Danny Brown's Blog, page 14
March 31, 2016
If You Want to Build Engagement, Build Your Learning First and Never Stop Learning
When people think of growing an engaged audience, it’s usually in reference to blog readers; or an email list; or visitors to a sales page on your website; or listeners to your podcast; a social network community, or similar.
But what are we really building an audience for?
Is it simply to participate (click through on an offer or download a product)? Or is it to interact, via comments on a blog, tweets, Google+ conversations and more?
If it’s the former, then do we even care about engagement...
March 29, 2016
It Makes You Appreciate the Little Things More
This past weekend, I pretty much completely switched off from social, turned my phone off, and focused solely on my family.
On Sunday, we went to my wife’s aunt and uncle’s for Easter dinner, and a chance to bring together the various parts of my wife’s family around the same table.
This year, there were some new faces at the table as cousins brought their partners. There were also a couple of absent faces, as life and other commitments took precedent.
As a way to catch up on all the important t...
March 25, 2016
When Your Five Year Old Son Asks If You’re Not Happy With Him
The other day, my five year old son Ewan came up to me, looked me in the eye, and asked me if I was happy with him.
This was after I’d told him off a little earlier for not listening and continuing to play with his toys after I’d asked him to clean up with Salem, his four year old sister.
This particular task is like a mental tug of war, with both kids starting the clean up process and then invariably getting distracted by the primary reason toys were invented – to play with them.
So then we...
March 24, 2016
Why You Have to Push Back on Unethical Content Thieves
When you create content – either written, visual, or aural – you hope that people will read/watch/listen and enjoy.
The added benefit is if that content consumer shares with their friends, or recommends your content to others, more people become aware of what you’re trying to do.
To enable this, content creators use either RSS or email to grow their audience, with both options allowing subscribers to get instantaneous updates once any new content is published.
Personally, I prefer email – I f...
March 23, 2016
Why I’m Loving the Pure Blogging Project
Last year, as summer started to get into full swing, I published a couple of posts over on my own blog that talked about getting back to pure blogging.
These posts – Why the Real Driver of Traffic is Content That Matters to You, and Pure Blogging and the Experience We Give Our Readers – saw me taking a step back and looking at how the chase for traffic, shares and monetization was making us forget the reason we started blogging in the first place.
Not for glory. Not for fame. Not for fortune....
March 21, 2016
How Mill Street Brewery Remains A Close Family of Punks in a World of Corporate Beer
In his book Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo, Andy Greenwald shares the words of Joe Carroll from punk band The Insurgent, when describing what punk means to him.
Punk is the combination of not caring at all and caring a whole lot. It’s like, all right, fuck the system, yeah. But let’s try and create something in opposition to that, more than just singing about it.
In a way, it’s a perfect analogy for the craft beer industry.
As the antithesis to bland “corporate beer” (think...
March 18, 2016
The Personalization of Social (Or Why We Need to be Architects)
It’s funny how our mindsets change with the onset of age. Or experience. Or a mixture of both.
Take social media. When it first started gaining traction with the masses around 2009, it was seen as “the great connector” – a way for everyone to share, learn, support, and more.
Then, brands came along and got involved. Social media changed (though let’s not solely blame the brands for that).
Interaction was replaced with reaction; talk with was replaced with talkto; and a piece of intimacy was...
March 13, 2016
Those Random Memories (Or How We Craft a Life)
Recently, I’ve been having a running “battle” with my five year old son, Ewan, around the topic of age.
You see, recently I turned 47 and to Ewan, that’s really old. Like, really old.
So old, in fact, he can’t wrap his still-innocent head around why it’d be wrong for a 47-year old man to be with a 15-year old girl – the age he thinks his mum is.
But I digress…
On the way home from the train station the other night, after my wife had brought the kids to meet me from my commute home, Ewan flipp...
March 11, 2016
Want Success? Make It About the Team – Always
To build an empire takes more than one person.It doesn’t matter if you’re a solo entrepreneur, a solo blogger, a solo musician or artist.
To truly build an empire takes more than the soloist you may be – it takes a team.
From a solo point of view, that can mean a variety of things.
For solo entrepreneurs, it’s your partner that encourages you when no-one else will. Or the bank manager who approves your loan when you first start. Or the contractor who gives you the part-time skills for that jo...
March 9, 2016
Creating and Curating an Experience Your Audience Will Remember
We like to be entertained.
We enjoy storytellers that can transplant us into fantastical realms and take our imaginations on rides that we’d never usually imagine.
We like touchpoints.
We feel more in tune with those that directly reach out to us and hold our hands; guide us; share their experience and involvement with something, and make us feel that we’re the only people that they’re talking to at that given time.
Simply put, we enjoy beingpart of the experience.
The best storytellers are t...
