Category: vocation

On Thursday I posted a link to my employment bio on a couple of social media profiles, with the specific goal of monitoring how it performed.

Let’s discuss.

I broke it into 5 parts, because otherwise it’s tough to see how far down the page readers go. Making them click on “read the rest by clicking here” might be mildly annoying, but it is the simplest way I could measure.

If you’ve not been around web analytics, it’s a cup of cold reality splashed in your face. Turns out that when nobody is watching, people really don’t care about your favorite new amazing content nearly as they would tell you if they were sitting in the same room.

Post a 10 minute video of your kid on your blog, and you’ll be lucky to average 2 minutes of time spent on that page. People simply do not care. They care about things when it’s about them. Make people click through 5 parts of a story, and you are lucky to get 3 or 4 percent of them to make it to the end.

A good copywriter writes in such a way as to make people keep reading. I am not under the impression that I have already arrived, but I am proud to say that almost half (45.94%) of the 441 people who clicked on that first page clicked all the way through to the last page of my bio.

I CRUSHED the industry average.

Now, considering the audience (upwards of 95% came via facebook, and presumably a majority of those are my acquaintances, not folks who don’t know me) and the content (a blow-by look at my last 10 years of life), it would make sense that this target audience is very interested. But very interested would be 10% in web-world. I got over 40%.

The business lessons? First, stories sell. Second, and more fundamental, there is no shortcut around high quality content presented with an eye toward engagement.

I’m still ironing out some kinks in the design around here, but I thought I’d add a new blog post to the mix with a bit of an update from today.

I just joined My CopyBlogger and I’ve got to say, this is a pre-sifted goldmine. Just walk in and pick up nuggets.

But you’re still not going to use them.

Because digital strategy, actually having a big-picture plan, making the time to aim before firing in this crazy digital world is WORK. It’s hard work.

I’m not trying to get under your skin. I just know the numbers. It’s way more accurate when addressing the entire internet to say that you are not going to do the work. Most blogs are deserted. (I’ve got at least three that I’ve deserted.)

It’d be better to not even have a digital presence at all than to have one that hasn’t been updated in months.

If you need me, I’ll be reading another ebook from My CopyBlogger Marketing Library. You should be, too.

My dog was trying to tell me something was up all morning. She was pacing, whining, and even when I took her out she just never seemed “done.”

So it shouldn’t have surprised me when she had diarrhea all over the living room carpet. But that is the sort of thing that will always be a surprise, whether you “saw the signs” or not.

After briefly considering simply lighting my apartment building on fire and cutting my losses, I started to clean up. Thank you Jacqueline for purchasing the carpet shampooer. Best purchase of our marriage.

The good thing about your dog pooping in the floor (not a common sentence-starter) is that it gives you opportunity to reevaluate your priorities. It immediately creates a nuanced distinction between urgent and important.

So in your marketing and social media strategy, you need to let the dog crap in the living room (so to speak) and figure out why you are doing things. Has urgency become your main motivator? Don’t get me wrong, I know you’re busy. But without a plan, all the busyness in the world won’t help you toward your goals.

You’ve gotta scoop up the poo before somebody steps in it and tracks it all over the house, I know. (Believe me, I know. There are some tasks that just have to happen each week, and some things have a way of propelling themselves to the top of the to-do list like dog-scat on a rug.

But is your entire day running from one pile to the next, never stepping back to get some systems in place to process piles—or better yet, prevent them altogether?

Take that step today—Contact me for a digital strategy session. If it’s not worth your money, I’ll give your money back.

I shared recently about my work for Socialexis and the great enjoyment I’ve had working for and alongside Alexis Grant.

Today you have the great opportunity to hear straight from her some fantastic ways to move toward doing work you love.

She launched her first Amazon e-book! Today only, the thing is just 99 cents.

Click here to go on over to Amazon and buy it before you read my review.

I have access to a free copy, but I believe in what she is doing so I went and forked over the extra dollar to read it myself. I just spent the last hour or so breezing through it.

Spoiler alert: this book is refreshing.

The only critique I’ve got is that if you don’t know Lexi, you might come away from this thing thinking how impractical and pie-in-the-sky some of the ideas she shares are. Surely nobody could practically put into action the things she talks about, in the real world!

But if you do know Lexi, say for example you work alongside her every day, you’d know that she’s simply saying out loud what we see every day. This is her play book for actually enjoying her job.

The way Amazon works, they reward (and showcase) books that are popular, which makes them more popular. Launch day is crucial. The more people who buy it today, the better. Also, leaving a review helps tremendously.

I am not an Amazon affiliate (I live in North Carolina where that is impossible because our lawmakers live in 1998), so you can know that I am legitimately trying to help Alexis with her first e-book.

So go ahead and buy it for a measly 99 cents. Tell her I sent you!