the business of blogging

I’m no astrologist. I’ve never even done any marketing work for one, or I would know a lot more about the science behind that daily horoscope than I do.  And, even though I do read my horoscope,  I can’t say I usually remember it five minutes later.

But there is a word that intrigued me enough when I first saw it in a horoscope to look it up. The word was “retrograde.” It’s a scientific term referring to the relative motion of two objects. In astrology it’s used to cover the whole period of time that a planet appears to be  moving backwards, away from the earth.  Here’s how the Astrology Weekly dictionary defines its effects:

It is generally considered that a transiting planet is more likely to develop its negative qualities when it is in retrograde. That it is turning back for a recheck of ground already covered need not necessarily be bad, except for the fact that the future is held in abeyance. Some people look upon any delay as a tragedy, but the real difference has to do with whose neck is in the noose when the postponement of execution is decreed. In some cases it may mean only a temporary delay that is compensated for when the planet resumes its direct motion.

Judging by the rising pile of rehashed, recycled, recovered, and reworded junk piling up in my inbox these days, I’d say Internet Marketing has gone retrograde.

I hope your inbox doesn’t look like mine. I deliberately stay on the mailing lists of dozens of people who represent the three or four main schools of Internet Marketing sharks, er, gurus.  That way I stay in touch with what they’re selling these days.  Consider these offerings:

• A high priced, exclusive training course on how to sell search marketing to local businesses - billed a rate higher than most students can expect to make from the activity in a year. I ought to know, I tried to sell local businesses on the idea in 2006. (Hey Rockford, you remember, right?)
• Another chestnut from 2006 is being repackaged for the 2nd time in an attempt to squeeze one more dime out of the product. This time when the market bit at the 5,000 offered, the author got a bit too greedy and offered another 10,000. Last I read he’s still sitting on 2,000 of them. So much for fake scarcity.
• Speaking of chestnuts, there are literally hundreds of things every one of us can do to increase our sales results a little bit here and there. Last time out, these quick fixes were valued at $39. This time they’ll cost you $697.
• Five affiliates of one seller sent me the exact same message touting the templates and scripts for a social networking site so that I could start the “next Facebook.” I got mine when they were the ‘Giveaway of the Day’ 18 months ago.
• One last blooper was actually left in the final edit of the video sales pitch for one of the 3,750,000 products (I googled it) out there that will help you earn more with Twitter. The speaker said he earned $19,000 from Twitter. His interviewer said, “wow. I thought it was $5,000…”

All of these examples are throwbacks to the web 1.0 marketing tactics that we all said were to blame for the rise of web 2.0 “marketing democracy” and socialization. That’s retrograde behavior all right. And it comes at a good time.

When we have 101,000,000 “expert” offerings on how to use a social network that didn’t exist three years ago, the bloom is off the social rose. Even the gurus are “unfollowing,” shedding friends by the thousands and buffering themselves from the mob with Facebook fan pages these days because they admit they can’t stand the noise.

I can’t shake the feeling that the pressure is building faster now. It’s almost like we’re sitting atop the next volcanic explosion of change. Or maybe the planets are just about to swing through that last retrograde angle and appear to snap back into forward motion.

It’s time to move on from here. Time to get out of the schoolyard where everybody cares a little too much about what everybody else thinks and get back to business.

You do what you do best, and I’ll do what I do best and if we need each other’s services we’ll pay for them. I’ll stop pretending to be an astrologist who can predict the future if you’ll stop pretending to be a marketer. Deal?

Posted under social marketing

Blogs are websites. They are dynamically coded on the back end to allow anyone to grow their web business without touching that back end, even if that means adding 10,000 posts to their blog.

Busy business owners who have no desire to spend hours on the web can use blogs to keep in touch with current customers and attract new ones to their business in minutes. Posts that feature a specific product or service, comment on current news and how it affects potential buyers, remind people of a scheduled event, or just wish readers a happy holiday don’t have to take hours to write to be effective. In fact, when blogging, a simple, conversational style in a shorter format has proven to be far more effective than long, formal articles.

There’s also plenty of help available if your blog starts doing it’s job so well you need to devote every minute to running your business, not blogging. (Yes, that was a shameless plug).

This blog was set up to show you what I do when I set a blog up for you.  I include several posts that talk about specific features, functions and benefits that make my blog installations extra powerful search engine marketing vehicles as well as the kind of professional storefront you want your visitors to associate with your business.

Once we have your blog set up and you understand how to keep building on the base I’ll provide, you’re not done. Subscribe to my RSS feed to keep getting valuable information on how to turn your new blog into a tireless business generator.

Oh, and did you notice the one thing this - and all my posts are missing?

Posted under Blog benefits