Play with open cards
I know some of you guys are mostly in the blogging game with the dream of supplying your income with some extra bucks and ultimately making some serious cash. If you are one of them, this post may be rather boring. I want talk about branding and networking with the industry you have chosen to write about and about playing with open cards. My name is Lars H. and my blog Soundiac.com is all about musicindustry, mostly a platform for young talents.
This is how I started. Officially my blog started November 8th, 2008. This is for public. Truly, it started a month before. I started to contact some of the bands – with and without contract – I really loved and wanted to make public to the danish audience. From the very beginning I played with open cards. Who am I? What are my intentions? What can I do for the band? First act to take the chance to get exposed to the danish audience was Victorian Halls. They never saw a single post, they don’t understand a word of danish and they didn’t care of how many readers (at this time zero) my blog has. They trusted me, because I was this clearly and had no hidden agenda. So they agreed to make a interview and answer question relating to the article. This is a win-win. I have a interview and article for my blog and they got free PR in Denmark. For a month or two I had a lot work in contacting bands and ask them for interviews – remember, I have to compete with big magazines and websites. After these two months of hard research, the tables turned. I received press releases and free stuff from record labels and acts.
When playing with open cards, be sure to be everywhere. I mean everywhere! Take you blog name, in my case Soundiac, and brand it on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and so on. Be visible! Don’t talk to your audience and industry. Talk with them!
So what now? When you have these contacts in the industry, it’s all about being visionary. For me, I can begin to think about releasing a compilation and other ways to expand my blog and maybe finally making bucks. Fast cash is in 98% of all cases unrealistic. It’s all about to show, that you are strong. Do stuff for free and brand your name – both the name of the blog, but also you personal name. If your name is generic, e.g. Stan Smith, then change it into Stan van [Your City]. Brand yourself and get the best results. My blogging colleague PTA is a wandering hiphop encyclopedia. He was cited as expert by a big danish TV-station – do I need to say traffic?
PTA at major danish TV-station
According to Malcom Gladwells book “Outliers”, anyone can be a personal brand, by investing 10.000 hours into your passion. This would be roundabout 6 hours every single day, for 5 years – resulting in oppurtunities that has serious cash. Be an expert on your field!
your blog is good !!!
Soundiac your post is right on the money!
Branding your yourself and your site/blog has been a time tested success step that I see too many budding entrepreneurs missing out on. Being open and up front, or as you so aptly put it “playing with open cards” is great advice for everyone.
Keep up the good work and I wish you much success.
Steve
Good post! We have been doing something similar at MusicZeitgeist.com – really helping unknown but excellent bands by working with them to write profiles about their experiences making music and why. It becomes more and more fun all the time and now our free music jukebox is a great listen – in fact I often find myself just turning it on in the background while I work.
I never expected it to develop as quickly as it did, but simply by remaining consistent I built a music site just the way I’d like a music site to be and at the same time I am helping others fulfill their dreams.
Again good post, thanks and good luck with your future endeavors.
Good post! We have been doing something similar at MusicZeitgeist.com – really helping unknown but excellent bands by working with them to write profiles about their experiences making music and why. It becomes more and more fun all the time and now our free music jukebox is a great listen – in fact I often find myself just turning it on in the background while I work.
I never expected it to develop as quickly as it did, but simply by remaining consistent I built a music site just the way I’d like a music site to be and at the same time I am helping others fulfill their dreams.
Again good post, thanks and good luck with your future endeavors.
Branding, visibility, personal brand image, expert in field are the way to succeed. All the first to do is patience and also hard working, isn’t it right?
nice blog!
Nice to learn how you built your success; all the best to you. So true about putting n the time.
It’s good to hear success stories from other bloggers – nice post.
Good information for one who i making just that attempt, to brand my name. Good blog, and good luck!
At first, thank you all for the friendly comments!
@Work From Home Tips
Today there are so many cheats out there, trying to win your confidence with a hidden agenda. Thats why beeing open is so important and the fastes way of networking. Entrepreneurs hiding their agenda, are often very shady persons.
@Ighuaran
Greetings to LA. I feel your comment! Same way here! Feels good to have like an english brother to Soundiac. At first Soundiac, should also have been english, but I decided to enrich the danish market with my/our concept. Thank you a thousand times for your luck wishes. All the best to you too… See you around!
@Benlahmen
You are right and got the point. If you want to establish a real career, then this is the way of the walk mostly. These “5 minutes setup cash machines” work in a limited time of period, while this way, can put you up for real in the biz you choose. I don’t want to sell anything with this guest post, just open another way in blogging.
@Kim
It’s all about working with the limitations. My audience is no bigger than the count of people who understand danish. With 5.5 million citizens, I maybe can build an audience of 100.000.
It’s all about time. And I am just started.
@Linda
Go for it and never give up! Even if x amount of years have past! Believe in your self and you work!
I am just starting as well. At first it seemed like a daunting task. Now however, I am having fun with it and helping people whenever I can.
I take the stand that it is my site so that I decide what I will post. Hence, sometimes I deviate from gardening a little bit and try to tie it back in somehow. Now I have more posts than I have time to put up, but I expect that to change as more money comes in to free me up to post and also allow me to purchase some Dragon voice to text software.
Yes, I love your post….It is all about people helping people.
you are rock man, this post have give some inspiration to me to keep on going.
Your site/blog has been a time tested success step that I see too many budding entrepreneurs missing out on. This is great advice for everyone.
Keep up the good work and I wish you much success.
Thanks for the great advice. It’s always scary to reveal what your true intentions are. But obviously, sometimes it can really pay off.
that’s a great point, I actually just yesterday thought about branding my family as the green family around town to be known as the local green experts. Sounds like it will work.
I can’t help but see the wisdom in your post. I have frequently seen to many sites fail because of NOT doing what you mention. If you aren’t willing to put “YOU” out there for everyone to see, how can you ever expect to gain any credibility with anyone. I have ran and lost a number of sites, simply because I wasn’t willing to do as you mention and play with an open hand. I figured I met let something out that drove peopke away, and unfortunatley, that unwillingness did it for me.
Now that you mention it. I haven’t had many people opt-in for my free gardening eBook, but those that did, knew ME in some fashion or another.
Yes I will continue to promote who I am as well as my gardening-by-cathy.net brand and soon “they will come.”
Thanks again, Lars
Hi, interesting post. I have been thinking about this issue,so thanks for writing. I will definitely be coming back to your posts.
@Cathy
It’s allright to deviate from your original theme on your blog. That’s what makes blogging interesting and personal. Else, I could visit regular websites. Get me? Thank you for “loving” my post. And spread the message (or link to this post) and let others know this part of blogging
@money-directories
I am glad to hear, that my post was something like a pep-talk to you. Rock ‘n’ Roll
@Billy Mays
Todays internet is full of lurking thieves. Be a winner and be honest. It’s scary at start, but you’ll learn over time to handle and of course limit how much info you let go.
@Green Gary
That sounds like a really great idea. I love it. Actually we have a company in Denmark, who is advertising for “Stop LOCAL warming” – try to check out Rockwool. Good luck
@Rev Jeff Lewis
but yeah… it’s experience and I learned from the best myself. Great to hear, that you learned from your own mistakes. Other people just give up.
Wisdom maybe large a word
that’s very good and i think its work
I like what you wrote, it is on the money. For many years I have been a Network Marketer and the question has been, “Do you lead with the products or the opportunity?”, will now I believe the answer is neither, you lead with you and you declare your intentions right of up. As you stated.
I currently working on your idea of branding myself on the different social sites. It does take time and this idea of fast cash that so many internet marketers promote is not a reality for the majority of people. You do tell it as it is, and that is good.
I am in the process of building my blog and I learning to use video as a tool to brand me. I have created two videos so far and plan on making many more.
Here is the link to the first one. http://duanespears.com/about/ And to the second one. http://duanespears.com/testimonials/my-video-hosting-testimonial/
I used Easy Video Producer to create the second one. It is a great tool and you can get it for free. Check it out here. http://duanespears.com/multiple-sources-of-income/easy-video-producer/
Keep up the good work.
I don’t know much about music, but I am learning. I have been the DJ at my sister’s wedding reception facility for the past 6 years. You can see her place at http://grandloft.net – I built her site for her.
Respectfully,
Duane Spears
http://duanespears.com
Well I was some tired of these “fast-cash-machines”, so I told about what I learned. Yes, you may earn cash from these marketing concepts for some time, but what about 5 or 10 years from now. And as you correctly state, branding does work for you a lot longer time then other principles. It takes time and you have to be fast in times of internet, but the results are fantastic.
You use video, and it is a fantastic idea. Very personal and if you do it with charm and appeal, then this is the best way. It’s the future!
Good Luck Duane and good luck to your sister at Grand Loft. I hope to hear more from you in the future. Maybe when the branding strategy pays off, you can write a mail.
Thanks Lars,
I appreciate your kind words. Yesterday, I finished a new introduction video for my blog. There are some mistakes on it, but I did get it up on my blog.
You can see it at http://duanespears.com
Today, I have to get my music ready for the Wedding this coming Saturday.
I hope you have a great day.
Duane
Thanks for sharing, i always read your newsletter through autoresponder..
That sounds like a really great idea. I love it. Actually we have a company in Denmark, who is advertising for “Stop LOCAL warming” – try to check out Rockwool. Good luck
I couldn’t agree more…learn more about how to make your blog work. My site is dedicated to just that – http://webitgeek.com
Really great article! I have read each of these stories and I have to say, yours is my favorite! You are so right about building your brand, and associating it with your name and doing the hard work. The thing with those ‘instant cash machine’ type systems too is that they are usually about something you’re not really interested in. In your case you have something you are obviously passionate about, plus you are helping others to succeed. I know you will do really well! It’s cool that you are getting free stuff already
I love the look of your blog, wish I could read Danish! I also really love discovering new bands, I find that usually the music I love the most is the 1st album, or the stuff that artists create before they get a big name label and get famous… the stuff that’s really theirs. Let us know if you ever translate your blog to English!
Thank you for the love! These instant cash machines have no effect at all in Denmark, so for me, it’s about taking other ways to get a result. And music has always been a passion to me. I might be a little bit sad about, not having started earlier – but personal loss was a eye opener.
I don’t think I will translate my blog in the near future. Sorry! But you might follow me on twitter, then I could tweet you some interesting names. http://www.twitter.com/soundiac.
See you around!
Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for writing. I will definitely be subscribing to your site. Keep up the good posts
I’m not an internet marketer, but a clinician, so much of the “free” advertising available on the net just doesn’t work for me. One of my health sites is http://www.realhelpfordepression.com and traffic has been almost zero for 5 years, despite a lot of article marketing and linking.
Just recently I added a blog and by itself that did almost nothing because of course there must be traffic.
The blog is a video blog with short videos explaining self-help strategies for depression and visitors must register in order to get notification of each video.
I’ve uploaded the videos to Youtube, and also built a following on Twitter via identifying conversations and people relevant to depression treatment. I haven’t done any more article marketing because there hasn’t been time.
Google analytics shows a 43,000% increase in visitors (in less than 3 weeks), and finally the site is attracting clients and product purchases and producing an income.
Clearly this strategy works, though I’ve seen other marketers attempt this strategy but fail at connecting with their audience because they try to substitute news feeds and sales messages for genuine conversation or high-relevance announcements. They are not about their audience but about themselves.
Used intelligently and ethically, Youtube and Twitter can dramatically increase visitors to your blog, and it appears that the blog then has a higher chance of converting visitors who arrive via those sources.
By the way, although my blog content is high quality, the videos are awful. I use only a web cam (talking head style with a single call-out) and trust me at 54 years of age I don’t make a pretty picture
I guess that proves you don’t have to be technically perfect, but you do have to be relevant.
What a great story. I’ve also found that building relationships with other people in the industry is a great way to build traction for your website right from the start.