I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…

Did that grab your attention?

Are you blogging or optimizing for fun? or for profit?

If it is for profit, the keep reading otherwise, this is a waste of time for you. If you took more than 5 seconds to decide, don’t read the rest of this either. Go back to the first sentence and DECIDE if you TRULY are building your blog or website for PROFIT.

Once you build some relationships within an industry or among some blogging counterparts, the next step is to take the trust that you have built up and kick it up a notch. One of the highest leverage activities that you can do with friends is comparing notes among non-competitors in a similar industry. Seriously, BENCHMARKING WORKS. If you truly want to win in this world of online marketing, you have to be willing to give in order to get.

Here are some things that I am shared with trusted friends in the last few months:

My Analytics. When this Blog dropped off the face of Google. How many visitors I was turning into leads,given my traffic. Tons of different strategies that I was testing SEO wise. Which blogs I was working on. More WordPress plugins than I care to count. Sources of links. Tons of on page SEO stuff…Etc. Etc. Etc . The list could literally go on forever.

Do you know what I got in return. Much of the same thing! By being willing to share and opening up what I don’t know to others, I LEARNED and GAINED EXPERIENCE. Here’s the bottom line:

In a business like online marketing, you HAVE to stay on the cutting edge. To stay there, you MUST be able to evaluate quickly and have a neural network of many friends watching your six o’clock while you watch theirs. It is also CRUCIAL to know what works and what does not. Wasted time on misinformation and disinformation is death rattle. Don’t be too prideful or too vain about your site stats or analytics data. Trust me…being humble enough to show yours in exchange for a peek at someone else’s can be an enlightening process. (grin) Usually you BOTH learn something.

Disintermediation in Reverse – Can online Newspapers be commoditized?

First of all. If you are reading this without reading the other two posts in the series. Please go back and read them. They are here and here.

With that accomplsihed, here is where I am coming from. Online newspapers have reduced themselves (due to competitive pressure) to essentially an interactive blog and maybe a forum mixed in powered by a national newsfeed. The VALUE ADD that they provide is local journalists adding color and commentary on local news and local events. They charge for this by selling ads to local businesses. How is that different than this? (It is just a shell at the time of this writing…)

Looking that business model over for a second, why would a professional services provider like a mortage broker, or real estate agent or other service professional be interested in BECOMING the online newspaper or in participating in a group set out to do the same? Why wouldn’t they become the OWNER of said online newspaper rather than RENT it from others? The links that this site builds and the online authority it creates are THEIRS.

Because the margin could be NICE…and the barriers to entry have shrunk to where it CAN be done. That’s why.

“Never pick a fight with a guy who buys ink by the barrel.”

Yes that’s true. But why not SUPPLANT them?

They are still inherently inefficient since they still have full time “reporters” and “editors” and much of the cost structure associated with them. Most of them (to save development costs) have outsourced their classifieds sections and other sections of their online “paper” to other entities or groups, who derive their income from charging readers and charging for ads as well.

The bottom line. Bloggers (by and large) fact check just as well as regular reporters and their biases are typically disclosed anyway. That is not saying that bloggers are anywhere near par. It is saying that traditional MSM has gotten very lax in this regard.

RADICALLY SIMPLIFIED VERSION OF MY BUSINESS MODEL

What I have put together in Southern Indiana is a SMALL BUSINESS NEWS COOPERATIVE. We will happily have local journalism students contribute stories in exchange for a piece of our monthly advertising take. Regular contributors also get journalism experience that they can take into the industry.Small businesses can be listed in our service directory for a small annual fee. Ads on the front page are a bit more and are monthly.

There are a ton more details about HOW this works, but time and space limit the full description of it.

The basic shell of what I am starting is already up. Much more work needs to be done including the addition of FREE classified advertising, a MODERATED forum, a business directory and a welcome guide. I have already partnered with several content providers and their stuff will be going up in the next couple of days.

HERE’s the COOL part. Do you live in a small town? Do they have a less than adequate online newspaper presence. Would you like to OWN rather than rent your online presence? Here’s your chance to get in without limited monetary investment (like $0!).

Give me a call. I will partner with you (if we are a good fit) and handle ALL of the technical details and help you get it set up and get you trained on how to add local news posts as well as advertisements. I will be a partner in every sense of the word. You recruit the writers and generate the content. We split the proceeds.

If you are interested in this concept, let me know. It is just one of many that I am willing to work on as a partnership with qualified individuals. Seriously. Give me a call for the full details.

And the winner is…

TEAM ERIC won the generous prize of a website donated by REAL ESTATE WEBMASTERS,along with CORE IDX and hosting for life.

We held a drawing for the prize, which raised thousands of dollars for the Eco Preservation Society in Costa Rica. Nice going guys… and thanks to Morgan Carey and RealEstateWebmasters for the prize.

Kevin Peterson of the EcoPreservation Society (from beautiful downtown Costa Rica!) drew the winner this past weekend and the winner is…

Jon and Jennifer Karlen

Congratulations to them and Thanks to Everyone for helping out a good cause.

Using MSM to generate traffic and $$$

(This is Part 2 of a 3 part series on the changing world of MSM (main stream media), particularly newspapers, and how to USE those changes to your advantage.)

OK, in the last post we established that online newspapers will be and are currently looking for solid blogging talent (even unproven talent) to write/blog about local issues and provide color and commentary on a hyperlocal level.

What do the online papers want? The biggest thing that they want is REGULAR, RELIABLE posts. They need CONTENT and if you provide that for them, you will be fine. For a service industry professional, this is a matter of taking the opportunity and making a time commitment.

Here’s how Service Professionals can extract something FROM the relationship.

1) Have a hyperlocal blog for the same area of your own. (You’ll see why…) Make sure that blog has a ‘my local business friends’ section or similar.

2) Use a digital camera and flip video camera extensively. (Yes things are pretty much text based right now in online newspapers, but that is changing.Quickly. ) You can set yourself apart with skillful use of these.

3) Go out into your area and LOOK for local business, events, restaurants, church gatherings and other subjects to write about. You may not have the skill of a Geno Petro, but which papers would be stupid enough NOT to try get him to write for them on a hyper local level?

4) Here’s the script: “Hi. I’d like to write a story about you on the (insert major paper here) for their online paper. I am a local (REALTOR, mortgage professional or other service pro) during the day, but I also write for them and do my own local blog as well.”

5) With introductions made. WRITE. What you are doing is BUILDING local friends and expanding your sphere of influence by writing colorful articles and posts about local businesses and events. You are USING the trust, credibility and goodwill already ESTABLISHED by the paper to generate goodwill for yourself. Like ideas, trust and goodwill can be shared and it doubles instead of being cut in half.

6) So that you make effective use of your time, focus your efforts on local folks who have WEBSITES. These are folks who CAN and WILL link to your professional website once they are your FRIENDS. Where it is OK, LINK to them as part of your post. It is a nice thing for you to do and it will help them.

7) Hand them your PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS CARD. “This one has my cell phone and my office number on it…you can reach me their anytime..day or evening”.

Once you have done a few for the paper, you will find yourself with PLENTY of subject material. NONE of it will be about your professional services life and yet, when they need services, if you have established a friendship, guess where they will come.

Additional tip: See if you cannot insert the fact that you are a local REALTOR (or whatever) and blogger as well as your phone in your brief bio that appears by your posts.

Why do you create a parallel hyperlocal blog? Because a) the paper isn’t going to make you sign a non compete b) some of these friends you make will want to write as well..why not have fun with them on a blog of your own? c) it is a GREAT place to collect the online authority that you are building. d) you might have a post that doesn’t fit in the paper but FITS well for your blog. (I could go on and on about why this is a good thing…IMO). Be sure when you write about them to LINK to them. Why? Well, in my last post, did you see who was the second one to comment? Brian Brady, who I had LINKED TO. (not an accident.)

OK, so there are the basics… there are a MILLION variations to this theme…but in essence, you are using the mainstream media’s credibility to MAKE new friends whom you will soon call by another name, CLIENT. As well, these folks will refer you to their friends and your sphere will expand further. You are expanding your sphere of influence and online authority by using the credibility of the online version of the local paper as kindling…

Feel Free to add your own creative twists to this in the comment section below.

UP NEXT, PART 3…DISINTERMEDIATION IN REVERSE – Can bloggers beat MSM at their own game? (Hint: I think in smaller markets, the Army of Davids can actually take over the castle and BECOME the Online News Media -Seriously. Remember from my first post that I talked about cost differential? Stay tuned.

Citizen Journalist : Where MSM meets bloggers, opportunities ahead!

WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD. (But you should read it.)

Before we get into Citizen Journalism and what it is, first we need to see why and how Mainstream Media (specifically newspapers and bloggers are on course for meeting in the middle.) There are three main forces at work that are pushing the them together. They are:

The shrinking (disappearing?) News cycle: The news cycle, thanks to bloggers and cable news network television is now a thing of the past. By definition, it is now 24/7/365 and newpapers are truly the repositories of past events–but NOT the current source of BREAKING news.

Second: The increased opinionated content in MSM: Mainstream Media is now much more open about the fact that it has an agenda. Only in the hard core newsrooms do reporters now cling to the objectivity myth. Because they are inserting more and more opinion into their content, the transparency of a blogger is in many ways more objective than a reporter. A blogger will state that they have a view and that they have passions. A reader can then account for their bias in reading the post.

Third: Cost Structure Differential. This is the FINAL barrier that is being broken down. Newspapers have been bleeding readership and circulation for a while. Currently, many papers’ most profitable department is their online division. Paper costs more to produce (by far), but MSM is making a critical mistake if they think that is the only cost structure left that will make them non competitive.

Think about the inefficiencies of an online newspaper compared to a blog. A blogger (currently) needs no editor, fact checking, deadlines, or assignments. They presumably are writing about something with which they are FAMILIAR and PASSIONATE about. The best bloggers out there right now check their facts religiously to avoid losing credibility among other bloggers, they are FAR more prolific than a typical reporter. If they were paid to write about what they are currently blogging about, they would be in their little version of nirvana.

Meanwhile, those in control of newspaper sites are facing reduced advertising and thus budgets. They have labor issues from writers. Staff writers are finding it hard to focus because of the high turnover in and around them. Newspapers cannot outsource their writing to India, or other lower cost parts of the world as software developers have done.

Do you see where this is going? The intersection of bloggers and MSM into this thing we call citizen journalists and citizen journalism IS HAPPENING. Brian Brady noted it at the Bloodhound blog. Take a look at the local Louisville paper. Does that not LOOK and feel like a blog with a newsfeed inserted into it? National news can be syndicated where local content and flavor cannot.  Guess where the opportunities lie for experienced, media savvy bloggers who want to turn passion into career? Opportunities are also there for professionals who blog about their field of endeavor. REALTORS, FInancial services brokers, Lawyers, Doctors, CPA’s, auto mechanics…basically anyone who sells their services and (by definition) would benefit from more exposure and increased “street authority”. Forget the advertising campaigns. EARNED MEDIA is where it is going to be for the next 18 months at least as MSM turns to bloggers to reduce costs.

NOTE: This is the first in a three part series. Next up: How to use the MSM to BUILD YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION AND FATTEN YOUR WALLET. The final post of the three will be DISINTERMEDIATION IN REVERSE: CAN BLOGGERS BEAT SMALL TOWN PAPERS AT THEIR OWN GAME?….STAY TUNED.