Topics of Interest to Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Marketers
Archive for July, 2008
One of the Biggest Obstacles to Massive Success
Jul 19th
"Ready Fire Aim." You’ve probably heard the above phrase before. I have.
I notice people doing slow and ineffective methods of achieving their dreams.
You don’t have to do it the hard way or earn it, despite what, many people will tell you. I think it’s the approval seeking behavior people have that limits them from living the life they want. Think like Felix Dennis, a man worth an estimated half a billion and author of How to Get Rich. He recommends thinking independently because many people will be opposed to your quest to achieving big goals.
While in business school, I’d often hear: "I’ll stick to consulting for 3 years and then live out my passions." I don’t see the point of delaying it.
I think this is one the biggest challenge people have. This may sound cheesy, but you already have what you needed all along: you’re ready now.
How Effective Are Social Media Submissions?
Jul 10th
Here’s my take on submitting to websites like Digg.com…
Submitting to social media SUBMISSIONS is like gambling unless I’m mistaken. The results are not consistent. Please provide more evidence that it’s worth the time or proven techniques to consistently get you traffic. Again, I’m open minded and would appreciate more evidence to “social media SUBMISSION effectiveness.” Social media does work but submitting…?
This is not a high impact activity unless you have something very newsworthy (eg. exclusive or fresh information). Even if you do get traffic, how do you do something of monetary gain with it? If it’s not worth the time, then we’re back in the 90s where people excited over something like their “hit counter.” You can easily outsource this as a $5/hour job, but spending time thinking about is not a productive use of time.
As stated on http://www.pingpongpie.com/2008/07/need-social-media-success-dont-start-with-digg : “if you know what you are doing, there is a good chance that you’ll have an 80% success rate. I bet you could get at least 100,000 visitors.” Respectfully, this blogger illustrates the uncertainty and unproven nature of this approach.
Google’s New Affiliate Network (Performics)
Jul 7th
Since Google acquired Performics, an affiliate network, I’ve read some opinions on how "this will change the game" of CPA networks quite significantly.
In my humble opinion, they’re just building a better AdSense and they won’t compete super-directly with CPA networks. CJ doesn’t get advertisers who know what they’re doing as well as CPA networks like AdValiant. CJ, for a significant part, attracts advertisers who throw up offers without thinking about how well it will do for their respective publishers.
So, I think they’ll just be like CJ with way better publisher capabilities for website owners open to get paid in a CPA as opposed to the traditional CPM/CPC.
AdSense is facing increasing threats from niched offerings like video ad services, contextual, and niche-specific ad platforms to help publishers monetize inventory. So, good move for them. This is what I tested on Banzza.com and rotated through an open ad server; however, it was too time consuming.