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: American Idol Blogging Mentality/Bright Ideas Blogzine Feb '09
Sent Saturday, February 28, 2009
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| Issue #7 February 2009 |
www.HeBlogsSheBlogs.com | |||||||||||||||||||
What was the first thought that popped into your mind when you read that Bright Ideas Blogzine has over 91,000 subscribers? Were you in awe of us? Happy for us? Jealous of us? What if we told you we don't really have 91,346 subscribers? What if the opening line said:
When it comes to perceived value, many of us revert to what we call "American Idol Mentality." We cheer on people we perceive to be winners - those who have the most charisma, the best stage presence, the glitziest costume. We're influenced by the contestant's raw popularity. But in the end the best singer doesn't always win: Season 2 of American Idol: Clay Aiken? Solid success. Ruben Studdard? Who? Season 5: Taylor Hicks? Huh? Oh yeah, he won season five, didn't he? Chris Daughtry, season five third place finisher... multi-platinum album. Season 6: Jordin Sparks? Okay sales. Blake Lewis? Dropped by his label. Third place finisher, Melinda Doolittle? Just came out with her album. The latest issue of People magazine says, "The result leaves no doubt that Doolittle, third in season 6 of Idol, should have whupped Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis." Brian Clark, founding editor of Copyblogger (www.copyblogger.com), calls this phenomenon "social proof" or "informational social influence." Most of us know it as "herd mentality," the "bandwagon effect," or "self-fulfilling prophecy." Is Perception Reality? If Jim and Laura's blogzine has 91,346 subscribers...
In his seminal book, Writing the Breakout Novel, Donald Maass says that 80 percent of a book's sales come from word of mouth. Eighty percent! That's a staggering number. So all the Twittering and Facebooking and reviews and endorsements--and if you're fortunate--full page ads in magazines--will account for only 20 percent of sales. But wait. In this day and age, Web 2.0 is word of mouth. Radio ads? TV ads? Big spreads in People magazine? Not much help. But having someone on Facebook you trust telling you to check something out? Big help. In January, we wrote a post on the best sales book of all time. We Twittered about it. The owner of a widely-read blog saw our tweet, read our post, liked it and posted it on his blog. Voila! Big bump in our readership (now we have over 9 readers. Or is it 91,000?) The lesson? Great content is king. Between the two of us, we probably subscribe to 50 blogs. But we consider only five or six must-reads. You're probably heard, "Great writing will always be discovered." We agree. Great writing, great ideas, and penetrating insights will always rise to the surface. Why? There isn't that much great content out there. And frankly, if you're going to choose between a beautiful site with mediocre content and an ugly site with stellar content, choose ugly. The bottom line
(By, the way, we have more than nine subscribers. Thanks for being one of them.) Turnkey Business Blog Packages
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Jim Rubart and Laura Christianson co-founded HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, a Seattle-based business that helps individuals and companies maximize their writing, marketing, and blogging skills. We encourage you to forward Bright Ideas Blogzine to others who want to maximize their writing, marketing, and blogging skills. To start your e-mail subscription, send a blank e-mail to HeBlogsSheBlogs@aWeber.com Read Bright Ideas via RSS Feed We respect your privacy. We promise not to sell, rent, or distribute your contact information. |
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