Build your own.

If you’re considering following what’s been popular, don’t. That’s what publishers, television stations and movie studios do. So put away your first chapter of George Washington, Zombie Killer, and The Blood-Scarlet Letter: Hester Prynne, Vampire Vixen, and think of something new.

It’s a new year, it’s a clean slate.

Copycat books, series and movies are never as good as the original (even if the original was only popular rather than good), and the follow-the-herd mentality leads to nothing as much as burnout.

You’re better than that.

You’ve probably had an idea kicking around for a while. You’ve probably discussed it with friends. You probably wonder how you can move forward with it.

You start by building a community of people with whom you engage and on whom you test your message. You build a platform.

You start writing. Writing what you actually think and believe and feel rather than what others have thought, believed and felt. If you want to comment on those things – what others have done – then you go to their websites and you do it there. Or you do it in your blog, which exists to engage. You don’t do it as your own original work. You’re not writing a sequel. You’re writing what you believe in – you’re being transparent.

Although many of us like the familiar, which is why we gravitate toward certain genres, such as thrillers, or how-to business books that promise to turn our entrepreneurial world around, nobody likes to read something he or she suspects having read before. (Although, frankly, the same business books seem to  appear at least 52 times a year.)

When you begin to create your work, through blogging or through interactions on social media, your growing audience will offer you not only encouragement but guidance. You’ll know when you’ve strayed from your message. You’ll get a sense when you’re lacking originality.

But first, do this: set pen to paper or get your fingers clicking on a keyboard.

Writing doesn’t just happen: you need to begin shaping your ideas. When they’re on the page, they’re that much more powerful, and you’ve begun to turn your thoughts into something beyond a private rumination. You’re about to engage. You’re about to become a thought leader.

Now start creating.

Ideas come from other ideas. You see connections and you train your mind to weigh in on those connections. One thing leads to another, and an idea grows out of the possibility for expressing a similarity or a difference between what you’ve observed.

For someone who’s just getting into writing – perhaps you’ve started your own blog and the prospect of writing three or four blog posts of about 400 words each is scaring you – you will find that by doing it, the ideas will come. As with many other things in life, showing up is a great part of success. And for a writer, showing up means forging ahead, whether an idea is present or not. Ideas come.

Your audience will help you. As you begin to write, you begin to engage with an audience, and that audience will respond to your writing if you start to converse with them in the digital platform that you’ve been building.

If you’re new to blogging, though, you’re more frightened by what you see as your lack of inspiration. Don’t fret about it. Even inspiration is a result of showing up daily and sitting down to the task. But here are a few tips for eliciting ideas and building upon them:

If you’ve got other ideas for generating ideas, we’d love to hear them!

That being said, let’s start at the beginning. Here’s a few steps to writing a great blog post.

#1 — Pick Your Topic

Keep it small. Keep it simple. Keep to one point. We’re all busy, and a focused blog post will go a long way in building trust with your audience. Taking on a big topic from the outset is like carrying too many groceries at once — you’re likely to drop something. The same is true with a blog: too many topics, too big a subject and you make not make the point you set out to make.

#2 — Know Whom You’re Writing To

This might seem a no-brainer, but most people are confused at first about their target audience. The more clear you are about your target market is (right down to personality types) the easier it is to write to them.

#3 – Write From Your Heart

Over-thinking what you’re trying to say and finding fancy language in which to say it will likely leave you frustrated and ready to throw your computer against the wall. If you tap into your message from your heart and start writing as simply as possible – be yourself — I promise, it will flow much smoother.

#4 – Write, Then Edit

Go ahead and get your ideas out. Write and write, then edit what you’ve written. When you edit you’ll find you can string all the thoughts together in a much more organized manner. No writer writes perfectly the first time out. Editing is a vital part of the process. Write, walk away from it, then go back and edit. (It’ll take you a long way!)

#6 – Add Links

Now that you’ve written a post you’re proud of be sure to add active hyperlinks. Hyperlinks provide your reader with supporting evidence and answer the questions the reader is asking as they are asking them. It will build trust with your audience and they will know they can come to you for the information they need.

#7 – Add Images to Prove Your Point

Visual hints make it easier for your reader to draw their own mental image and get excited about what they are learning. If you’re telling a personal story, add personal images. If you need stock images, those can be found all over the place both free and paid. Keeping your posts lively with images will keep your readers coming back.

#8 – Ask an Engaging Question at the End

Keep it simple for your audience to interact with you. Always end with a call to action question that puts the conversation back in the hands of the audience.

As you write and find community through blogging I’m sure you’ll find it very rewarding. Following a simple template will help you keep the content flowing and have you on the top of rankings before long. Hope this helps you understand the pieces of a blog post.

Do you have a formula that works for you? Please share.

remarkable strength of platform

The platform in question is that of Andy Borowitz, the humorist with a super-successful site and RSS feed – the borowitzreport.com – and the book, which Borowitz edited, is The 50 Funniest American Writers: An Anthology of Humor from Mark Twain to The Onion, published by The Library of America. It actually reached the New York Times bestseller list, an achievement by any measure, and even more of one for a publisher that generally puts out highly regarded editions of classics from Walt Whitman, Willa Cather and Ernest Hemingway, which sell well, but not as well as this recent publication.

This isn’t Borowitz’s first book – his releases include Who Moved My Soap?: The CEO’s Guide to Surviving Prison: The Bernie Madoff Edition, The Republican Playbook and The Borowitz Report: The Big Book of Shockers. But this is perhaps his most “traditional” one, coming from a nonprofit publisher devoted to American literary greats. But what Borowitz has, beyond his taste in editing a wide range of American humorists here, is a massively popular website with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, as well as postings that get retweeted constantly, so often that Borowitz has built a tribe of millions who warm to his funny takes on everyday life, from celebrity dunderheads to political nut jobs.

On his site, Borowitz devotes a great deal of space to The 50 Funniest American Writers, and announces the many in-person events he’s lined up to promote it. He’s gotten behind the book he’s edited in such a way that his audience can’t help but embrace it.

I ran into the publisher of Library of America recently, and he told me about The 50 Funniest American Writers, crediting the book’s success to the responsive audience that Borowitz has built for himself thanks to his dynamic online presence. “In publishing, that’s called a platform,” the publisher said with a smile, as if testing this newfound word out.

But it’s true. Building a platform is the best way to ensure making a mark among current and potential readers. Even for a publisher of venerable American authors whose own bestselling days (if ever they had them) are long past. If it can work for American classics, it can work for up-and-coming entrepreneurs and writers like you. All it takes is finding, defining, reaching and communicating with your audience. Thanks to a platform.

We’re at that time of year when “best of” articles and lists begin to appear. People whose job it is to look at movies, listen to music, read books and weigh in on such matters give us their opinions of what they consider the most noteworthy in class since the last such list.

You may feel competitive by looking at such lists. Your own tastes might not match the taste of the critics. You may dismiss them since you haven’t heard of any of these works. You may have compiled your own list for your friends (you might be the kind of person people look to for recommendations). Or you might be the kind of person who regards such lists as ridiculous, since rankings based on personal opinion bear only the weight of that opinion and nothing else. (You’ve got a point.)

Then again, you might be afraid to read any “best of” lists, knowing you haven’t had time, and won’t have time, to read these books, see these movies or hear this music. Not to worry – this is what critics do. They get paid to watch, read, listen. Most people read a book or two a year, go to the movies a few times and catch up on music thanks to playlists their friends create for them. You’re not in the business of knowing everything. You know your subject. And you write about it.

But what about your own efforts at writing? And your audience? Surely if you can’t get around to cracking the covers or starting the first electronic line of a book that’s been touted as one of the best of the year, who’s going to read what you’ve written?

Plenty of people. As long as you’ve been building an audience, and introducing your thoughts and your writing to your readers, through your blog, your newsletter your Twitter feeds, your articles, your comments on other articles, you’re being read. You’re building a book online.

You may not be one of those whose works make it onto year-end lists. But so what? How many people actually go through those lists eager to check off every title so that they’re current with received opinion. Do you know anyone like that? Probably not.

Information is everywhere, and we take it in through various methods, often little by little, and often online. In this digital age, online may be the way to go, through the steady flow of a little information at a time to a dedicated (and growing) audience, rather than a flood of it once a year. Who can cope with that?

Better to build slowly. Start with a blog, and keep at it (nothing worse than seeing a current blog post that dates from a year earlier). Then know that while you might not have made it to the top-10 list, you’ve nevertheless had an impact on the people who read you.

Amazon is practically giving away some of the hottest titles around for those have a Kindle. And a $79 annual Amazon Prime membership.

This is a real inducement not only to spring for a Kindle (which can be had for as little as $79), but for Amazon Prime, which allows for “free” shipping, and other benefits. If you use Amazon frequently, the Prime option is a good deal, considering what you save on mailing fees. You can also get free or reduced-price television and movie downloads and, now, titles that range from the Hunger Games trilogy to Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. These are former or current bestsellers – not the public-domain titles that you can download anywhere, titles such as Pride and prejudice and Moby-Dick. You can get Water for Elephants or Fast Food Nation or another 90 or so other notable books free (though not all at once).

Barnes & Noble’s Nook already offers the ability to borrow books from public libraries. Many people have opted for the Nook because of that function. If you’re already in a community with a good library (that your taxes support), why not go with a Nook and save money?

Barnes & Noble sees a continuing future in Nook, despite the brutal battleground at the brick-and-mortar bookstore level. Barnes & Noble will double the size of its Nook boutiques to 2,000 square feet at its busiest locations, in time for the holiday season.

But the real news is the continuing growth of social networking, of conversation, in certain e-readers.

Buried beside the Amazon announcement and the news of Barnes & Noble’s continuing Nook strength is a new edition of the Kobo Vox e-Reader for about $200 (Kobo offers other readers at $129 and $99). This new version has a color display, and like the Kindle Fire, you can read newspapers, magazines as well as browse the internet, access email, listen to music, watch movies, play games. You can also access over 15,000 free apps

The Nook Friends feature already lets people allow their Twitter and Facebook friends see what they’re reading, and also allow friends to read a book for a limited period.  Of course, on the iPad, you can also simply email your friends about what you’re reading on the Nook or Kindle or iBooks app without any problem.

But it’s likely that e-readers will add more tablet features and try to create a growing interactive experience for the solitary reading one. I myself rather prefer the solitary reading experience – you can really only share a book if you’re reading it aloud to someone.

I read in all different ways. But recently I’ve been walking around town and taking public transportation while listening to an excellent audio book version of Anthony Trollope’s great novel, Can You Forgive Her? Audio book sales are still quite strong, and even growing, but it wasn’t too long ago they seemed the latest thing. Who’d have thought that listening on an iPod to a well-narrated classic would suddenly seem so old-fashioned?

I have the wonderful ability to work virtually — my office is wherever I have my Mac and an Internet connection. The Internet being the Internet, one can easily get distracted. So, to stay focused on work, part of my morning ritual is to check my email (personal and business), Facebook, pay bills, etc. — stuff I don’t want distracting me throughout the day. I work with an amazing team and for some pretty awesome clients, and I want to be able to focus as best I can during the day.

So when I received an email saying my daughter’s gaming discount subscription was about to expire, I decided not to put off renewing it, and went right to the site (from a link in the email) to take care of it, thinking it would be a more efficient use of my time.

On the site, I look and look. I see how many points my daughter has, various other gaming magazine offers, and look for where I can renew her subscription. Surely, after this email to renew my subscription, I’d be directed to a big button that says, Renew Your Subscription Now! Nope.

I re-read the email closely. Ah, there’s the message, buried: “Go into the store and renew.”

WHAT?! They emailed me! They linked me to their website! And they won’t let me SPEND MY MONEY WITH THEM in a way that is easy for me? (Sorry, I don’t mean to yell.)  I want to write: “Dear GameStop, I live nearly 40 miles from your nearest store — yes, the middle of nowhere — can you please make it easy for me to give you my money?”

GameStop isn’t the only one guilty of this. I encounter this frequently online —even when I’m trying to pay bills. Why is it so difficult to pay for the services I receive?

So here’s the big question: Are you making it easy for your clients to do business with you, or are you making them jump through hoops?

Now, you might be thinking that since you yourself don’t have an ecommerce site, this doesn’t apply. But not so fast, Spanky!  Your site has a purpose. Are you making it easy for the people coming to your site to do what they what to do?  Are you leading visitors through your site in such a way that they will do what you want them to do?

One of the things I have the privilege of doing is working with our clients, applying Persona Architecture to their websites and other marketing efforts. Persona Architecture is the process of recognizing that not everybody prefers to do things the same way as you do (or your website developer does).

It’s vital not simply to know the demographics of your clients, but also the temperaments of your clients, and make sure you’re meeting the needs of all of them, in the way they prefer.

For example, if I were an extroverted spontaneous type, I would probably jump at the chance to go into GameStop and renew my subscription.  Lots of games, great gaming conversation, woo-hoo!  I’m so there!

Conversely, if I were a busy introverted competitive type, I’d likely want to renew the subscription and be done with it.  (In reality, I am a humanistic, which means I will go into the store to renew the subscription because it will make my daughter happy, which will in turn make me happy, but as someone who can easily function as the other temperaments as well, the introverted competitive in me will not be happy that this task is not already completed.)

Here are a few things to make it easy for your clients (and for you):

• Recognize that you know your product or service so well that you are “inside the bottle,” and that your clients and visitors do not have the same perspective as you. Climb out of the bottle and try to look at it from their point of view.
• Ask a friend or colleague who has a different temperament than you to go to your site with the intent to do “whatever it is people come to your site to do.” Could they do it easily? If not, ask them what would make it easy for them.
• Check with your customer service staff to find out what your customers are saying, and fix what they say is broken. After all, they are the ones on the front lines hearing from your customers.
• Recognize that not everyone prefers to do something on your site the same you would prefer to do it.

It’s frustrating when our preferences aren’t being met on a website that has our attention.

I would love to hear of a time when a site wonderfully met or exceeded your expectations! Please share so that we can all learn and improve!

And I bought in to what he was saying…hook, line and sinker.

As it turns out, I worked on my doctorate in some pretty impressive company. One classmate became the Deputy Director of the FAA; another the Director of Library Services for all of Los Angeles County. I even attended classes with the Captain of the Palace Guard for Saddam Hussein!

The sad news is, though, that I’ve never actually passed a referral to – or received one from – any of these high-level classmates. That’s right. Even though I founded, while working on my doctorate no less, what turned out to be the world’s largest networking organization, I never did utilize much of the “elite network” I was told I would have for a lifetime.

Why is that? Because even though the degree program certainly delivered the opportunity to meet valuable contacts, it never taught me the skills needed to utilize them. After graduation, we quickly spread out to realize the fruits of our labors, and outside of the classroom, we had no real context in which we could keep in touch.

Telling us that we had a great network, but not giving us the tools on now to capitalize on that network, was like telling someone there is a car out there but not giving him any idea of how to drive it!

In all fairness to my particular program, when I was an entrepreneur getting my graduate degree it was in the early- and mid-80s, and today’s tools – particularly social networking and other online services – weren’t readily available to allow us keep in touch. Today, however, there are a multitude of options to help you maintain the relationships you make while pursuing a college or university degree.

1. Take Advantage of Your School’s Alumni Services Department

Interestingly, colleges and universities have only recently realized this same thing: In order to increase and maintain alumni engagement long after graduation, it is vital to establish the connection with the alumni before they leave and spread out all over the country and around the world. They are doing this by creating networking “affinity” groups and other opportunities to get involved. These efforts help students sustain their relationships with each other and – through this – sustain their connections with their universities.

By remaining active with your alumni organization, you may also have the opportunity to share news about your business that may catch the eye of your fellow graduates. Because I kept my schools updated with what I was doing in business, I was given a full feature article in one undergraduate university I attended, and two features in another!

2. Technical Tools Do Much of the Work For You

With the constant moving around that everyone does today, people are making more contacts than ever…and it’s impossible to keep track of every valuable contact without the use of technical tools. For this reason, it’s vital to set up – and maintain – a database of the people you come in contact with.

In addition to the standard contact databases available in Microsoft Outlook or Apple Contacts, or the more robust contact management systems such as ACT, there are web-based contact storage systems that let you store your contacts in “the cloud.” You can do this in Gmail, MSN Live, Yahoo – or through your account in LinkedIn or Plaxo.  My favorite online system is www.Relate2Profit.com. They have elements that directly relate to someone’s networking efforts.

Don’t forget the amazing capabilities of smart phones to help you store important contact information. For example, there’s a new mobile app available for iPhone and Android phones called Go2Tag. This app literally allows you to create and apply customized “tags” to your contacts, so that you can remember who came from where, and where they’re from: university classmates, those you met at a particular chamber or other networking group, contacts you meet at trade shows…even those you make through church, civic groups, or your kids’ school or sports activities).

3. Online Business and Social Networks

Facebook was started at Harvard University, and now it’s morphed into an international network of people, from students to parents, from entrepreneurs to brands, from friends to families and more. I hear stories all the time about how adults have re-connected with classmates they haven’t seen in years. LinkedIn is the largest “business-only” social network, and you will likely find many of your former classmates on there.

These are just two of the many social networks available for you to connect and keep in contact.

As you can see, there are many tools available today for maintaining contact with former classmates; you decide which work best for you. The main thing is to maintain touch points with these potentially wonderful business contacts. You can’t just pick up the phone and ask for a favor out of the blue 10, 15 or 20 years later!

Called the “father of modern networking” by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the Founder and Chairman of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization. His newest book, Networking Like a Pro, can be viewed at www.IvanMisner.com. Dr. Misner is also the Senior Partner of the Referral Institute, an international referral training company.

Thing is, it actually works. That is, it works in the short term. It does make immediate sales.

The problem is that it doesn’t work over the long term. It doesn’t build brand loyalty. It doesn’t create raving fans that come back again and again.

It doesn’t posture you as a thought leader, nor does it create an educational hub that consistently draws and keeps new customers.

Rather, it makes people feel manipulated and drives them away over time. It attracts price-centric bargain hunters who leave you as soon as they find a cheaper, albeit less valuable, alternative.

It makes people increasingly immune to your pitches, forcing you into a hamster-wheel business where you always have to find new customers, rather than keeping customers for life.

The following are four specific sales tactics used by these types of businesses that always backfire.

Below each you’ll find appropriate ways to use the tactic.

1. Scarcity (Limited Supply)

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.” -G.K. Chesterton

Generally speaking, the perceived value of an item is proportional to its abundance or rarity. By manufacturing scarcity–using the “limited-number” tactic–businesses can generate quick sales.

The problem is that sales-mentality businesses use this principle to manipulate.

In Influence: The Science of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini describes his observance of this tactic in an appliance store, where 30 to 50 percent of the stock was regularly listed as on sale.

When a prospect would show interest in a particular sale item, a salesperson would approach and say “I see you’re interested in this model here, and I can understand why; it’s a great machine at a great price. But, unfortunately, I sold it to another couple not more than twenty minutes ago. And, if I’m not mistaken, it was the last one we had.”

Disappointment would register on the prospects’ faces, and typically they would ask if there was a chance that there would be an unsold model in the back room or warehouse.

“Well,” the salesperson would respond, “that is possible, and I’d be willing to check. But do I understand that this is the model you want and if I can get it for you at this price, you’ll take it?”

Writes Cialdini:

“Therein lies the beauty of the technique. In accord with the scarcity principle, the customers are asked to commit to buying the appliance when it looks least available–and therefore most desirable.

“Many customers do agree to a purchase…Thus, when the salesperson (invariably) returns with the news that an additional supply of the appliance has been found, it is also with a pen and sales contract in hand.”

Sure, they could sell a few appliances this way. But how likely do you think people would be to buy from them again?

The Right Way to Use Scarcity

Credibility is the key to using scarcity appropriately.

People will see through manufactured, manipulative scarcity over time. But if you legitimately have a scarce offering, you absolutely should highlight that in your ads.

For example, we recently marketed this event for our client Williamsburg Academy. Their webinar software has a limit of 500 participants. We highlighted that in an email and registrations shot up immediately.

Every time Wizard Academy markets an event, they highlight that they only have 14 rooms in their student mansion. The first 14 people to register get to stay there for free, and other registrants must pay for a hotel.

When we wrote an email to Atlantic Seafood Market‘s database telling them that they only had 31.7 pounds of blackfish available, that was precisely accurate and therefore credible. We didn’t manufacture scarcity to manipulate; it’s a commonly-understood reality of the industry that blackfish is hard to come by.

Their scarcity of bay scallops was another effective tactic, particularly since the scarcity was created by their fierce adherence to quality.

2. Urgency (Limited Time)

Stephen recently demolished this tactic in this blog post about New Vitality, a health supplement company that emails their database 10 times a month, and almost every email is a “Hurry! Act Now or Lose!” message.

This tactic is usually accompanied by a low-price, “once-in-a-lifetime” offer.

When overused or used without credibility, this tactic quickly loses its efficacy. It trains prospects to only buy when things are on sale.

Prospects also suspect that these low prices are simply evidence that the business’s regular prices are too high.

And as prospects become immune to urgency, it takes increasingly cheaper (as in less profitable for the business owner) offers to interest them.

The Right Way to Use Urgency

Again, the key is credibility–the offer must be trusted as authentic, not fabricated or manipulative.

For example, on this website look for the 50% off ad that says “Take advantage of this limited time offer.” Does anyone actually believe that it’s a limited time? It’s glaringly obvious that that always stays up on their website.

No credibility. While that may be a good deal, it’s not an urgent deal; you know you can get it at any time, so the effect of urgency is lost.

With the Williamsburg Academy event mentioned above, they were able to convince world-class professional speaker Warren Macdonald, who typically charges $10,000 for speaking events, to give them two nights for free. It really is an urgent offer because people aren’t likely to have this opportunity again.

Credibility can be strengthened when scarce and/or urgent offers are predicated on things outside of the company’s control. John Young‘s famous air conditioner sales letter is a great example of this.

3. Reciprocity

Simply put, reciprocity is the psychological principle that we feel obligated to repay gifts and favors.

And, once again, the abuse of this potentially powerful persuasion principle is rampant among short-term manipulators.

As is scarcity, reciprocity is covered in detail in Cialdini’s Influence.

He tells of his study of the Hare Krishna Society, an Eastern religious sect. Their early fundraising efforts were to simply send devotees out into the streets to ask for donations.

It didn’t work well, so they switched tactics. They solicit in public places with a lot of pedestrian traffic, such as airports and train stations.

Now, before a donation is requested, the target person is given a “gift,” such as a book, a magazine, or a flower. Only after invoking the reciprocity rule does the solicitor ask for a donation.

It worked phenomenally well–for a short time.

As Cialdini writes:

“…the reciprocation rule has begun to outlive its usefulness for the Krishnas, not because the rule itself is any less potent societally, but because we have found ways to prevent the Krishnas from using it on us.

“After once falling victim to their tactic, many travelers are now alert to the presence of robed Krishna Society solicitors in airports and train stations, adjusting their paths to avoid an encounter and preparing beforehand to ward off a solicitor’s ‘gift.’”

The Right Way to Use Reciprocity

Two Hub Mentality principles are used for appropriate reciprocity: permission and free content.

You give away valuable and relevant content in exchange for the permission to market to those wanting your content. Then, you continue giving them free content over time.

And implicit to the permission is their ability to opt-out of your database at any time–there is no manipulative chain of obligation hanging around their necks.

Not only does this engage reciprocity, but it also demonstrates your expertise, creates trust over time, and builds authentic relationships.

Free samples of physical products is an excellent way to engage this principle as well, as Atlantic Seafood Market did with their recent holiday open house.

4. Charisma/Flattery

Like scarcity and reciprocity, these related tactics are the counterfeit, transactional sales version of the principle of “Liking” found in Cialdini’s Influence.

The abuse here is to rely on smooth talk, rather than genuine, consistent action. We’ve all been taken by slick talkers who didn’t deliver what they promised.

It’s sad but true that these types have given legitimate salespersons a bad name. This is why we’ve all learned to be suspicious of salespeople, and to put up defensive barriers when we encounter them.

The Right Form of “Liking”

This principle states simply that we prefer to do business with people we know and like.

But to use this principle for long-term customer retention requires much more than personality and being facile with words.

The key here is to let your actions speak louder than your words. In other words, earn your likability through integrity.

Be what you say you are. Do what you say you’ll do. Ensure that your backstage systems support your front stage claims.

Switch to Hub Mentality for Long-Term Persuasion & Retention

Charles H. Sandage said:

“Advertising is criticized on the ground that it can manipulate consumers to follow the will of the advertiser. The weight of evidence denies this ability. Instead, evidence supports the position that advertising, to be successful, must understand or anticipate basic human needs and wants and interpret available goods and services in terms of their want-satisfying abilities. This is the very opposite of manipulation.”

People can be persuaded through misguided and manipulative advertising tactics, but those only work in the short term.

If you want to increase trust and sales, make your marketing dollars more efficient, retain more customers, and build a sustainable business, you must be authentic, trustworthy, and credible.

You must solve people’s needs, deliver what you promise, and be transparent in your offerings.

Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and writer with KGaps Consulting. His firm uses their methodology Hub Mentality to help small businesses generate more leads, sales, and referrals while making their marketing budget more efficient.

Stephen is the co-author of as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions as well as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.

One common question is whether businesses should publish full or partial RSS feeds.

In a full feed, RSS readers can read entire articles in their reader without having to click a “Read More” link that takes them to the full article on your blog.

In a partial feed, obviously, only a small part of each article is posted in RSS readers, and readers must finish reading on your blog.

Proponents of partial feeds are concerned that 1) web traffic will be reduced if they publish full feeds, and 2) full feeds make it easier for content thieves to republish their articles.

They also argue that clickbacks to articles on site are instant feedback — you learn which articles resonate more with readers.

Answering the question is a function of whether you want to spread influence or drive web traffic.

Influence Versus Website Traffic

If you want to spread influence, then publish a full RSS feed. Give your best content away, and piles of it. The more the better.

If you want to bring traffic back to your site, go with a partial feed.

But understand this: The influence approach will generate more traffic and market buzz for you in the long-term.

We’re major proponents of full feeds because we understand the power of influence on the web.

Sure, you’ll have a few knuckleheads that will skim your content. Sure, your RSS readers may not come back to your site as often.

But, as the music industry has learned the hard way, trying to control content online is a losing battle anyway. What’s more, you should pray that people start spreading your content.

Sure, you want to be attributed, but most people will give proper attribution. And the people who don’t have lame sites, audiences, and business models, so you don’t need to worry about them.

And so what if RSS readers don’t come to your site? Are you worried about banner ad advertising revenues? Don’t — they’re too paltry to worry about. Unless you’re getting 10,000 hits per month or more, advertising shouldn’t even be on your radar as a viable income stream.

Generate high-quality, relevant content. Get it out into as many venues as possible. Publish the heck out of it.

You’ll develop a reputation as an influencer and it will come back to you exponentially over time.

Recommended Reading:

• “Full Or Partial RSS Feeds — The Great Feed Debate” by Darren Rowse
• “Full Vs. Partial RSS Feeds” on “The Wrong Advices” Blog
• “Why Publish Full RSS Feeds Instead of Partial Summary Feeds” by Amit Agarwal

Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and writer with KGaps Consulting. His firm uses their methodology Hub Mentality to help small businesses generate more leads, sales, and referrals while making their marketing budget more efficient.

Stephen is the co-author of as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions as well as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.