You may have noticed these orange buttons on my site, with text "Become a Patron". If you click the button, you are directed to a page where you can choose between something called rewards, and different tiers varying from $1 to $100 (or more) per month. What is this Patreon thing, then? Patron means many things, including a (repeat) client of a store or a hotel. It also means a person who,...
Email lists are the hottest hot in marketing these days. At least they are amongst online entrepreneurs, bloggers, coaches and such. It seems like a must to build an email list, in order to find leads, sell goods and build traffic. It's no wonder. With social media services having turned into megaphones for the loudest, and the constant mess of everyone fighting about something with each other,...
It's been almost twenty years since my last French lesson. I wasn't a very motivated student, for many reasons. I had personal issues that were gradually killing my enthusiasm in learning. And the standardised learning and testing felt unfair and stiff to me. I learn differently. Thus, through all these years, I was losing the little French I knew. In these years I have now and then tried to get...
"Twitter threads are like hard to read blog posts. I miss blogs." I know, they are hard to read. Annoying. I often skip them, because I use Tweetbot and it doesn't fare well with threads. It can render them completely unreadable, especially if there are any replies to the Tweets in the thread. I have a complicated relationship with Twitter threads. I share them, but mainly refrain from writing...
I'm starting a podcast. Yes, you read correctly. The writer girl is going to start talking. And yes, it's a work in progress. First of all, I'd like to have a good start. Make a solid first episode, with quality sound (not too quality, I'll come back to this in a moment), and have impactful cover art. This all doesn't happen in a day, at least not for me. And then I have stumbled upon the big...
Too often I see websites created just because. Just because everyone else has one. Just because someone said it's good for marketing. Just because. Those websites generally fail to generate traffic or conversions. This is because their existence doesn't give anything to the people using the web. There's no reason to visit and revisit the site, nor to click on any of the links within it. Here's...
Planning to have a run? It's raining, best to wait for a better weather. And then it's sunny, but too warm. Best to wait for a cooler weather. Then it's too cold and windy. Best to wait. Really, it's not about the weather as much it's about you not wanting to go for that run. It's okay, just be honest about it. I'm planning to have a run, but I really don't want to do it. It's the same with...
Sometime in early 2016 I found Teachable. I had been looking into online course creation, and learned this particular platform was quite popular. Teachable is a platform for creating and hosting e-courses. It is different from such services as Skillshare and Udemy in that you can create your own "school". This means your courses aren't sold by Teachable, and you have a lot of control over them....
SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimisation. It simply means indicating the search engines that the pages of your website are worth being shown in the result pages (SERP). In addition to optimising the pages of your website to appear in search results, there are also strategies and techniques that are used to improve the chance people will click the links and stay on the website after...
Your brand has a logo, a beautiful colour palette, fonts, photos, tagline, social media images, and then some. It is honed to perfection, all pieces in the place. Yet still, it's not quite standing out. Something is missing. You try to look into other brands, to find out what it is that yours is lacking. Is it the outpouring excitement of that artist and Internet entrepreneur? Is it the...
For a couple of weeks I had the mother of all the spring flus. In the beginning of it, my temp rose over 39°C/102°F and I'm still couching and sneezing. Obviously during this time I hadn't blogged, my Twitter account had been feeling lonely, things were quiet at my Pinterest, my Facebook page was a ghost town, the people in my Facebook group probably thought I've forgot them completely, and let's...
Getting your website and blog posts to rank higher in search engines may seem like a taunting task. You have been breathing and sweating search engine optimisation. You have installed a SEO plugin to your site, researched and inserted (long tail) keywords all over the place, and done some magic spells to get more search visibility. And yet, something is lacking. You have muddied your purpose and...
When a person makes a search they use certain keywords and phrases to find what they want. In case your content doesn't include those keywords or their close variations, it most definitely won't every show up in that search results page. You can write your content without doing any research and hope for the best. This approach works when you don't care that much if your content is found through...
What's really common to the people you probably define as having success online? Those, whose websites get loads of traffic, who sell their services and products better than anyone, and who get quoted constantly. It's not the "habits of successful people". It's not going to sleep by 10 pm, and waking up before dawn. It's not giving up on television or reading only non-fiction. It's not drinking...
After I had received the payment of a big project I did, I had plans. Some personal purchases. A new iPhone adapter to use with my tripod and to replace the broken part of my selfie stick. Some business acquisitions. Perhaps upgrade my Teachable subscription. I was supposed to save some too, for the unpredictable. But the unpredictable didn't wish to wait for later. About a month ago the owners...
Anyone who has ever been running a service based business or freelancing knows the pain of pricing. Price, known as one of the four P's in the traditional marketing mix, plays such a huge part in getting your services sold. It's a factor in your marketing, it affects your branding. Therefore a common misconception is the price should be low, lower than the competition, to lure more customers....
I started to write a post about showing humanity, being authentic, being human. But on the way my emphasis changed. I know that being human comes with the dark sides. Sometimes it's very human to hurt others, to make the person next to you feel awful, to be unkind. It's in the human nature. As it is in human nature to be violent and passionate, it's also in human nature to push the violence and...
Are you stuck with your blogging? Do you feel your blog posts lack of personality, could have better quality, need a kick? Those who have been blogging a lot may easily find themselves fed up with it. In case you blog traffic isn't impressing, shares aren't happening and comments aren't coming in, you want to become a better blogger. To be honest, even for the best and most successful ones there...
Sometimes I skip a scheduled post on my blog. Or maybe I don't send the weekly email to my list. I may not get on Pinterest and pin my heart out, or I refrain from Tweeting. I even take breaks from running my new Facebook group. I'm a big believer of taking breaks from stuff. Scheduled, preset vacations. Unscheduled, spur-of-the-moment, pauses. Longer time recesses. Short time breathers. There...
This week Shared Spaces checks into the current state of marketing. I've collected a list of links about overused marketing buzzwords on LinkedIn profiles, improving your e-commerce store with a couple of easy things, optimising Facebook ads, and using the new events calendar for Twitter ads. I also added a link to the problems with marketing degrees and how agencies can fix them. All links open...
Besides my words and rambles, the letters include links to wonderful stuff I've found around web, exclusive discounts, previews and gifts. In the near future you will receive also a secret e-book. This stuff won't be published anywhere else.
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