Sony and ad.ly offered me $2000 for one ad tweet last week. I didn’t do it – but what do you think? Should I have taken the money?
The old way of thinking is to grab the money. You’ve built the audience and you’ve earned it. But, when you do the math…
@leolaporte that works out to $.0129 per subscriber? Sounds like a good deal for Sony. Glad you valued your followers more than that!
How quick would you sell out your fans? The ones that searched you out and clicked “follow”, signed up for an email newsletter, or bought from your store?
Also, this is where you see the difference between a company like Apple and Sony. Apple has rabid fan customers that are chomping at the bit for any morsel of new product info, while Sony has to try and buy random lists and push news to people that aren’t interested. The shift continues…
With a lot of marketers, intimidation has come a long way on the Internet. Years ago, they were intimidated by the technology, then by what to say and where to say it. Today, many marketers are being bullied by the cool kids that are acting as an anti-marketing/anti-publicity task force.
Many popular bloggers sigh and moan about being approached by publicists and marketers. Bash them as savages. And, the way many marketers behave, it’s deserved. The trouble is that this bashing can influence the honest folks from even starting. Why would anyone want to be looked at as a self-promoting ass, especially by the guys they look up to?
Don’t be intimidated. Even the most popular voices on the Internet started out with a single “Hello World” blog post or trial upload to YouTube. You are an expert in your area, and you shouldn’t feel bad about building an audience. You’re not one of those out-dated marketers blasting spam, or soliciting bloggers blindly.
If you don’t start, or if you quit, you’re letting down the audience you want to serve.
If you are doing the same things you were doing 5 years ago to advance your career or business, take 4 minutes and watch this video:
Competition and the speed of change is even shocking to those of us that work with technology. What are you doing to keep pace? Do you have the right skills? The right foundation? Maybe this is the year to build it.
An editor at John Wiley & Sons recently “retweeted” about a book his company published was available in audio form and soon available on the Kindle. I think it’s great to find out from the source what’s coming, why it’s cool, and how it was made. However (there’s always a ‘however’), there’s a fundamental problem.
Why is the Kindle version available weeks after the print book? Technically, it could be available months before the print book. I asked. I didn’t receive an answer.
We recommend taking care of the core business before spending time on Twitter glossing over shortcomings. Everyone points to the fact that Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, is on Twitter. If Zappos wouldn’t offer such killer customer service as a pillar of the business, would it matter? If the CEO of Mike’s Shoes (a shoe store like 99% of all shoe stores) started Twittering, would it raise eyebrows. No. The fictitious Mike’s shoe business is boring, unremarkable, and ordinary.
Twittering doesn’t make your business great. Make your products and services amazing, and tell us all it about it later.
We’re happy to launch a new blog today for John Wiley & Sons! The idea of this site is to provide stories from today’s headlines and show how they apply to the lessons and concepts in the bestselling text, CONTEMPORARY BUSINESS.
What a fantastic way to build a relationship with the professors that are using the text in class – helping them prepare!
If we could smash a bottle of champange on the homepage, we would!
The traditional time that it takes to publish a book is extraordinary compared to the general news cycle we all live with today. Plus, your book will probably live on a few years before a new edition is produced. This makes for a perfect opening for a professional blog/website.
When authors ask me, “what should I blog about,” I just tell them to stick to what they know best, or what they are learning about. What they’re obsessed with.
A well run site will help:
Apply the content of your book to today’s headlines
Share the advice in your print book to challenges in the news.
Create new, relevant case studies pulled from the leading stories
Breathe new life into your title and build the relationship with your readers
Stay current and make your “backlist” title “frontlist” again
When I talk with publishing professionals (and I talk to A LOT of them) about starting their own website or blog, the first response is almost always along the lines of, “That sounds great, Paul, but I already have a full time job.”
In a nutshell, if your publishing job looks the same as it did 10 or 15 years ago, there’s a good chance you’re not going to have to worry about being burdened with that full time gig much longer.
Having your own site/blog/brand is as essential today as a publicist’s Rolodex or a marketer’s co-op budget was 5 (and 30) years ago. In the coming weeks we’ll look at the things you can stop doing to make room for a website (or things a website can do better) and help to evolve the industry.
