finding help isn’t hard; but if you have a lukewarm approach to blogging, the response will be the same.

Well - I’ve won! Thanks to many of you that went and visited How Boing Boing is Changing the World, I’ve now won the top prize of the Squidoo Boing Boing contest the Gerald McBoingBoing DVD. You can see the offical winners list here on the Squid Blog.

And, to thank you all so very much for vising my Squidoo lens, I have a gift for you!

When Seth Godin released the Bootstrappers Bible, he let it float around the internet for free for a limited amount of time. For those of us who were able to snatch it up, we were able to get copies to share with the whole world. Fast forward to the present time: you can’t find the Bootstrappers Bible anywhere without a cost - except here! So please, as my thanks to you, download your complimentary copy of Bootstrappers Bible!

Until next time…

~E

Tags: Squidoo, Boing Boing, Seth Godin, Bootstrappers Bible

“The IVAD Creed: Dedication, Experience, Expertise and Determination to Succeed of professionals providing administrative and other business support services, virtually (DEEDS), exemplifies our integrity and commitment to provide superior service.”

Yes, that’s right, today is the first Official International Virtual Assistant’s Day!Take the time today to thank your VA!

I’d like to thank Jen and Jenn - without whom I’d be very lost! You guys are the best!!

~E

The more I think about it, the more I think Squidoo is a grownup version of MySpace - and here’s why:

1. MySpace is a community where people, usually in the 12-25 age bracket, post pages that highlight their favorite music, tell a little about themselves, and is pretty self-serving. You want to meet people, you get a MySpace page, tell about yourself, and hopefully you’ll get very very popular, make lots of friends, and boost your favorite musicians into fame.

2. Squidoo is a community where you get a ‘lens’ and create a page centered around a specific topic - anything from cooking crawdads to solopreneur marketing to the social ramifications of boingboing. Modules try to sell using amazon, ebay, affiliate links, and google adsense - all the while adding to the greater cosmos of Squidoo’s information laboratory.

Am I the only one who sees the correlation?

Now, I may have some bias in my opinions, as yesterday (4/5/06) Seth Godin mentioned my BoingBoing lens on his blog, thus driving a flock of people to my blog(s) lens(es) and website(s) - and compelling all my contacts to write me an email in regard to it.

I’m sure Squidoo has a place, as does MySpace and Second Life. But, I can’t help but wonder if all we’re doing is recreating the MySpace paradigm for the over-30 crowd.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Why? Let me know below…

Last night my niece came to me asking for some help with her MySpace page, and I couldn’t help but ask what drew her to MySpace to begin with. As I was fiddling around with her page, she deved into these intense relationships she’s developed with other people who have myspace accounts (most of whom she knew in the ‘real world’ beforehand), the feeling of belonging (from having a bazillion ‘friends’), and just being able to post her feelings at any time. Mostly, she said, having a MySpace account makes her feel popular.

This morning, I read Jeremiah Owyang’s blog, and read a post titled, The Internet Country Club:

DJHowatt and I have been discussing the ramifications of the internet, blogging, social media, and it’s impact on society. The other night we even scribbled on a placemat at Birk’s restaurant analyzing and debating Spheres of Influence, and how the blogosphere is the same/difference.He often proclaims that while technology is an enabler and that nothing has really changed. Humans still seek and uplift experts (the A-lister hierarchy) and that massive social networks are still limited to the amount of individuals a human can have in his or her network.

And then, in another blog post (this guy certainly has a lot to say about social networking) he goes on to talk about the MySpace generation entering the workforce, and employers having to deal with the ramifications of potential employees having such a history with blogging, MySpace, and the like:

This will change the Workforce Experience
It starts with getting into college, Wanna Go to College, Watch what you blog says Shel Israel. Soon employees will “Google” applicants to see what their online presence has been like. You can use Opinmind, to figure out what people have said…(give it a shot type in ‘boss’). Be careful students, once you publish your RSS feed is locked in cyberspace, sometimes you may not be able to retrieve it. I consider my blog (this blog) as my resume –I’ll write about that soon.

They will work with you –embrace!
Online personal and online professional content will mix, as sales teams begin to read, learn, and engage prospects using blogs. I know this for a fact, because it’s happening to me. (and I think it’s a good thing too). Employees will communicate with each other using blogs, both internal and external blogs, several of my colleagues are already blogging publicly.

It is quite amazing, now that I think of it, how many of these kids are actively blogging, and becoming more and more technologically advanced than even I was as a kid (and I was a techno-geek, even then). We see people still scoffing at the internet because of the dot-com bust of the late ’90s - and this new wave of people hardly recall what happened 7 years ago. We’re looking at the future of entrepreneurs - who have learned from our mistakes, and who are already blurring the line between the real and the virtual world.

Take a look at How to Be a Successful Intern for the first bit of the next generation - it’s a amazing look at what’s to come.

Tags: MySpace, social networking, blogging

I’m seriously addicted to the Olympics this year - partially because I’ve always really admired those athletes, and partially because most of my generation will be out of them by the time Vancouver in 2010 rolls around.

While watching the Men’s Speed Skating the other night, I realized how much instinct plays in the sport. Apolo Anton Ohno was racing the 1000m - it was a great race! Started out the race at the end of the pack of, I think, 6 skaters. He was very calculating, sparing energy until the very last moment - until Lee Ho-Suk moved up to the lead. Then, Ohno sped up and got into the 2nd position and waited to strike for gold.

I’m sure everything looked lovely from his end. He had a plan, and he was ready to pounce on 1st place. Just as he was about to take over the 1st position - on the second-to-last turn (I believe), out of nowhere Ahn Hyun-Soo zoomed by him in the turn and Ohno was left in third place. He couldn’t pass either Hyun-Soo or Ho-Suk, and ended with the bronze medal.

Now, I’m not saying that the bronze is anything to scoff at - I’m surely not an olympian athlete. But, I’m sure Ohno wasn’t counting on getting the third position that day.

After looking over the race again later in the evening, I saw what Hyun-Soo did - he hung back just like Ohno did, and took a wide turn to get extra speed and a good angle around that corner. In doing so, he was able to zoom by Ohno and race to the finish in 2nd place.

Now, what exactly does this have to do with business? A lot, in my opinion.

A lot of us, we want to start out in the first place position. We want to get there, and when we are there we expect to stay there. Interestingly enough, those who begin in first place rarely finish there

Others, we are smart and bide our time until the opportunity arises. We are calculating - and we usually win. Sometimes though, we are overthrown with those who are just a little more patient than us, by those who are able to see the bigger picture.

When I see new business owners that are ready to explode onto the scene - on many levels I want to make them slow down. I want to tell them that they’re going too fast, that they’re going to blow all their steam before the race is half over.

Why don’t I? I’m not a coach - so I suppose it’s not my place. But, it makes me wonder if business coaches are really telling their clients to hold back… or, if they’re teaching them the skills to bide their time and snatch that victory at the most opportune time.

~E

Olympics, business, speedskating, Apolo Anton Ohno