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In my last post, I touched upon one important point - story telling element in the content - in relation to Google’s use of comic strip to introduce chrome to the target audience. Take a look at the last paragraph of the post.Now, here, I would like to define what is “content”!To me - content is everything that exists in the page plus all other associated materials that is not present in the page.For example, whenever we think about Google, we think about so many things associated with Google like Gmail, Google Reader etc. (even Yahoo or MSN may fall under the category of associated material). And thus, to a high extent, it depends on the reader, how he or she perceives it. For example, think about Chrome. So many things are written on this browser - but did it remain just as a product by Google! Certainly not - people started comparing it and associating it with other browsers, started tracing its history, started guessing the future of web etc. And this cloud of thoughts and associations create the actual content.You cannot think about something in isolation. And this brings us to another bigger problem. You cannot control how a reader perceives your content.And here comes the “story” element of content.What is a story? Starting a paragraph with “once upon a time…” does not make something a story. It is actually a frame where you posit your product. It has got a beginning, a problem, a search for solution, reaching the solution and a definite ending.Think about your favorite audio visual advertisement. They just don’t talk about the product alone - they actually posit the product within a frame called story.How does it help?The target audience can easily identify himself as a character within the story (did it remind your childhood?) and this helps to transport the message. However, that is not all. The best part of a story is that it determines a boundary for the audience to think. It tries to guide the audience’s thinking pattern (tries to eliminate Gmail or Google Reader when you are thinking about Chrome). What else do you want?How does it help the bloggers or webmasters who want to earn some money?It is easy to get visitors in your website or blog but it is tough to convert them into business. The “Story” can actually do the magic.Think about it…

Branding pays in the long run – there is no doubt about that. And that is why, big companies spend huge amount in brand development and promotion. Even in FMCG sectors, people try to promote their brand rather than the product alone.
As I always say, people do not need your product - they need a solution to their problem. In this respect, you may say that why people are buying an iPhone though their old phones are just enough for the purpose!
In this situation too, they are succumbing to their need. The iPhone is not just another phone that makes a call – it is something more than that. And often you can not or do not want to identify what is “the more” with iPhone! Now add the brand name of Apple with this phone and you get the huge response from the market. Do you really think iPhone would have got such response in the market if it was not produced by Apple? There are many phones which can perform almost similar task – so why buy an iPhone?

Brand names are important not simply for early adopters, who actually set the market on fire. Even if you take a look at the long tail, you will find that the brand name works havoc when the buyer is just at the verge of taking the final decision. Bigger brand names enjoy more trust among end users.
The same thing happens with your online brand. Who would get the maximum exposure for publishing the same story on SEO – SEO Moz or just another SEO blog? Who has the maximum trust rank?
There is a saying that if you pour some honey on the wall, it would attract bees. Does that mean you would need to pour more honey to attract more bees in the same progression? My experience says that, in case of good branding, the existing bees actually attract more bees. And it eventually increases your brand value.
Any doubt about that?

I have always been a big fan of Seth Godin (I have written it a few times in this blog).Why I like him so much?

The primary reason is - he is an idea man - he can think - he can add new perspective to a common story. And if you are smart enough, you can learn a lot from those interpretations.

In last couple of posts I have been talking about recent changes in online advertisement industry - mainly in the communication pattern. For example, you can take a look at these posts. What do you think? Did I write those posts just to share some information on recent changes?

Of course not! I was very excited the way things are changing in online advertising world. Advertisements are no longer viewed as a link where someone clicked by chance and without knowing it to be an advertisement.

Thus when Seth wrote the post titled “Ads are the new online tip jar“, I did not find anything special about that. I just took it like - the way online advertising is changing, Google AdSense is turning out to be a tip jar.

However, things were not so simple - a lot of people took that post word for word and started blaming Seth for promoting click fraud. Things turned so worst that Seth had to come out with a new post along with comment in another blog (read the first comment) to rescue his image.

What do you think guys?

Do you really think Seth just made a stupid comment?

Do you really think Seth was supporting click fraud?

Do you think advertisers should concentrate on product selling or brand development?

What Google thinks about paid reviews (almost similar to selling links) is a different issue but this is one of the best ways to monetize your blog. There is no doubt about that.

What does it have for the advertisers?

1. You can create a buzz easily around your product in the blogosphere.
2. Buzz helps you in brand development.
3. You create the buzz within a very short period (just think about how some of the renowned bloggers are promoting a premium WordPress Theme recently - don’t know if those are paid promotions or not but as soon as they started talking about the theme - it moved beyond any ordinary row of WP themes).
4. You get great quality and content based one way links (targeted) to your website

 What does Bloggers get?

1. Easy money by writing a review

Some Problem Areas:

1. In most of such paid review networks, advertisers restrict the bloggers to write only good things (positive review) about their product or website. Thus, the website owners miss out valuable comments from a blogger that could help to improve the product. I understand that there is a chance of negative marketing but if you directly communicate with a niche blogger, he or she may guide you before publishing the actual post. There comments are worth more than the link or buzz you get.
2. Advertisers usually ask not to disclose that it is a paid review. They often say that, their competitors would be aware of their marketing tactics if the blogger disclosed it as a paid review. In addition, relatively smaller bloggers cannot argue with the advertisers and eventually deceive their readers by not disclosing the nature of the post.
3. Advertisers often want a certain number of links (normally 3 links with targeted anchor text) from the blog post. However, in most of the cases all these three links point to the same URL with different or similar anchor texts. This is simply wastage of opportunities. I would recommend the advertiser to ask for one targeted link and two general links to other pages of the website along with three or four other links to trusted and non-profit sites like Wikipedia. This would make things more natural from Search Engine’s perspective.
4. Allow the bloggers enough space to talk. Ask them to write freely - if necessary preview the post that the blogger is planning to publish. This would help you a lot to develop the product.

Here are 22 paid blog review networks to check out: (this is simply a list and we do not endorse anyone)

1. Pay Per Post
2. Buy Blog Reviews
3. Bloggers Review
4. Smorty
5. Blogsvertise
6. Review Me
7. Sponsored Reviews
8. Social Spark
9. Blogpayz
10. Blogger Wave
11. Blogto Profit
12. Link Worth.com
13. Pay u 2 Blog
14. Bloggertizer
15. Blogitive
16. Blogging Ads
17. In Blog Ads
18. Loud Launch
19. Rewarding Reviews
20. Contextual v7n
    
21. Linky Love Army
    
22. Creative Weblogging

All smart marketers know that if they can develop a brand out of a product, the mileage at the end would be much higher than just selling the product. In web environment, the easiest way to develop a brand is to engage the big mouths to talk about the product. At the end of the day, the cumulative effects of those talks and overall visibility determine the brand value of the product and often the conversion rate.

But, why am I talking all these?

The question is simple - as a web worker, are you developing a brand of your own? What about becoming a big mouth yourself to promote your own product. Web is moving very fast and if you are not smart enough, you will end up doing the same job even after five years in the same tedious way for almost same amount of money.

Just think about a copywriter who does not have the liberty to claim the copyright of the content he or she has written as an assignment from the company! What does he or she actually earn apart from the salary! However, a good marketer would actually sell his expertise on content “writing” and develop a bigger brand name that would actually fetch him more money for the same job. Writing good content is not good enough unless you can market your expertise.

Smart marketers work as hard to promote themselves as they work to promote their product.

How to develop a brand out of yourself?

There is no readymade theory or surefire way to developing a brand (at least I don’t know). Every situation is different and you must have a unique approach. Let’s answer some of these questions:

Do you think,

1. Publishing your own blog on copywriting would help you to develop a brand?
2. Participating in different SEO forums would develop your own brand?
3. Writing guest posts would develop your brand?
4. Participating in different social networks would develop your brand?
5. Commenting on other blogs would develop your brand?

Do you think that Brand and Visibility are different?

I will soon write a few posts on this subject, so long let us think together.

Let’s join hands and create a real network that would be beneficial for each of the members.

The idea is simple - let’s create a network of blogs (seo, web design, web development, internet marketing etc.).

What would happen here?

Each member would host a carnival every week where he or she would write a post on the carnival like SEO Carnival or Affiliate Marketing Carnival and would link to other blogs in the network that have written a good enough post on that specific topic.

The selection of posts would solely depend on the publisher of that post (this is important as he or she have their own responsibility to their readers).

On each carnival, he or she would declare the next carnival topic and date.

That’s it.

Who can participate?

1.    Blogs on SEO, web development, designing and related topics

2.    Blog’s weight - number of posts / PR / reader base or other criterions [would be decided by the participants - you - please write down your suggestions]

Why should you participate?

1.    You get fresh visitors to your blog from other blogs.

2.    You get great link love from other blogs.

3.    You get recognition in the blogosphere.

4.    You don’t pay anything for this.

[Here “you” stands for both the publisher of the carnival and the linked blogs.]

Rules:

There is only one rule: Be honest about your selection.

ROI:

Depends on you :)

Write a comment here with your views or mail me at roy.nbb [at] gmail.com.

Let’s make it happen.

Move on to any social media or networking website and you would surely find that some people are always available there and some of them are hyper active. In fact, you would surely meet some social media optimizers or marketers out there.

Is it really worth hiring a social media optimizer or marketer to promote your site or blog out there?

Does it sound like a silly question? I understand - today, it is like asking if you should hire a SEO expert to optimize your site or not!

But the answer may not be so simple. Let’s take a look:

Would you hire just any public relation company or executive to manage or sustain your brand name or identity? If your answer is no, why do you think that any social media marketer would be good enough to promote your business!

A public relation group is hyperactive when your brand is in big soup - the same thing does not happen with a social media marketer. As a part of their responsibility, most of them represent your website in different social networks throughout the year.

They actually become your company’s face to the public. Are you keeping any track of their activity? Did you consider the point if that person is qualified enough in your domain? If he or she is just a marketer, they might not be able to properly communicate with other people in your niche. It is like employing a literature student to answer forum questions on Google’s Algorithm (search - find - rephrase - answer = cool model and good money!!).

What to look for in a social media marketer and optimizer?

1. Domain expertise: he or she must know about the product and the industry.
2. Name as an expert: If he or she has a name in your niche as a resource person, he would just be a great marketer. I think he has got some marketing skill.
3. Overall web presence: A blogger in your niche can be the best social media marketer (provided, he has enough experience in social media). You can also find out if he or she participates in different forums in your niche or not. Take advantage of his or her social presence - that’s why you are paying him.
4. Social media optimization does not mean adding a few bookmarking buttons in each page. What else do they offer?
5. DIY - yes - you can do it yourself. If things seem too much time consuming, just select one or two niche networks and spend at least half an hour everyday. But don’t forget to learn the art and science of better communication.
6. Experience: Do I really need to write anything on this point!

Did I miss something? Why don’t you write a comment?

Why should you think about creating lists while writing a post?

Because it sells and it may fetch you a lot of one way links along with visitors. There is no doubt about that. Take a look at Smashing Magazine - you cannot ignore that, large and useful lists are one of the biggest reasons of their huge popularity. If you still have any doubt, take a look at their most popular posts - top 10 most popular posts are lists (you can find it in the ‘popular posts’ widget in the first side bar).

Wait, Smashing Magazine is not about lists alone. You must consider the quality of those lists. And you should also notice another important aspect of their content - almost all the posts are some sort of solutions or they have a visible application that is actually closing the sale (I mean links).

If your list is just the first few pages of Google SERP, it won’t sell much - if you don’t believe these words, try it yourself. Whenever you are creating a list, you are actually catering to a niche group of people who would bookmark the page for future use. Now, do you really think that, those people do not know about the elements of your lists already? They also use Google.

Another big reason of their success is the complete package - each of their posts are a complete package - glossy images, beautiful formatting and to the point. And they present you huge lists and cater mainly to the people who have some sort of web presence (going online for some information once in a while does not make someone webby); for example, designers, developers, bloggers etc. Do you have so many webby in your niche?

And there is a tendency - people like images - they like to bookmark images - they like to pass them to another friend. Now again, it all depends on your niche market and how you want to promote yourself. If you can hook your target audience with the content alone, like Matt Cutts or Seth Godin, there is nothing like it. But at the same time, you may also start thinking in terms of images.

What else! Smashing Magazine was not built in a day - and today, I do not need to give them a link to help you go there for further references. You already know their URL - that’s the power of brand and word of mouth promotion (they have got lots of them).

And Smashing Magazine is not the only player - there are hundreds of bloggers who think in the same line - successfully.

What is your name? Bill Gates?

Cool; would you like to book a domain like www.bill.gates/ and would you like to publish your retirement plans at www.bill.gates/retire-plans.html?

If you are Bill Gates, you can have it; but you will have to wait until the second quarter of 2009 and you must prove that you are Bill Gates and you have a well established brand name to book that domain.

And it is not a joke. We are moving into a new era - ICANN has approved a recommendation from the global stakeholders to introduce new TLDs to the Internet’s addressing system. And this is what they call the “Biggest Expansion in gTLDs Approved for Implementation“.

This decision is not finalized in one day. It has undergone major discussions and planning for last six years.

However, you cannot have any TLD you wish. You must have an established brand that you would need to put forward as an application to the ICANN (responsible for the global coordination of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers like domain names). Your application and brand equity will be properly evaluated by ICANN before allowing you the domain name. Perhaps, they would try to ensure that, none but McDonald’s get the domain name http://www.mc.donalds/. It is not just about first come - first serve. And to add to this, anyone can place objection during the evaluation process (BTW, ICANN will not be the only decision maker when someone places an objection).

So, those who are planning to earn some more money from domain trading, should be a little bit disappointed (domain trading is a big business and you can still do well from regular TLDs like .com or .net) to loose such a big opportunity.

How much would it cost?

This would cost you a lot more than premium domain names. According to Dr Twomey, it may cost you something around a six figure amount ($$$,$$$) to book such a domain name. And this is not a big deal for established brands.

By 2009, we will have more than just 21 TLDs to fight for. But don’t you think it would make a common man’s web browsing more critical? At present, we have a naming convention and people are used to it. Won’t it be more confusing as far as recollection is concerned? And what if the same name exists for two brands in two countries - which would get the domain name?

Ok, there is no point in denying that like a lot of other people out there, I am a big fan of Seth Godin. And I just like to follow what he is writing or how he is packaging his products or how he is selling himself.

In my last post [writing a blog post] I was talking about Squidoo. Lets complete that discussion. What do you find the most interesting thing in Squidoo?

I asked this question to some fellow content writers and web designers. And as expected, there were two answers - “emphasis on user generated content” and the other is “simple design”. Do you want to add anything to it?

Ok, here are my observations on Squidoo:

1. The most stunning thing about Squidoo is its navigation - it does not have traditional navigational pattern like - home | submit article | Contact Us | About Us | etc. And this is the section, where Seth has left Hub Pages miles behind. In Squidoo, you have just a drop down image that is inviting you to ‘build your own’ lens.

What webmasters generally does when they start such a website? Just take a look at any other article directory and you will have the answer. We would have definitely kept a common navigation bar for the reason that, the users may not be as much web savvy as we are and may face problems to use the site.

What does this mean? We are actually giving them the freedom to move around as they wish. And Seth (may be with his team) is guiding the visitor through the process of creating a lens. And, undoubtedly, it takes lots of courage to take such a drastic step when you are dealing with general people and Seth has successfully done the job.

2. Another most important aspect of Squidoo is its use of language. All through the process, the website is more playful than serious and he is selling it every time.

3. And the idea itself is great - a one page blog on anything with as many link as you want.

There are lots of other issues that you may notice in Squidoo. And this is what I call Web 2.0.

By the way, did you click on Seth’s Head in his blog? What do you call it? Just a design or idea branding?