I was asked last week, “Why don’t you guys charge for your weekly webcasts?” and that was followed up by, “You could develop a good income steam charging $50 or $100 per webcast – I definitely would not record and archive them – they are valuable and I would get something for the effort.” My response was immediate, “You just don’t get it do you?”
Charging for this type of content in today’s internet environment runs against one of the golden rules of Social Media – contribute to the conversation. The ability to share valuable content among interested parties is fundamental to the use of many Social Media sites like Twitter, Digg and YouTube.
Reaching out in a meaningful way on a weekly basis has value but that value can be multiplied exponentially when you empower people to share that content through social networks, email and word of mouth.
We usually have somewhere between 10 and 20 attendees in each of our weekly webcasts and we have has as many as 50 signed up for really hot topics. By leaving the content open and shareable, that content can reach 100 times as many people – and has. By charging, we are limiting our sphere of influence for that valuable content to just those people who attended – missing the real value of the webcast. We are essentially selling the investment short and taking a short term monetary gain and ignoring the long term benefit of the effort.
Some benefits of sharing content:
A great way to start a relationship – after all, a give and take relationship starts with giving, not taking.
Expands your reach – people you shared it with will share it with others.
Adds credibility to your company.
An educated client or prospect is much easier to work with.
Risky Business?
I realize there is some perceived risk in sharing valuable content to the general public. And that is understandable, as your competitors will have easy access to the information you provide. If sharing information about what you do will put you at a competitive disadvantage, then you have bigger issues with your business model related to how you build relationships.
Stop worrying about opening your company up to the world and start reaching out with shareable content. Give people something to take and they will likely share it with someone else – now you are a making meaningful connections, helping people in a meaningful way and helping to position you and your company in the marketplace.
I’m gearing up for tomorrow’s webinar on how search works on a technical level.
We’ve spent a lot of time as of late focusing on the people side of the web, and tomorrow’s webinar takes us to the other end of the spectrum — code and server language and indexing and algorithms, which should serve as a hearty reminder that it’s robots, not humans, who make all of this stuff work!
(Okay, it sort of takes two to tango)
Seriously, though, the heart of all of the human-powered web is hard-working, fearless robots who ceaselessly index the internet, delving into some deep dark quarries where most of us humans would never dare go.
And while we and Google agree that you should make websites for users, trying to make a successful website while not understanding how search engines work is like trying to build a best-selling car without understanding how engines, tie-rods and fuel injectors work (which I don’t, for the record).
Slick design and the features that consumers want is great, provided you can get up and get there in the first place.
In this very fun and semi-tongue-in-cheek webinar we – er – “dig” into social media news sharing sites like Digg and explain what they are to the novice user and provide some tips on how to create awesome content that might get popular.
This is, as you may notice, the first time we’ve pushed a produced webinar through the blog but we figured it would be a good way of letting our RSS readers know what’s going on.
This afternoon we talk about keywords. And while I obviously have no idea how the conversation will turn out, I’m guessing that ultimately there’s just one ultimate question — how do I pick the right keywords?
Well hold on, not so fast.
Too often in the realm of search marketing it’s tempting to focus on the numbers — of search rankings, traffic, bounce rate, stats, etc. which do of course paint a portrait of a site’s vitality and the success of content. But more importantly is the question of providing value to customers, which the numbers might hint at but don’t entirely reveal.
When you think about the keywords you do or want to focus on, don’t just think about the numbers given to you by a keyword tool. Don’t just think about the competition in the top 10 for that keyword, or the pay per click advertisers crushing the ad space. Don’t just think about what you’re selling, think about what you have to offer.
It’s like the old adage — walk a couple miles in your neighbor’s shoes. But in this case, they’re your customers, and if you haven’t tried them on lately, you might find your business is tripping over itself more than it should.
Agree? Disagree? This afternoon’s your first chance to engage in a public roundtable with us at Hall, talking about this very subject, both the rote technical question of choosing keywords and the greater marketing vision component I’ve just touched on.
I was asked last week, “Why don’t you guys charge for your weekly webcasts?” and that was followed up by, “You could develop a good income steam charging $50 or $100 per webcast – I definitely would not record and archive them – they are valuable and I would get something for the effort.” My response was immediate, “You just don’t get it do you?”
