Make Money Online With Snowboardjohn

Sugarrae recently posted about how Sphinn is a popularity contest. She was responding to the many complaints that people were making about the nature of social news.

Of course, Rae is right about Social media BEING a popularity contest - and - like she says: “so fucking what?”. Sort of.

I mean, everything is a popularity contest - that’s not hard to figure out - what can be murky however, is WHOSE popularity contest is it? And once that’s been figured out, the next question is WHY ARE THEY POPULAR?

Let me give you exhibit A:

This is my recent “domination” of social bookmarking site 76newsalways. The post that got voted up is there along side of problogger.net, engadget.com, and shoemoney.com

Now I don’t tell you this to brag - indeed I had never heard of 76newsalways until I noticed it as an incoming link and investigated it - it’s clearly a small time secondary service.

HOWEVER:

I have noticed other of my posts being voted on in other niche social media services… and… they don’t nearly get the same reception.

And I’m including a recent post of mine that was picked up and syndicated by John Reese within the BlogRush dashboard.

That post got a few Sphinns - and no more - in spite of the fact that it has been linked to so extensively, by quite a few respectable people.

So why do I think some of my posts get voted up social media services - while others of the same quality - go nowhere?

I think it’s actually to do with the person who submitted the news article - rather then the quality of the post itself.

To get votes, you need views, and to get views, you need to get submitted by popular submitters.

This brings me to my next point why, and how, are the social media submitters popular?

To answer this question we must analyze the nature of social media itself:

1. Social Media will only allow submission of a URL ONCE - after that - the URL can only be voted on.
2. To become a well known submitter you must submit stories that WILL become popular.
3. Brand recognizable bloggers like Aaron Wall, Shoemoney, Darren Rowse and so on are in high demand (for the most part) by submitters because those are stories which will get the submitters in front of other submitters because everyone will have to vote on the “once only” submitted story.
4. To get a story ranking well in social media, you need to have a lot of”friends” who will vote on it in a short amount of time.
5. The easiest way to get a lot of friends in social media is submit good stories that go popular.

Now to a certain extent “unknown” bloggers will get a look in - social news submitters need fresh sources of interesting content - and an easy to read “new kid on the block” may do ok if they get picked up by the right submitter (like I did in 76news)

However, the news submitter IS taking a risk by spending a lot of time reading unknown bloggers and then submitting stories by a blogger no one has ever heard of.

Ultimately, news submitters are trying to increase the their own “trust” and extend their network - so that future stories they submit will get views and votes.

As content providers we can either become a news submitter ourselves - and hence increase our own exposure (which we all do to some degree)… or… we can ignore it completely and continue to focus on producing content. Whatever that may be.

If like me (for the most part) you don’t have the time to build a social news reputation, I’ve found that writing controversially has been effective in getting submits by popular submitters -as has writing counter intuitive headlines like “Why The Give It Away Free Business Model Sucks Ass”.

Good luck however you approach social news - I think it’s a great opportunity and a great addition to the internet.

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I’ve spent a lot of time in mastermind groups, in focus groups, coaching groups, and so on.

Inevitably, one of the most oft repeated phrases is “Focus on the VALUE of what you’re offering and the money will come! Just focus on your VALUE and things will work out.”

Call me jaded but I don’t see things this way at all.

Is Coca Cola really successful because of the “value” of their product? How about Rothmans? How about Google? How about Microsoft?

Do you think Windows succeeds because of it’s superior programming?

Do you think Rothmans Cigarettes provides a valuable product?

Or Absolute Vodka?

Or Google provides “highly valuable” search results?

Bzzzzzttt Eeeeerrrrggghhhh - NO!

Absolutely not.

I wish the world was made up of valuable products, valuable services, and valuable people. It’s not. And life - and people - don’t reward value for value’s sake. Sorry.

How many wealthy successful men - who are good people - get used for their wealth in their personal relationships? The answer is a lot.

How many beautiful women, with intelligence and everything going for them, get used for sex and cast aside? The answer is a lot.

Value is a fairy tale we tell each other when we face uncertainty. It’s a Myth we want to believe in when we don’t know the answer to our problems.

“Sure Joe, you’re a great accountant - start that Accounting firm and offer a valuable service - people will flock to you in droves.”

They won’t of course. Because Value isn’t the full picture. It’s only part of a process.

That’s right: Value is part of a business process. It’s not some Magic Pill, it’s not something to be “believed” in - you can do without value - it’s not even a necessary process.

Having social proof, having a great provable business story (”I invested $5k of my own money and turned it into $1million in 5 years - let me show you how to do the same”), having a big competitive advantage (cheap warehousing, cheap advertising, cheap leads, fast delivery) and so on is what makes YOUR BUSINESS WORK.

Value is not a part of the equation. Value is a marketing word that companies with competitive advantage use to increase the ROI of their advertising dollars - and nothing more.

Sure companies like Godaddy offer a great service - and perhaps - that is “value”. But I don’t see it that way.

Bob Parsons is a consummate entrepreneur. Service is PART of his competitive advantage - he isn’t FOCUSING on providing “value” - he is focusing on dominating his market space.

The value his company offers is an indirect outcome of him executing his competitive advantage goals. Value is NOT his Modis Operandi.

And there’s a HUGE difference between those two mindsets.

When you think in terms of competitive advantage, market reach, and customer value - then you’re thinking like a real entrepreneur.

When you think in terms of value, your customers telling everyone about how great you are, and other intangible things - then you’re thinking like an idealistic newb.

Learn to be a great marketer, an intelligent economist (understand the numbers), and a risk averse gambler (diversifying your business risk) - and you’ll be a great entrepreneur. Forget about your ideals of providing “Value”. Do one day a week at a homeless shelter if you want to give back - but don’t do it in your business. You can’t afford it even if you don’t realize that you can’t.

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I got this from deanhunt.com - a great blog about Buzz Marketing.

It’s a university professor with pancreatic cancer imparting his last wisdom before he dies (I hope to be as fit and upbeat as he is when I die!):

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A very successful friend of mine lives with 3 programmers. And they all work about 23 hours a day.

What’s funny is that nearly ALL of the software he uses to generate his enormous cash flow is publicly available - and cheaply.

The same software which so many people get ZERO results from is the EXACT software he uses to bankroll a very impressive lifestyle.

The difference between him and everyone else is that he uses software for his own purposes - rather than the purposes the software manufacturer was suggesting. Many of his favorite applications do jobs the original programmers would never have thought about… and that’s why he gets such great results.

Because he gains competitive advantages cheaply he stays ahead of everyone else. But the truth is his knowledge of marketing & business is his real skill set. He knows what business outcomes he’s shooting for, and so can demand his software fit what he needs.

Instead of being dictated to by the software designers (who don’t understand ROI or competitive advantage for the most part), he ignores what they say - and executes his own well laid plans.

Shoemoney wrote about exploiting cheap facebook traffic with a free firefox addon the other day - and this is a nice example of what I’m talking about (unlike shoemoney though, I’m not prepared to talk specifically about what I do - because I don’t play such a short term “churn and burn” game - I have nothing against that, it’s just not my style).

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I’ve been getting coached and studying poker like crazy for the last few weeks.

One of the things that is really sticking out for me at the moment is WHY people play so badly - and lose so much money to good players.

And I think it’s largely because they see someone do something that works ONCE or maybe TWO, or THREE times… and then concludes that it’s the RIGHT thing to do. In reality the behavior has a NEGATIVE expectation over the long run (which means it will lost more often then it wins) but they haven’t done the math, and so they DON’T KNOW they are playing to lose 100% for certain.

Like there’s not even a question that they are going to be losing money. They’re GOING DOWN… eventually!

Being an entrepreneur is exactly the same as being a poker player - we’re trying to invest our capital into projects which carry some risk for a gain GREATER than we could expect if we worked using our CURRENT skill set in a job. (Not including our entrepreneurial skill set, which doesn’t get used in a job usually - unless you’re a high level exec but even then - not really).

And because we run internet businesses we are able to assess the mathematics of the success or failure of any of our projects if we choose. Which is a very powerful learning tool. Many young gun poker pro’s are only JUST old enough to be drinking - and yet - they are winning $200k/month playing poker. This is because they are using the internet to RECORD the way they play and ruthlessly pick apart their decision making - and improving much faster than a player OFFLINE could ever expect to.

Apart from the potential reach we have in front of us as internet entrepreneurs who can have anyone with an internet connection in the world as one of our customers - we ALSO have the opportunity to record our decision making -and ruthlessly pick apart what we’ve done up to this point in our careers.

IMHO it’s THE MOST POWERFUL opportunity we have. We have the option if we want, to look our business building skills in the mirror and see them for what they REALLY are.

No one who runs an offline business can do this. No. They’ve GOT TO GUESS instead.

As individuals we can see where we’ve been tripped up watching the short terms perceptions - drawing incorrect conclusions too quickly, making assumptions that turn out to be wrong. And ultimately becoming FAR BETTER entrepreneurs then we could ever HOPE to be if we didn’t have the analytical opportunity of knowing exactly what we’ve done - and then asking ourselves WHY we’ve done it.

This opportunity and choice is one I exercise every day. And my income, my recognition, and my overall wellbeing are the better for it.

Here’s some questions I ask myself daily:

• Do I have a traffic problem, a lead gen problem, or a conversion problem in the campaign in front of me?
• Will gaming the system gain me traffic only to hurt my lead gen or conversion in this market?
• Can I afford to lose all the money I’ve invested in this project so far? Can I afford to continue losing money at the rate I currently am up until this projects completion?
• Have I emailed all my virtual employee’s for progress updates today? Have I been clear with them about the outcomes I expect and the time frame I expect them in?
• What is the weakest link in my current plan on this mind map? How can I mitigate it or plan around it?

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I just like reading what they’ve got to say.

Usually good SEO’s have developed an incredibly structured thinking process, and they apply it to a lot more than just SEO. Like business, outsourcing, capital management etc.

They’re a lot like poker players actually. Geeky, but sharp as a nail.

Speaking of which, I just ran across this particularly feisty SEO, and am now a fan. Check her out.

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“Everything. Everything And All At Once.”

If I were to ask the blogging platform most people use to write their blog, about what its purpose is, those words would be its response.

I remember four years ago I was taking my first ever “business building” course. It was at a local community college and 30 of us sat in a little room with a white board at the front. Each day we would show up and chat excitedly about our dreams of business success. The money we’d make, the respect we’d earn, the independence of “being the boss”.

One of the most difficult things we were confronted with in those classes was that we would have to target a “market” - which meant ELIMINATING people from those who we would persue as potential customers. When our business teacher would ask us who our future customers would be, we replied “EVERYONE who wants what we’ve got of course!”

He wouldn’t sigh after hearing our answer though. He wouldn’t get frustrated. He actually expected this answer - it’s the answer everyone starting their new business gives. Unfortunately, it’s also the WRONG answer.

Eventually we learned that.

Eventually.

I get a lot of email from people asking me why my individual posts don’t have my sidebar. Or why I tell people to REDUCE what people can do on their blog.

I also see people speaking shit about what I say, and trashing me because my blog isn’t as “fancy” as theirs is.

So before I reply, let me say, I know how you feel. Big, fancy, appeal to everyone, have every function, do everything. This is what we would love our business (and our blogs) to do. But we can’t and they can’t.

Because actions happen in a linear way. Life is linear. Not parallel.

A boy meets a girl before he ask her out. He doesn’t marry her before he meets her. He doesn’t marry her WHILE he meets her And she doesn’t do those things either.

I know figuring out which actions people take and when they take them isn’t easy - but figuring it out is your work as a business person (and blogger). (And you can always see what I’m doing, I spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff).

Here’s a list of actions you want a reader to take in the order they usually take them:

1. Find your blog.
2. Read one of your posts.
3. Subscribe to your feed.
4. Tell other people about you (word of mouth, link, social news submission).
5. Buy something (or click something)

And if that’s what you want to have happen, in the order it IS going to happen - why are you confusing a reader with an experience that doesn’t take into account this reality?

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I have a confession to make: I abuse social media.

Not because I spam it… or… at least… not because I spam it because I’m greedy or lazy.

No. My abuse stems from a different source. I lack time.

I lack the time to participate as a proper contributive member of social media. And then I complain about the poor quality results I find in my favorite social news sites.

I’m the worst kind of social media abuser: I participate solely for my own promotion, and then expect the site to somehow work effectively without my genuine input as a contributive member.

Here’s a list of the abusive things I do:

1. I vote for stories without reading them. I know I shouldn’t, but I know I need to vote for other people’s stories because I want to seem like I’m an active member. I’m not really - I don’t have the time to be.
2. I sometimes vote for every story. Heck, that gets my name in front of everyone, and it seems like I’m spreading love - not just spreading myself. Which is what I am really doing.
   
3. I submit only my own stories. Never anyone else’s. I’ll vote for other stories sure… but… I’ll never submit them.
4. I collude with people who think how I think. Or at least, people who pretend to be like me.

I do more things than this. But these are the main things I do that come to my mind.

I don’t really feel guilty either. Why should I?

Business is hard. Even when the money is flowing in, there’s more problems then when there is NO money flowing in. There’s always an employee out of line, a project running late, an adwords campaign that’s failing, a competitor one upping me in the serps.

There’s always something else I could be doing that would bring me more money. And an easier life.

Sometimes I think that I should focus on giving… and I want to… and if the day comes where I’m far enough ahead - I will…

… I definitely will…

(Can you recognize someone else in there? Maybe even YOURSELF a little? I know I see some of myself in there… maybe not all of it, but some of it…)

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