SP tweet: To succeed... one must know how to market ideas, not just write them.

[jesstucker]

stevepavlina

To succeed as a blogger, one must know how to market ideas, not just write them. 7:49 AM Apr 25th via web

I think this is a very valuable idea. It corresponds to other areas of leadership where not only do you have to give your group or audience valuable information but also present and package it in a way by which they can understand and be persuaded.

I want to know more about how to market ideas... any tips, resources, perspective? Perhaps Steve has written specifically about this before but I couldn't find anything doing a casual search.

Key Words
My current model of thinking about marketing ideas is centered around reducing an idea into a key word or short phrase for the sake of memorability. It is under that heading that you can explain and expand on the idea. That structuring also helps your viewership to consume your information effectively.

Write to You, Not Me or We.
Write as if you were speaking to only one person whenever possible. Only use me when using personal anecdotes to communicate a message. Only use we when addressing generalities, problems we all have, creating solidarity, etc.

As you can see, I've applied those techniques to the very content that expresses the techniques themselves! Those are pretty much all I've got! Anybody care to add? Thanks!

[MattMacola]

I saw this on twitter... and it's honestly one of the smartest things I have ever heard Steve say. So simple... but how many people are not selling their stuff (even free content has to be sold in some way...)

[James81]

I agree with Steve's tweet, and it's an area I really need to spend more time focusing on.

However:

Originally Posted by jesstucker

Key Words
My current model of thinking about marketing ideas is centered around reducing an idea into a key word or short phrase for the sake of memorability. It is under that heading that you can explain and expand on the idea. That structuring also helps your viewership to consume your information effectively.

Write to You, Not Me or We.
Write as if you were speaking to only one person whenever possible. Only use me when using personal anecdotes to communicate a message. Only use we when addressing generalities, problems we all have, creating solidarity, etc.

I do not view these are marketing techniques at all. The key words one, yeah, to a degree. But not so much to the degree that your writing suffers and becomes lifeless. Write for people FIRST and then work out some way to make it work with SEO and search engines (isn't it a damn shame that the people getting results in a seach engine are the ones cheating the system?)

As for the second one, that's not a marketing technique at all. that's a writing preference. Personally, I think the message resonates a lot more with people with you speak in the first person and you allow your message to speak for itself without it coming across as "preachy." I strive to use "I" more than "you" because I want to share of myself...not preach at people.

[jesstucker]

James,

If you don't agree that these are marketing techniques, then please can you share what are? The thought that you might be invalidating my effort to understand marketing by mere contradiction (especially when nothing enlightening is taking its place) hurts my feelings.

It is my understanding that marketing is all about connecting with customers. And quite literally and in short, please visit this link. Any specific techniques that contribute to that kind of connection seem valid to me. So please, contribute?

I see that you have a website. I wonder, how well is it doing? Is it doing well? If so, awesome! Please tell me why. If not, why?

Is it monetized? How's that going? Why are you indignant about the websites that seem to get top search engine results? Are yours not? What do you think that they are doing that you are not? What about Steve Pavlina's website? His site gets good hits. Doesn't he deserve it?

I don't want to be too nit-picky but I don't think that using "you" is necessarily preachy. I like the frame of "you" because it gives your audience something to consider in their personal situation. I have only found this effective because some of my favorite self-help gurus (yes I use the phrase in a jokingly pejorative way) use it and I have found it very effective when talking to people face to face. They don't seem to find it preachy it all. Rather, they find it personal.

Thanks!

[ellie]

I think you should invest some time in reading Blog Tips to Help You Make Money Blogging - ProBlogger

Write good articles, form a fan base, reply back to each comment received on your blog, visit their blog and get involved in their blog discussions, join twitter. Have your own unique voice - yaro's recent article was very good Bloggers: Are You Writing In Your True Voice? - Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

My voice is honesty and humour, it seems to work best for me. I've also dropped the obsession on needing to find followers. If they like what I write that's great, if not, so be it!

[James81]

Originally Posted by jesstucker

James,

If you don't agree that these are marketing techniques, then please can you share what are? The thought that you might be invalidating my effort to understand marketing by mere contradiction (especially when nothing enlightening is taking its place) hurts my feelings.

It is my understanding that marketing is all about connecting with customers. And quite literally and in short, please visit this link. Any specific techniques that contribute to that kind of connection seem valid to me. So please, contribute?

I see that you have a website. I wonder, how well is it doing? Is it doing well? If so, awesome! Please tell me why. If not, why?

Is it monetized? How's that going? Why are you indignant about the websites that seem to get top search engine results? Are yours not? What do you think that they are doing that you are not? What about Steve Pavlina's website? His site gets good hits. Doesn't he deserve it?

I don't want to be too nit-picky but I don't think that using "you" is necessarily preachy. I like the frame of "you" because it gives your audience something to consider in their personal situation. I have only found this effective because some of my favorite self-help gurus (yes I use the phrase in a jokingly pejorative way) use it and I have found it very effective when talking to people face to face. They don't seem to find it preachy it all. Rather, they find it personal.

Thanks!

Heh, you're looking for ways to discredit what I said because it "hurt your feelings." Which is fine, I suppose, but you don't expect me to take this seriously do you?

I didn't give you any advice in its place because I am not qualified to give you advice on how to make a successful website. At least not yet I'm not.

The comments I made come from a readers standpoint, not a writers/website builders standpoint. I'm telling you what turns me off, as a reader. Not giving you advice on how to be successful.

And, as a reader, I hit the "X" button on websites that write for google, that post random pictures that have nothing to do with content, and that preach at me without sharing any real life, relevant life-experience to back it up.

[jesstucker]

Ellie. Thank you for sharing! Interesting ideas about blogging. The tweet got me really thinking about marketing techniques specifically oriented towards the written word. Lately, I've been consuming a lot of materials on print persuasion...specifically by David Deangelo (aka Eben Pagan). Very interesting stuff. Other than that my only basis on the subject is looking at how much Deangelo's stuff is congruent with Steve Pavlina's.

It is so fascinating how addicted I am to reading Steve's articles. I practically eat them whole. He stands above the rest when it comes to personableness, comprehensibility, motivationability, and a whole bunch of other made-up words with the "-ability" suffix attached to them.

Don't you get the sense that there is some subtle persuasive techniques at work when you're reading a SP article? But like, in a good way. I think that's awesome. I want to know more!

James - I see that you are very keen on what you don't like. Your blog is littered with it! Why don't you focus more on what you do like? I would appreciate that much more. I agree with you...nobody likes a robot spam page. I know someone who allegedly applies black hat seo techniques. Pah! Despicable!

As a reader what attracts you most? Is it just the human-ness of their writing or is there more? Steve applies that personable style along with value-packed content. Are you total geek for Steve Pavlina's articles like I am? I could read em for hours! What I am specifically interested in, and what I am surveying out of this thread, is objective techniques for working on the form of your approach. Like finding ways that are really powerful for communicating to a reader. Ways that have a high impact. That's what I think is awesome. Talking about the content (as seperate from the form) is a much more complex issue that is essentially the entire span of self-help, self-empowerment, or however you choose to frame this whole improvement notion. Care to add? I noticed you have aspirations to be an author of sorts, you must care about these kinds of things from a writer's perspective!

The confusing thing about marketing is that it seems so integrated into anything in which the point is to persuade. Marketing seems to even influence the nature of the thing itself, changing it in such a way that it becomes congruent with the aims of marketing. Even as you consume the product you are experiencing marketing in real time, integrated right into the product. Actually it all gets pretty confusing when you are trying to figure out why you are consuming the thing in the first place. Is the good feelings you get from it from the product itself, or the pleasure from gratifying a desire that the marketing has identified. Does that make sense? Sorry this is getting all metaphysical. My bad!

[James81]

First off, jess, I'd like to apologize for the tone of my last post. I shouldn't have discredited your feelings like that.

Originally Posted by jesstucker

James - I see that you are very keen on what you don't like. Your blog is littered with it! Why don't you focus more on what you do like? I would appreciate that much more.

This made me laugh today. Not at you or anything like that, but at myself. You're very right about my blog now that I think about it. I've been thinking all morning about what I want to do with it now.

Originally Posted by jesstucker

As a reader what attracts you most?

The most attractive thing to me as a reader is a piece that can hook me in the first sentence and then keep me reading.

Originally Posted by jesstucker

Is it just the human-ness of their writing or is there more?

I love a good "human" piece. A piece that denotes the struggles we all face, mixed with experience, and a dash of inspiration and hope.

But there IS more to it. There's relevant content, the way a piece flows, the way it's broken up so as not to intimidate the reader. All of that are things I try to think about in my own writing.

Originally Posted by jesstucker

Steve applies that personable style along with value-packed content. Are you total geek for Steve Pavlina's articles like I am? I could read em for hours!

I'm like the little cookoo for cocoa puffs bird. Except I'm cookoo for Pavlina-puffs.

Steve's style is an excellent one to model I think. Because he is a great writer, with great, in-depth content, but his articles are still modeled well for SEO and marketing purposes.

Originally Posted by jesstucker

What I am specifically interested in, and what I am surveying out of this thread, is objective techniques for working on the form of your approach. Like finding ways that are really powerful for communicating to a reader. Ways that have a high impact. That's what I think is awesome. Talking about the content (as seperate from the form) is a much more complex issue that is essentially the entire span of self-help, self-empowerment, or however you choose to frame this whole improvement notion. Care to add? I noticed you have aspirations to be an author of sorts, you must care about these kinds of things from a writer's perspective!

I can tell from your posts that you're already a great writer. You have that "high impact" tone to your posts. My best suggestion, from my writing perspective, is to let your first drafts flow out of you. Get the words on the page and then go back and "fix" them later.

One of the apexes of my writing came to me when I did NaNoWriMo. I challenged myself to turn off my "inner filter" and allow myself to write "crap" (in the sense that I didn't think about the quality of my writing when I was writing it, but, rather, allowed the words to just flow out of me and onto the page).

And that experience changed me as a writer. I started seeing the value in editing as opposed to writing that "perfect" first draft. And it improved the quality of my writing quite a bit.