| Be Followed or Die!The entire digital world social network is changing dramatically whether you like it or not. Sooner or later you will be using Google Plus. It is only a matter of time. The only choice that remains is if you are going to be ahead of your competitors or scrambling to catch up after everyone else has established their foothold.It does not matter if you are a big business or a single individual. Anyone can position themselves to have a huge following of loyal contacts even if you are starting from scratch. Even if you have no product or service to sell. The way the world is going to transform in the next several years will be such that Google will be inter-twined in every aspect of our lives both personal and business alike. Doom-sayers may cry out against this but in truth it is a good thing and I am here to tell you why. But first we need to talk about a few things. |
My name is Gregory Allan and I am here to help you. I have quite a diverse background of experience but no matter what your interests are I am sure you will find valuable content here throughout this website. My main purpose in life is to help people discover and develop their talents, get organized with productivity tools and use content and communication instead of aggressive marketing tactics.
Are You Hung Up On the Details?
In the past I was posting at several different blogs until I ran into a dillema. The more ideas I came across, the more confused I started to get. I started seeing conflicts between by topical interests. I would think to myself "should I post to this blog or that blog". Before too long I got burned out with information overload and ended up creating nothing for a while!
I kept reading all over that you need a tightly focused niche topic for a project to be successful. If you want a lot of traffic from the search engines it is important to keep your topics to a narrow range. Well I tried that by diversifying across multiple websites and months later I still found that competing for search engine traffic was just too time confusing. When you care too much about SEO your content starts to suffer.
(I would later learn that it is not going to matter as much anyways, now that Google Plus is on the scene, but more on that later.)
The problem with having a lot of websites is that you end up wasting too much time jumping around from place to place. Then, when you try to keep your topics tightly focused you just limit yourself and your creative abilities. So I finally made a choice. I choose to not care about search engine optimization more than I care about creating the actual content.
Automation and Massive Broadcasting is No Longer Enough
With a ton of marketing resources and tactics are our disposal today it is easy to get overwhelmed. Many people come to me with the belief that as long as they have the proper tools for their success then they can get massive exposure to their brand (email list, affiliate links, blog,etc..) but this is only a part of the process.
You see, no one will care what you have to say until you prove yourself to them.
The key to online success, be it financially or just in your personal relationships and network building is in being a real person. I do not like the term personal branding because it is not so much about branding some made up image of yourself but rather in being your true Self. However, once you define who you are and understand where your unique talents and traits are then attracting people, staying on task and creating great results become easier.
Everyone has something to teach and the main priority should be to share that knowledge. I can give you software that automates most of your traffic generation but ultimately your success requires that you have something to say. It is far better to have a smaller network of people that look forward to your messages and articles than it is too have 1000's of emails of people who ignore them.
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| http://www.flickr.com/photos/visioplanet/ |
Just Look at the Clutter Most People Are Sending!
If you are like me, you are subscribed to dozens or even hundreds of email lists. For years I would visit a site that offered some magic secret or software that would make me money and I gladly turned over my email address to them. As I look back at all the archives of messages and newsletters I have received over the years I see that 95% of them are nothing but 2-3 paragraphs of text and a link to an affiliate product or to yet another list I am requested to join!
Less than 5% of the lists I am subscribed to ever send any content at all!
Successful people online share several key traits:
- They constantly publish high quality content their readers look forward to watching or reading
- They are less concerned with selling and are more focused on connecting with people
- They use software and web applications that automate what can be automated
- They do manually what, correctly should not be automated
- They implement viral marketing or Social networking in everything they do
Once you understand who you are you can create killer content. You need to give away a lot of that content while all your competitors are busy going for that quick sale.
Only by proving to the Internet community that you have value to contribute will you ever hope to stand out above the crowd.
If you are comfortable with your content then the other consideration is in how you find new subscribers and prospects. There are many great tools out there and lots of free web traffic sources available. When you have content + traffic the third ingredient for success is in your organizing and maintenance of your online business.
Instead of trying to get $X.XX a month starting next month you should instead get excited about getting 20 times that amount in three to six months. It is better to lay the proper groundwork so that when you turn on the tap, by shifting some of your content focus towards call to action focus, the floodgates of prosperity will drown you in riches!
