My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
–Anton Chekhov
Declining online traffic? Stop blaming SEO
Photo by Mimmo Pellicola on 500px
There has been plenty of talk lately about important changes that Google has been making to how it ranks websites. Those changes involve Google’s closely guarded algorithm, which is the magic juice behind how its search engine produces accurate results.
As I have been covering in greater detail in my newsletter, the most recent of these updates is code-named Penguin. It’s designed to give more weight to good quality content and down-rank the stuff that isn’t.
Penguin has also made a few people unhappy. [Read more…]
Be real: the importance of authenticity in what you say
Photo by Roof Topper on 500px
That includes the messages they develop when communicating directly with customers and clients.
It’s rooted in good intentions.
But far too often, people fall short in delivering on what ought to be the underlying promise of good service: being useful and authentic.
“Have you found everything you’re looking for?” I’ll bet you’ve been asked that countless times at the checkout counter at a chain store. I hear that question so often now that I answer “yes” almost like an involuntary reflex…even in cases where, in fact, I haven’t found everything I was looking for.
I’ll bet you’ve done the same thing.
What’s worse is when you instead say “no” and it quickly becomes apparent that the person who cheerfully asked you that question in the first place hasn’t a clue what to do when someone indicates they actually have not found all that they were looking for.
Efforts at being useful stop being meaningful when they’re perceived as something that people have to do rather than want to do.
Too often, businesses get too caught up trying to turn good service into a process: a series of methodical steps that everyone is expected to follow on every transaction.
There are two problems with that approach. First, processes are designed to give you identical results every time. Sure, we all like to see consistent good service, but the real test of that kind of promise takes place when things aren’t working the way they should.
What do you do when that customer hasn’t found what they were looking for, or something in your transaction hasn’t gone the way that it should? Your next step there matters far more than adhering to any kind of process.
If all you have to rely on is a batch of template messages, your customers or clients will tune into this faster than you’ll ever anticipate.
They will become conditioned to ignore what you’re saying.
The second problem is that processes strip away the kind of sincerity that you ought to be building with your clients and customers.
People like to be made to feel special.
They like it when you notice things before you even have to ask. And they’re far more likely to respond in kind when you demonstrate with actions that service is something you work hard at providing, rather than just repeating something that you’ve been told to say.
There’s no substitute for being real.
What John Coltrane can teach you about building your audience
John Coltrane
No, don’t do that. Don’t run away.
Don’t let it scare you that I just name-dropped one of the giants of jazz.
Or that Coltrane’s music seemed complicated.
This post isn’t going to preach jazz to you. And the jazz police aren’t going to show up and arrest me for having the gall to use America’s finest art form as a platform to illustrate an important point about the power of audience building.
There’s valuable insight in here even if jazz isn’t your thing.
As a reader of thinkit creative, you could be here looking for advice on search-engine optimized writing for the web to generate online traffic and convert readers into buyers. Maybe you’re a writer looking to build a base of readers. Or perhaps you’re a professional speaker or you own a design studio and you’re looking to take your business to the next level of profitability.
Odds are good that you’re in the idea business. And that means your success hinges on finding and building an audience.
John Coltrane can help you with that.
Discipline
Even this giant of music started without an audience.
As a young musician, John Coltrane loved how saxophonist Charlie Parker wasn’t afraid to be playful with his music.
He emulated what he heard. Not as a cheap cut-and-paster of style.
Rather, his drive to decode Parker and other influential players became part of young Coltrane’s relentless practicing. Biographies on the man often quote fellow musicians who knew him early on, saying they’d never seen anyone put in the hours the way Coltrane did.
Out of the hours came the admirers. From the admirers came the listeners. And then the big breaks, like when he was invited to tour with the first time. Then the audience took hold and the Coltrane legend grew. It’s hard to imagine any of that happening in Trane’s career without the roots of discipline being as strong as they were.
Intuition
“Jazz…is a social music operating in a commercial context,” says Ben Ratliff of The New York Times in his book Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. “You give the audience what you think it wants. At the same time, you improvise, and try to bring out the part of you that is the least like anyone else.”
Groundbreaking ideas rarely find their audience quickly. It starts with thinking deeply about your audience and having as much of an understanding of what they want as what they might also be open to. Research will help you, but only up to a certain point.
Intuition goes well beyond calculating a market penetration or measuring the size of an audience. There’s a deeper art. And you only get to exercise that by trying and by experimenting based on a mix of what you know is true and on a hunch you have about what might be true.
Taste
Coltrane learned the hard way early on that masterful technique alone doesn’t win many ears. In fact, more than one audience in his career booed him for doing just that. He learned that ideas—especially the big ideas—have to be presented in a way that are pleasing to others. Often that means taking the time to package your ideas attractively.
One of Coltrane’s great achievements in the American songbook is what he did with his interpretation of the Rogers and Hammerstein classic show tune, My Favorite Things. The music says more than I can say in paragraphs about that. So have a listen.
Platform
To find and build an audience, your idea or your message needs a platform. My Favorite Things was a platform for Coltrane that helped him bring big-headed jazz to a wider audience. So what’s your platform? It can be a blog, an ebook, a series of newsletter articles, or a presentation (to name just a few examples). Invest the time to design that platform properly. Hire a good designer who can help you build something that people will enjoy using. That’s the front door. It’s how you’re going to invite your audience in so that they’ll stick around and see what else you have to say.
Mastery of any creative skill only comes from finding good influences and by putting in the hours to hone your skills. Work to emulate. This is how you learn how great ideas are constructed. Only then can your own voice emerge. Take chances and find ways to build entranceways for people to access even your edgy ideas with relative ease.
What you can learn from Budweiser’s Super Bowl ad
In case you haven’t seen it yet, Budweiser’s Super Bowl ad—slated to run only on the Canadian broadcast of the main event—has gone viral in a big way online.
Here’s the setup.
Two amateur Canadian hockey teams think they’ve been invited to be part of a documentary. Instead they’re treated to a mega flash-mob and get to live out what every kid who plays hockey (or any sport, really) dreams of.
It closes with “Good times are waiting. Why not grab some buds.”
A lot of people have liked it on Facebook, tweeted it and +1’d it on Google+.
You don’t have to enjoy beer or hockey to connect with the message behind the ad. [Read more…]