Entries fromFebruary 2008

A reader who didn’t want to named sent in an interesting question about how the web can be used to achieve specific goals offline.

Here’s her situation: She’s an art major in college and wanted to know how she could establish herself in the field as a power player, preferably in the vocation of an artist/expert critic.

She’s completely new to the art scene and wanted to know she could build a strong reputation through the use of online marketing and personal branding strategies. Basically she wants a game plan to use online on top of what she’s already doing offline, away from the computer.

A private diary is tremendously powerful. It can help you to greatly improve your business or website. If you want to be a success, you need to think and act strategically. At the very least, you should keep your goals in mind in order to work towards them daily.

And a private journal achieves all this more effectively than a static to-do list, which only lists end goals and results to be achieved.

Unlike a to-do list, a well kept journal provokes introspection. It is a liberating and productive outlet for random ideas, thoughts and feelings.

The U.S Presidential election is something I’ve followed quite closely in the past few months. Politics is a thrilling topic for me because I’m fascinated with how politicians play the game of power.

It’s kinda like reality TV. Serious individuals deal with real life issues while competing aggressively against each other to win your vote. You have all the power in this battle of wits.

They’re all putting on a show, trying to push your buttons and trigger those emotions deep down inside. They want you on their side, because you legitimate them.

I didn’t write any articles in the last few days on Dosh Dosh because I didn’t feel that I had anything interesting to say. It’s not entirely self-censorship: I just don’t like to write when there’s no way to inject a new perspective on any topic.

Many will publish content regularly because they feel a necessity to generate pageviews and maintain site freshness. Some fear that their subscribers will go away if they don’t update their site.

They don’t mind repeating the ideas of others and writing variations of the same topic again and again. Some will tirelessly create resource lists every week for links.

I am thinking about changing the way I share links and content with all of you. Up to now, I’ve shared links via a roundup like this or contextually within articles. Maybe it’s time to try something new.

I considered creating a separate link blog (like this) but am a little hesitant about it because it won’t really give these links adequate exposure. Instead of being on the main channel they are displayed on a less frequented part of the blog.

Online content is usually created to express opinions or share information with others. For entrepreneurs and web publishers, content is developed as a means to generate direct/indirect income.

However, one should not only view content as a means to receive immediate benefits like traffic or revenue. It is not just fodder for pageviews but a tool to enhance more abstract factors like reputation, reader trust and peer relationships.

Following the recent announcement revealing my subscriber count, several readers emailed me asking variations of the same question: What is good content? How do you produce the sort of content that will help your blog to build a readership?

This is quite an interesting question because many blogging experts have talked about the importance of great content and how it trumps other factors when it comes to growing one’s website.

I’m pretty sure you’ve all heard the adage ‘Content is King’ repeated so very often.

Miami has sun, sand, good weather and beautiful people, but one poll says the first thing most Americans think of when they hear the city’s name is “Miami Vice.” (source)

Miami Vice is of course, the popular 1980s TV series about cops and crime in Miami. Did you know that the media influences the way you perceive places or things, more than you think? Repeated exposure to a brand induces involuntary associations in the mind.

These instinctive brand associations are golden for marketers because they are easy ways to make your brand persistent. They allow your proposition to stick in the mind of your audience and seep into their unconscious.