{!date dayname+0}, {!date long+0} Dear {!firstname_fix} Hope all is well with you and that the sunshine is making you feel good. It looks like we are going to have a great weekend here in southern England; it would have been made more perfect if we were in the World Cup finals of course..! But that's life, you see; sometimes things don't always go the way you want them to. You then have a choice, bleat on about the problem, get hung up on it, beat yourself about the head for it - or you can say "hey ho" and then move on. This second approach has been confirmed in countless psychological studies as by far the healthiest one to adopt. So, if something doesn't go your way in the coming week, just accept it and move on to the next thing. Doing so will make you feel better. So, what questions have you been asking
me lately? YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED: How can blog posts be made really interesting? There are billions of blog posts written each day, so making yours stand out from the crowd is essential. Interestingly, I read yesterday that Google has calculated that if the content that is added to the web EACH SECOND were to be printed on paper, the stack would be...wait for it...three miles high....! That's a stack of paper that would go from here to the sun each year....! Whatever you do online, you are clearly fighting through a torrent of competition. Consequently, making your material really interesting is essential. There are some components of "interesting" that you can make sure you include which will help make it more likely that your material gets readers. The most important of these is "Relevance". Whatever you write must be relevant to your specific readership. Trying to write something that would "interest everyone" actually means it will interest no-one. I remember talking to a publisher several years ago about the 300 manuscripts from hopeful authors that landed on her desk EACH WEEK...! Her complaint? Not the volume of work, but the lack of focus of the authors. "Who on earth is each book aimed at?" she asked. The hopeful authors fell at the first hurdle because they hadn't made their material relevant to a specific audience. Step two in your quest for making something interesting is to be different - unusual. We all know, for instance, that we should allocate our tasks to our diary so that we get things done on time. Nothing new or interesting in that because it is not unusual or different. But what if you were told about a way you could use your mobile phone to automatically add your tasks to an appropriate time in your diary, without you having to think about it? Now that might be more appealing as it is a different approach. Being different, talking about things from an alternative perspective, being unusual - these all help in making your material interesting. The next thing you could do to make your blog posts truly stand out is to focus on people and less on your subject. Human interest is a powerful driving force in making people want to read something. If you write about technology, write about how people use the technology instead. If you write about accountancy, write about accontants instead. You can still get your messages across, but it is much more interesting to your potential readers. It means your blog will be much more interesting if you have a BURP...! Blog Unusual Relevant People stuff....! Remember, you can always ask your question and get it answered in this newsletter by going to: http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/questions
WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK: Good customer service can make you spend more money The system that sends you this newsletter is different to the system that I have been using for several weeks. I changed my email marketing list provider a month or two ago, but realised it was a "sub brand" - a "white label" version of the "real thing". I have been using Premium AutoResponder, after an exhaustive search through all the various systems available. I had earlier rejected one of the market leaders, Aweber, on the basis of their cost structure. But what I did not realise was the fact that Premium Autoresponder IS Aweber - but a cut-down version. So I contacted Aweber and asked them if I could get access to their full service. They phoned me immediately and sent a confirmation email. They just needed the "OK" from me that I wanted to change. There was nothing for me to do, other than say "OK" on the phone. Within seconds they changed my system. They automatically cancelled the Premium AutoResponder account, refunded the rest of the month's payment due on that and transferred everything across for me. There was nothing for me to do...! Excellent service. True, I will end up paying more, but I realised that this level of service is worth the extra that the system will cost me - and I get extra features recently added to Aweber but not offered via Premium AutoResponder.If you want to check out what else I've been doing for the past week, you can always look at: http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/week
THIS WEEK'S "MUST BUY":
Get seen by the media Journalists and broadcasters always need experts. Every story they write needs someone to provide a comment or to be interviewed. With millions of words being written every day, the demand for expert comment is immense. And YOU are an expert...! Whatever business you are in, there is an opportunity for you to get interviewed and be quoted in newspapers and magazines or appear on radio or TV - providing publicity for your business. I know a number of journalists and if they don't already know an expert on a particular subject the first place they look is Expert Sources - a directory of media friendly experts. And I know it works - every week I get calls from journalists and broadcasters who found out about me via Expert Sources. This week alone I've been interviewed twice by the BBC, once by the Daily Mail and a number of times for various magazines. It costs a mere £90 a year for a listing and you cannot afford to miss out on this excellent opportunity: http://www.expertsources.co.uk
And a reminder about coffee... "The Social Media Guys" are back on the road again...! If you have burning social media questions or simply want to find out how social media can help your business just join us for coffee at 11am at The Bear Hotel in Hungerford on Tuesday 13th July. More details at: http://www.thesocialmediaguys.co.uk So, that's it for this week - see you in seven days...! Kind Regards
Graham Jones Web: grahamjones.co.uk Tel: +44 118 336 9710 If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter than you can delete your name from the mailing list by clicking this link: {!remove_web} |
