I have to admit for an amateur like me, it felt good when LinkedIn analytics showed I reached 487 views of “Are You Ready for Natural Beauty and Awesome Adventures” .
“Akismet has protected your site from 40 spam comments already. There’s nothing in your spam queue at the moment.“
WTF?! Apologies to Marc Maron.
In my amateurish way it felt like capturing lightning in a bottle.
The electrical charge felt good, I have to admit.
But, then it propelled me into new territory where I felt uncomfortable, unready and anxious.
You know, 30 steps forward, 360 steps backwards.
Goal:
Build an email list of opt-ins of 2000 fans.
Objective:
Figure out how.
Gap:
I don’t even have a network of 2000 people, let alone raving fans.
- Not in Facebook.
- Not on Twitter.
- Not on Instagram or Pinterest.
Not on …
Wait a minute.
What about LinkedIn?
What about Flipboard?
What if I combine them?
How would I … ?
Honestly, I’d been too busily curating, composing and publishing organically without drawing any visitor traffic to speak of.
Not focusing on building a network as an urgent, gotta have it done today task on my project plan.
Here, I’m juggling too many balls in the air already.
Self-publishing kept me busy.
Your Word of Mouth Buzz.
Marketing isn’t my strong suit, but I convinced myself I’d better figure out how.
Conventional wisdom in self-publishing says I should offer free pdfs as incentives to join my opt-in email list.
Right?
So a whole bunch of questions flooded my strained brain.
- I need pdfs ready to go – better finish them.
- When they’re done how do potential fans find them?
- If they find them what has to be set up in advance so they click on something to unlock access?
- Do I set up a page on my site with a special code, or what?
My brain ached.
First things first, I thought, finish the pdfs and worry about 2, 3 and 4 later.
It’s not like any of my sites draw volumes of traffic anyway.
So my works-in-progress:
Why what you thought you knew about tried and true career development may actually prove to be harmful to you.
This approach challenges the myths of networking that everyone hates anyway in favor for cultivating introductions and referrals to decision-makers without any competition.
In favor of being passed along from one circle of trust to another. Taps into the secret value-producing combination of doing what you enjoy with what is marketable to your new boss.
Major disruptions in our lives force us to change our normal habits. …- dictate where and how you retire,
- the value of your house,
- where you live,
- your children’s education
- and career choices,
- your hobbies,
- whether your are starting, buying, or selling a business,
- your estate and tax planning, and even your charitable giving.
I discovered that mastering new rules is like trying to cross a swift moving white-water river.
How far upstream do you need to begin? You don’t don’t want to be swept too far downstream past your destination.
We drove over 3,000 miles through portions of California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah, having hatched the idea sitting on the beach in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
What was her biggest fear when she left her old life behind in the big city? Becoming isolated and irrelevant.
With the right knowledge products producing multiple streams of residual income, you can overcome the challenge of having to make it in local rural markets.
Stories about Wireless Resorters and High Country Eagles leaving urban life.
Craft a vision and challenge the early change-adopters with a call-to-action.
These leaders sponsor strategic, enterprise-wide changes required to reinvent the fortunes of their organization.
Secrets of introducing enterprise-wide change into a cultural immune system by designing Knowledge Laboratories as small, incremental experiments designed to create new knowledge.
Get in on the ground floor of an emerging trend where there is very little competition.
Back to my anemic social media efforts.
What about LinkedIn? Here’s what I said to myself.
“Maybe, I’ll post this post on LinkedIn just to begin the process and see what happens.”
I wasn’t prepared for the jolt when I logged back into my Know Laboratories dashboard to edit and publish my next essay.
Why?
Here’s how I’m routinely greeted:
“Akismet has protected your site from 40 spam comments already.
There’s nothing in your spam queue at the moment.”
From “Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing and the Future of Work”
“Hi Steve, I first noticed your name as a good friend here in fort Collins, now a local judge shares your same name.
Then I started reading your bio and saw some really interesting overlaps in our work.
Notably: 1. I have been applying new economy skills since 1990 and the lessons learned are still lessons corporations have yet to figure out today.
2. I have been toying with a great AI platform “Shaping Tomorrow” and love how responsive it is and its range of cognitive search.
But I already theoretically shaped 2 major uses that would put AI in a very positive light by enabling millions.
One connects education and industry on an even keel so students graduate with current or advantaged skills. The other provides startups with a far better option than incubators or accelerators by creating a complete online support ecosystem.
Love to at least chat with you by phone. I am in Fort Collins, CO and was strongly advised by digital guru and author Brian Solis to hold off retirement as he says the brightest people out there are trying to figure out,
What I experienced between 1990 and 2002 for my last 12 years leading a more conscious marketing effort for HP. Have advanced well beyond that now.”
What the … ?
It took me awhile to read and reread it and to double-check Akismet.
“Looks legit,” I concluded.
Wait, if it is, then I’ll have to respond, right?
All I could think of was Amy Poehler’s description of improv work.
To whatever you acting partner throws out at you in the scene, you come back with “Yes and …”
“Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Sometimes I feel it’s like that old joke that if it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all – only in my case it’s spam comments.
Yes, I agree we traveled some of the same paths with many overlaps. For instance, I’ve been a member of Shaping Tomorrow for years and recently rediscovered a cache of emails from Michael Jackson which updated me with major leaps in their service and access to their AI robot, Athena.
Your two initiatives sound fascinating, timely and very worthwhile, Bill. Oh, and Fort Collins is one of my favorite places in Colorado.
If anyone else is interested, here’s the link to Shaping Tomorrow”
Where did that comment originate?
Organically, here on WordPress?
Or, from LinkedIn as I’m building my audience to 2000?
I’ve been inviting roughly 100 at a time on my LinkedIn’s gallery of “people you may know.”
So far, I’ve doubled my network from 800 to 1612 “Followers”.
Good news.
In LinkedIn I’ve been consistently getting hundreds of views.
But no difference on my site.
One of my Executive MBA students lamented the same thing to me recently.
She’d circulate her blog articles, but was consistently disappointed when very few readers actually clicked through to her website.
Though still anemic, the spike from my normal “views” in the teens to hundreds of views on Know Laboratories wasn’t normal.
To be honest, I paid little attention to my site analytics.
Hmm.
Was Bill from Colorado Springs non organic?
So, I continued posting curated articles (same type of post) but one from Know Laboratories and the other from Best West Road Trips to LinkedIn.
First, Best West Road Trips.
My LinkedIn viewership sky rocketed.
I have to admit for an amateur like me, it felt good when LinkedIn analytics showed I reached 487 views of “Are You Ready for Natural Beauty and Awesome Adventures” .
It didn’t last very long.
It was quickly back to reality for me when after returning to the dashboard in my Best West Road Trips website: only 29 visitors read the curated article.
Well, what if I join some LinkedIn groups, maybe that will stimulate site traffic, right?
I searched LinkedIn Groups and discovered two.
Hospitality & Travel Forum with 291,014 members and Travel & Tourism Industry Professionals Worldwide with 284,820 members.
Second, Knowledge Laboratories.
Back to Bill from Colorado Springs.
He left a comment on Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing and the Future of Work
Something was different.
Why?
Now that I’ve been paying more attention and comparing analytics, something flipped the pattern.
Almost always viewership on LinkedIn is orders of magnitude more than on Knowledge Laboratories.
But there it was:
Know Laboratories website: 404 views.
From my LinkedIn audience of 1612: 360 views.
Now, what’s that all about?
It’s all good, right?
Still, why?
Steps:
11) Maintain a consistent process of content aggregation, curation, composition, and circulation.
12) Nurture your audience of followers striving to increase the number of your raving fans to 1000.
13) Make it easy for your fans to buy a piece of you, and then advocate on your behalf.
14) Synchronize your selling process to your their buying process — master the chain reaction of Awareness – Interest – Liking – Desire – Trial – Repurchase and Regular Use.