Having Something To Say Versus Something To Sell

Blogs, anyone?

Via Dave Winer, "99 percent of blogs are about what someone has to say. 99 percent of traditional media is about making money."

So who do you think writes more interesting, from the heart, sincere, authentic and believable (to their audience) stuff?

Moral: Be the human voice you'd want to hear whenever you talk about your business or product. Skip the bombastic boasts and puffed up language no one understands or cares about. Tell your authentic personal story as you would to a friend over coffee, where you are not trying to sell it, just tell it.

How to blog for your business...

How might a network marketer create and use a blog to develop her business?

That's the question discussed on a recent teleconference (available here, episodes 16 & 17) by Ryan Azevedo, CEO of the giant online audiobook store Jiggerbug. It includes hundreds of categories, thousands of audiobooks, plus a network marketing section. . :)

Ryan's a blogging nut, and has been blogging a lot to improve his company's search engine position. He offered all manner of little tricks and tips, from setting up your blog to getting it noticed to how successful bloggers write theirs. Delightful. Available for your pleasure here.

Anyway, towards the end, one gal, a veteran Shaklee rep, asked, "Well what should I write about when what I want to do is sell my products? I KNOW not to sell my products on my blog, because I wouldn't want to read people's blogs if they're just selling their things. So what DO I write about?"

Good question.

Ryan agreed: Don't sell on your blog, or people won't come back. Who wants to go online to read ads? Instead, he told her, "write about something that matters to you, something you are passionate about."

"Well," she said, "I really like what the product did for me..."??Ahh. "You can be a resource for others who might be looking for a fix for the same problem you had," he advised.

Blogging rule #1: Be a resource, not a salesperson.

Everyone's an expert on something, aren't they? So, consider these steps.

1) Say you picture yourself as a health nut, and ?2) you are especially keen on the importance of fruits and veggies in your diet, and 3) you market a nutritional product that has those nutrients in them, then ?4) you might start a blog about what various nutrients in fruits and veggies do for bodies, INDEPENDENT of your product, of course.

Why, you ask, can't you just hurry up and sell sell sell?

Because people don't know you yet, or your product, so step one is to establish yourself as an authority on the subject you are writing about. Or someone with a point a view, a human voice. If you're crazy in love with it, chances are you'll be one of these. If not, write about something where you meet one of these criteria.

EXAMPLE: Health Nut blog post

The Sex Berry, Kings and Concubines

Do you know the secret sex berry that was consumed by ancient kings to keep up with (i.e. service) all their concubines? They actually had ways in the pre-Viagra days. It's a little fruit called wolfberry. With today's concern over side effects of drugs, here's at least one natural alternative. They're available in Chinatown in NYC and San Francisco, and in between, there's Google. I take mine every day and love the results...blah blah. (No mention of your product or company here - be mysterious, more fun.) END OF POST.

Chances are someone who's intrigued might email you: "Say, where do you get yours?"

And of course, now that they've asked, you can tell how you take these little capsules everyday, that are full of that wolfberry stuff. You can then add that you liked the idea so much when you found out it, that decided to make market them to other people like you - people who want this natural alternative but don't want to shop for them, soak them, or clean up after.

There are endless fun topics you might write about if you were marketing such a product to keep people entertained and informed. And there are mountains of resources. Google your topic and be prepared for a few hours of exploring.

Jean Carper, years ago, wrote a wonderful book called, "Food, Your Miracle Medicine" which was full of then-current examples of the effects of all kinds of foods on mitigating health problems. E.g. People who ate 1 and 1/2 cups of spinach per week were found to have reduced their risk of X disease by Y percent...

When you see yourself as a resource, you get to have fun doing NEW research on what others are thinking about regarding your favorite topics, and report those. I read other blogs to get ideas. The best writers online and off, seem to be those who read voraciously. It takes a village, yes. But with Google and other search engines, you can find limitless resources to inspire you and give you topics to offer your readers.

And those who want to know what YOU do naturally to stay sexually energized, will ask. Then you can tell...

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