(Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes)
A client and I were scoping out some work at Four Barrel Coffee:
DrW: “Yeah, I was in the Marines before college.”
Client: “This guy I work with at the museum, he was in the Corps for years.”
DrW: “Tell me.”
Client: “He’s such a Marine, barking orders at everyone. He really gets the job done.” (pause… she looks at me reflectively…)
Client: “I’d trust him with my life.”
DrW: “Semper fi.”
[Marine Corps mode=on]
LISTEN UP LADIES!
You wanna market on the internet, you gotta take action now.
Stop wasting your time thinking about it. Just do it.
No back talk.
Here’s a list of 7 essential tools everyone uses. Without these tools, you’re not dining at the internet buffet. You’re slinking around under the table, fighting over scraps with the other mangy curs.
- Your own blog. Doesn’t matter. Just get one. If you want to self-host, I personally recommend Bluehost. If you don’t want to self-host, I recommend wordpress.com. Taking action now is more important than doing nothing.
- Twitter account. Twitter can provide you with important leverage. It takes time to learn to use it correctly (everything does), get started now. You can find me at @websiteweekend.
- Facebook account. No, myspace doesn’t count unless you’re a band. Again, learning to use the tool effectively takes time. Start now. I’m easy to find on Facebook as Dave Doolin.
- Bookmarking account. I use delicious. You can use whatever.
- Content discovery tool. I use StumbleUpon; friend me there if you want. You can use whatever. Let me know and if it’s good I’ll join too.
- RSS reader stocked with relevant feeds. No excuse. You need to be following RSS feeds of a couple of dozen of your friends and enemies, collaborators and competitors.
- Gravatar. Imagine your brand out there for everyone to see. It might be your face, it might be your logo. Doesn’t matter. With a Globally Recognized Avatar, people will recognize you everywhere you appear on the internet. This is free exposure people. Years ago you have paid thousands for this kind of exposure. Read more about gravatars.
Because you’re a raw recruit, it’s really hard to explain why all this stuff benefits you.
But I’m going to try anyway.
You need these tools for two reasons:
- Offensive, and
- Defensive.
Offense and defense like for football. Or war. Not like being a socially offensive, socially mis-calibrated marketing nerd. Or a socially defensive, neurotic marketing geek.
Offensive marketing: You have to take the initiative. Get out there with your message (no matter how lame it is) and find out who’s listening. If nobody’s listening, that’s good data. Don’t shout, just change your messge.
Defensive marketing: If you don’t brand yourself with each of these tools, you will find someone else riding your brand. Don’t believe me? Go find website in a weekend dot com. I won’t dignify the site with a link.
It’s a parasite, riding on my work, giving nothing back.
I do get it, I really do: why do all the work when someone else will do it for you? But they’re going to have to do a lot of work to rank in the future, spend money to counter the massive amount of high quality content I’m producing. For what it’s worth, a year ago the domain was parked. Essentially worthless. Then it became a static web page with an H1 header. Now it’s packed with affiliate links and advertisements. It’s worth bank… because I’ve done all the work!
Don’t let this happen to you. Scoop up everything you can that’s related to your brand to defend it’s integrity.
Want some more irony? Sure you do… because that site is loaded with affiliate links, they’re making more money off of “Website In A Weekend” than I am.
Now drop and gimme 20.
[Marine Corps mode=off]
Protecting your brand is pretty important, but it takes a lot of money. Think of all the domain name extensions there are available. Registering them all would take a lot of money. Still if you run a big site, then registering most of the domain would be beneficial.
.-= Bloggeri @ Blogidy´s last blog ..How to Speed Up Blog Load Time =-.
It does take some money, and some time.
My strategy is to account for everything as part of the investment. For example, I own dr-wordpress.com. I don’t use it, but neither can anyone else. $10/yr protects my brand.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Blog World Recap: How to Attract a Large and Loyal Audience =-.
Glad to see that I have all of the things in the list but I still never practice the offensive and defensive marketing. I have to try that two things.
p/s: Just know that “Semper Fi” means “Always Faithful”
Having the acc0unts is not the same as using them! I am not doing a very good job executing on it myself. So much to do, so little time.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..WordPress Screencast – Practical WordPress Tip #1 Grabbing links fast =-.
Now that’s a bummer… it is essentially a link parking lot then. I thought these were going the way of the dodo.
best………………valentina
.-= Valentina´s last blog ..Five Internet Marketing Trends for 2010 =-.
?
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Watering Holes and Quid Pro Quo – WIAW Week in Review =-.
Sunday Smashed baby, this is killer. I almost didn’t want to share it because I didn’t want my competitors grabbing the info up.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..26 Free Christmas Social Media Icons =-.
No worries. Having the info and using it are two different stories.
Think about it: Dr WordPress buys a fleet of limos and moves in next door… right. =)
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..DIY WordPress: Unraveling Quicktags for WordPress Plugins =-.
This is a good list especially for newbies like me. :)
Lol at the Marine Corps mode. I never really enjoyed our mandatory military training back in college though. :p
.-= reyjr´s last blog ..Reyjr Travel Blog Log =-.
Channeled my drill instructor there. We were all “ladies” as far as he was concerned. Too funny looking back on it.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Struggling With Website Traffic Statistics? From the WIAW Mailbag… =-.
Market or die!
I guess the really tricky thing is that if you are online, and you are not marketing, you are still marketing.
.-= Deacon´s last blog ..Weekend Printing Results =-.
Yes, it makes it easier to not fool yourself. Just having this website is marketing. Not very good marketing, but marketing nonetheless.
It’s like the decision not to decide is still a decision.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..How NOT to Comment on Blogs (Dude, you’re busted) =-.
I could have used this earlier on. I guess I am doing pretty well, I use all but Delicious.
PS found you via extreme John
.-= Ned Carey´s last blog ..Help Me Pick a Charity? =-.
Lol, nice right up, your right though, if your ever gonna find success you have to take the offensive and make bloging work for you.
Get Free Marketng Ebooks at Internet Marketing Revealed
.-= Ronne´s last blog ..Free Booze =-.
You got it, Ronne. Here’s to an “offensive” 2010.