Friday, January 16, 2009

Get Addictive!

How to drive people to your blogs by creating addictive personal ads? 

People get addicted to things that can make them smile. Though smile is actually a reflection of inner happiness, people are so engrossed in their routine  that they forget to smile. They need an external reason to smile. People appreciate anything that takes them out of their routine. They appreciate it even more if it can also make them smile. And that’s addictive.

When you wake up in the morning, what do you look for, Newspaper/Laptop/TV/CellPhone? Now that’s addiction. You don’t get paid to read the news, sometimes you dont even read it full. Just read the headlines, scan the pics and you are done, ready for the day. So what is this Newspaper effect? What news-papers do is just take you away from your small room and open a world in front of you. This 5 minute scanning doesn’t disturb your routine, and sometimes it might just make you smile. They have something new (NEWS of course). They give you something (usually interesting) to talk about (And you love to talk). Most advertisements try to use the Newspaper effect. They are short, innovative, entertaining and give you something to talk. If they don’t do all these, they suck!

  Q.  So how can you create the Newspaper effect to market your weblogs /ideas/products? 
  A. Simple, run your own personal ads.   
 
There are many things available for you, to run your personal ads.  

Emails : One of my friend sends lovely good morning emails. Sometimes they are beautiful, sometimes thought provoking and sometimes plain and simple wishes. I am so addicted to reading them first thing in the morning that If dont see them I’d rush an email to her asking if everything was ok. Do you see how you can use this strategy to Market your objects? 

Chat status: Usually all Chats provide you with custom status. I would always keep status as an interesting thought, song or lines of some poem. It is so intersting that people can’t just stop asking me about it or sending me an appreciation. Now that’s where I can get them addicted. They love to see new messages, updates, thoughts, signs, greetings, links to interesting websites,articles, blogs, reviews, resources. People will read them without my knowledge, follow the link and enjoy it. Sometimes they come back to me that it was good. And we get a topic to talk about, which is otherwise very hard to find, considering distance and our not so close relationship. When I say “Volume X.0 is out” they’d ask for a copy of latest edition of my journal. Now that’s best form of permission marketing.

Signatures: If you are doing a lot of emails everyday, Email signatures or usually the last line of emails are another place to run your personal ads.

Profile status: Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn and likes all provide with such status that you can convert to your ad-space. Now here is a catch. You can’t use a ’status’ as ad-space, until people are addicted to it. And people dont get addicted to requests and uninteresting blabber. So you have to keep them interesting all the time. 

Tweets: Use twitter. Its just ready-made for your purpose. 

There are many other mundane things that you can make peculiar and interesting! SMSes, Talks, your desk, cubicle, Notice boards(if u have the privilege), T-Shirts.
 
Always remember that you gotta be 
   x  Short (no disturbance) 
   x  Entertaining (leaving a smile)
   x  New (gotto take them out of there routine)
   x  Providing something to talk about.

This excercise can go a long way in Building your Self Brand by driving regular interested readers to your blog, and then if you really serve quality, they’d certainly stay.  
Posted by Ujjwal Trivedi at 16:28:47 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Monday, December 29, 2008

Self Branding: bringing it home!!!

Discussion on execution of self branding process I suggested in earlier blogs. 

Building a building! 

Lets say you are a creative person who likes to build buildings, your job asks you to design essential parts of giant multi-story buildings. But you dream to build a rather different thing, an architectural wonder, a monumental building which has some unique quality, and which would be one of its kind. Step one says “Conceptualize it“. Day in day out you dream of that monument. You prepare sketches, when you have time, you love to think about minute details which would make your design a really admirable one. Step two says “Create it”. You are sure about your ideas, and also have some money to spare (I know building a building costs a fortune but lets assume that your building is special low cost construction, that uses the scraps and unused wastes from other big building projects). 

You just create it without thinking how would you earn from it. At this point it doesnt matter what business model would you adopt to maximise your profits. Your aim is to build it just because you want to do it anyway. You have had the fun of your life doing what you always wanted to do. You are creatively satisfied. Now is the time to ‘Convert it’. You may use your building to attract tourists, charging them to visit your building and take pictures. You may alternatively convert it to an art gallery and rent it to a lot of artists to host exhibitions. Or you may convert it into a a hi-class hotel. You may also rent it for special functions, parties and weddings. Simultaneously you may flaunt your creation to grab opportunities to build other such buildings for the rich. Or may you get some contracts to modify existing buildings to adapt features from your creation. 

Bull$hit! Its a fairy tale! 

Yep, i agree! Everything is a fairy tale as long as we don’t consider the money part of it. So, let me bring it to reality now. Apparently you dont have money to build a building. But as you would agree, building a building is not so much about constructing the scaffold and labor in the concrete structure. 

It is about designing, creating the plan, envisioning the elevation features, imagining the interiors. That doesnt require a fortune, does it? Here is exactly where IT comes into picture. You can use the software tools to design and build your utopian building. You can also create the 3D views, screen casts and publish them. It would also be of help to talk about those awesome features that your building would have. Of course it goes without saying that you will build the dummies and post their pictures on your weblog. So, here is your online profile ready for anyone who is searching for a new kind of building-project to invest in to. It will also catch attention of people who need ideas for their own construction. You get publicity and admiration. 

Awesome! But what if someone steals my idea? 

Ideas are cheap and have no value by themselves. Its the implementation that makes and Idea invaluable. If you start noting down the ideas that you generate everyday, you ll be startled at your high productivity. Our mind is a huge idea factory, and we dont need to stick to a single idea for long. A creative entrepreneur has to share ideas. This altruism is the business strategy. Having said that you may take a call to share some ideas and keep others.
Posted by Ujjwal Trivedi at 17:05:03 | Permalink | No Comments »

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Creating a Brand of yourself (part 3)

Who knows your worth? 
[Even for Non-Creative people] 
[Contd. from part 2]
Now that you know that you have to come up with a weblog or e-profile, lets see how you can actually create a brand for yourself through it. 

Dazzle the web: Upload your writings/ articles/ photographs/ scetches/ paintings/ commentories/ experiences/ complaints/ answers on the web. If you wannna share your original things you can create your own blog/website and upload everything there. If you are the “other” type, still keep a blog, where you can upload your portfolio/bio/resume and contact details, So that when you comment or answer at some place, people can trace back and know about you. After all thats what you want, right? 

Create a network: If you dont already have it, You should create a social/professional network with your aquaintances, friends, colleagues. Its common sense to focus on more and more people who will be interested in your work. Though keeping just everyone might not hurt. LinkedIn/Orkut/Facebook are good for finding your aquaintances and connect with them. Through LinkedIn you can also expose your portfolio to google searches, and that will help a lot in long run. 

Nurture the network: To use a network you should be an active member. Keep commenting on people’s work, keep raising relevant questions, and keep answering the queries others have raised. Its also good to simply drop in sometimes and say “hi” so that your relations remain fresh. 

Market your weblog: Shameless self promotion is exactly what you need to do to popularize your weblog. As Katy Whitten has clearly stated that “If you build, they ll come” mentality dosnt work. Even the president of US had to self promote himself and ask for $10 donations from college goers. So dont feel embarrassed to put your blog to lime light wherever you can. Introduce it to your network. Keep a link on your profiles, v-cards, email-signatures just about everywhere. Tell new people about it. Ask them for their reviews. Whatever you do at this step, will only help you bring some interested people once. Its only the contents that will make them visit next time. Tony Hung has some extremely good pointers on how to keep your blog marketeable. And Lee Odden list some 30 points to market your blog in a big way. They have discussed in detail about all the weapons you ll need to market your weblog.   

Get your stuff googlable: Its very important to have your stuff easier to find on search engines. Though number of page hits will obviously improve your page ranks, its still important to have your weblog SEOed (read search engine friendly). Katy again some good pointers for it.   

Comment! Commment! Comment! : Visit other weblogs of your competitors (may be in other Areas), potential clients, arbit and comment on their posts. Its a nice way to catch attention of competitors and other readers. Also have people comment on your weblog, people love to read the articles that have a lot of positive comments. Also, the number of comments establishes your credibility and popularity instantly for a new reader. 

Have patience: 2000 people took 20 years to build Taj. It takes time to build on every masterpiece. Dont expect instant results. 

Now how does the CASH flow in? 

Though Seth says that it might not be a good idea to earn from what you love to do. I’d still maintain that marketing your weblog can help you in lot many ways to create your brand which will eventually help you earn, if thats your motive. Here is how…
 
More assignments: for the “work that you love to do”.
Lucrative Job offers: If you can establish your expertise, you can play on your terms. 
Consultancy fees: Selling your ideas and getting paid for it. 
Advertisements: - AdSense 
Direct Sales: if you have products or services that you can sell. 

Keep adding more to the list… I think I should keep some for myself ;=)
Posted by Ujjwal Trivedi at 18:14:46 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Friday, October 17, 2008

Creating a Brand of your Self - Part 2

[Also, "Plan B" for the Non-Creative People]
[Contd. from PART 1]
Here are generic steps on how you can begin to do “what you always wanted to do” and also see if u can make this work pay for your bills.

Theoretically…  
 
“Conceptualize it”: Have a creative idea? nurture it and make it big. It may be a painting, a new gadget, software tool or whatever. If your not sure about the ‘bigness’ of the idea just note it down somewhere so that your brain can happily process another one. Also, it gves you a chance to come back to this idea later.  

“Create it”: Implement your idea, create the final product, your creative masterpiece

“Convert it”: Apply an existing business model or evolve your own.

Practically …

Create your e-identity! Establish yourself on the world wide web. People will not come to YOU, they will come to your skills for help. You have to display and market your skills on the internet. Typically, if you want to become a creative entrepreneur, your prospective client should be able to find you in top ten google searches. But first things first here is a list of all that you need to do. :

Step 1. Create a weblog: 

 [For Creative people] 

Weblog is essentially the place where you keep all your creativity to display. Spit out your profile(informal resume), key strengths, learnings and creativity. It should essentially prove your worth with all your creativity, innovative ideas. One should provide solutions that fit in to innumerable problems that your prospective clientele should find useful. Dont worry about people making profit from your ideas initially. This altruism is a business strategy. The idea is to prove your name and creating that dependency on your ideas, leaving them yearning for more and eventually making them contact you and happily paying you for your talent. 

Now this is an ideal approach. Its not easy, if it at all sounds that way. But then there is no short cut to success and sometimes journey is more rewarding than destination. This is an instrument to help you display your work. So all you have to do really is “what you always wanted to do”. And then display it here. Many websites offer free blogging/Photo Uploads so you don’t have to spend any money initially. May be after a while you would like to invest some money to enjoy additional features.

 [For non-Creative people]

Well, God has gifted everyone with creativity. If you can create new beings, why cant you create some information that may be useful for the society. But lets say, you dont love to do anything, and still wanna be a part of the bandwagon. As I have iterated earlier, its not just to fulfil your creative self, it is also your plan B. Anyways if you think, you suck at any form of art or innovation. You may have to think a little about what do you do Best. Here are some approaches/examples for you: 

 + You can just put in your notes/understanding/findings on a complex topic so that people dont have to spend as much time as you did. 
 + If you like to criticize/condemn/complaint you can become a movie/technology/product/book critic and post reviews on popular websites that seek your review.
 +If you like to help people, join forums/communities like linkedIn/codeguru where you can answer people’s questions. 

Next post will discuss… 
How to dazzle the web, Create your network, Market your weblog and how to convert it?

[Continue to Part 3]

Posted by Ujjwal Trivedi at 21:17:40 | Permalink | No Comments »

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Creating a Brand of your Self - Part 1

Who knows your worth?

{With worlds biggest financial giants falling, all logic is again pointing towards the uncertainty principle. How can you create your own secure world, where you get to pursue your hobbies and even get paid for it?}

Divya, One of my very close friend and my biggest critic (she hates my work!) asked me why should we be concerned about our e-Identities. Amit, another friend, with all scepticism, enquired “How can we create a brand of ourselves?”  Here is what Anmol thinks “I ‘ve got a job in a foreign MNC, earning a fat salary, got a few yielding investments. Every one in the company knows me. So Why should I care about building a brand out of myself? I know its cool, but I think I have other priorities.”

Its not just about being cool, in current situation (giants like Lehman Bros, Merril Lynch and likes falling) it is your economic priority number one to achieve security and creative freedom. Here are two simple questions you need to answer:

1. Is your Job secure enough? Ah difficult to answer, lets answer this, Will you be able to provide for all your expenses and commitments for next 6 months, in case you are to loose your job today?
2. Does your job lets you do exactly what you wanted to do? Are you creatively satisfied?    

You may also like to think about questions like “Is your job helping you fulfill the bigger aim of life?” And “If your Industry was to go down today, rendering you (and thousands others) jobless, what would be your Plan B?”. This series of articles would certainly help you find your answers. Only if you are ready to dare thinking about these questions. 

So, If your answer for any of the two is a big “NO”. Read on. You need to take up the responsibility to achieve your goals. You have to do what you “always wanted to do”. You want to channelize your creativity. You can become a “Creative entrepreneur”. You will not need to leave your job to do that. You can adopt an entrepreneurial approach to your own career, by taking responsibility for developing your skills, building your network and reputation, and creating opportunities for yourselves.

But how?

Here I will come up with a few generic steps on how you can begin to do “what you always wanted to do” and also make your work pay for your bills. I would try to put in approaches for both self-proclaimed-creative and self-proclaimed-non-creative prople. You ll be able to find how exactly can you create a brand of yourself. Stay tuned! [Part -2]
Posted by Ujjwal Trivedi at 20:01:54 | Permalink | Comments (3)