Danny Brown's Blog, page 27

Sorry Affiliate Bloggers, But Your About Page Disclosure Doesn’t Cut It

Way back in December 2009, the FTC finally launched its guidelines regarding the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising.

The goal was simple – with the increase in digital advertising and the rise in bloggers monetizing their blogs through advertorials and paid content (sponsored, affiliate or otherwise), the FTC wanted to ensure consumers were aware when something was being promoted for pay versus being a genuine recommendation.

The guidelines covered all forms of advertising, b...

I Don’t Always Like Who I Am

When you look at yourself in the mirror, proverbial or otherwise, what do you see when you look back at yourself?

Do you see a person that you’re happy with, and wouldn’t swap for the world, or do you see a percentage of that happiness?

Do you see a person who is everything you want to be, or do you see a work in progress where sometimes the work is more needed than the progress?

I don’t know what I see. Sometimes it’s a little A, other times it’s a little B. Never one more than the other, at...

Why You May As Well Say You Reached Eleventy Billion People

Over at Collective Bias, a “publisher of high quality user generated content that drives sales for brands and retailers”, there’s a case study about one of their campaigns.

The case study shares some very impressive numbers:

Looking at the image below, it looks like the campaign ticked all the ROI boxes:

405% increase in marketing equivalency ROI (Return on Investment) 3.2 million potential blog page views 40.2 million impressions Collective Bias retail case study for Walgreen’s mobile app...

You Cannot Change What You Do Not See

Often, we change things based on what we see in front of us, or based on perceptions of what we feel is in front of us.

It may be that our sales channels are bringing in less than 12 months ago; so we change the sales team or manager.

Or, our customers are leaving in numbers that are scary; so we change the customer service team or manager.

The problem is, often what we see in front of us is a very small part of what’s happening behind the visual.

Our sales team may be bringing in the same sa...

Why We Should Make More of What We Do An Experience

In 2001, I went backpacking around the West Coast of Australia for six months. I was 33 at the time.

This wasn’t a journey that I had to take to “find myself”. Instead, it was just about taking the time to make an experience. I’d been telling myself since I was 19 that I was going to go backpacking, but never did it.

Coming out of a relationship at the time, and with no ties to bind me, I thought, “Fuck it – I’m going to do this before I get much older.”

So I did. And it was everything I expe...

The Future of Content Part 4: The Return to Pure Blogging

As content continues to become an ever-important staple for businesses of all shapes and sizes, I thought it’d be interesting to share some thoughts on what the future of content might look like.

However, instead of sharing just my own thoughts, I wanted to bring you what the future of content looks like for some of the folks I look up to and respect in this space.

This mini-series will bring you some of the web’s most critical thinkers when it comes to content – hopefully you’ll enjoy readin...

Does Your Blog Really Need to Provide an RSS Feed Anymore?

Back in 2010, I published a blog post about the choices bloggers gavewhen it came to how readers consumed their content.

The gist of the post was simple: should it be via RSS, or email?

My own take was bloggers should offer both (remember, this was at a time when RSS was still the #1 choice for bloggers to distribute their content). In the comments section after the post, the majority of commenters thought email was the better option too.

- I’m with you 100%! The blogs I never, ever want to m...

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 three 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 ge...

52 Content Marketing Experts Share Their Top 100 Content Tips

What made you click through to read this post (unless you’re reading this via RSS and already know what’s coming)?

Was it because you’ve read other posts of mine, and trust me to deliver on the premise shared wherever that might be? Was it because someone shared it on Twitter, Facebook, etc., and you trust their shares, so you automatically share too?

Or was it because of the headline, and the easy quick-fix yet often vapid information that headline suggested?

If it was any of the above, you’ve...

The Problem With Making Grandiose Statements

There’s a popular method of content creation, and it’s primarily centred around making grandiose statements to make a point.

These statements, and the blog posts around them, can range from the usual war cries of being more human in business, to posts on transparency and authenticity on the web, to how an “industry” – for want of a better term – like social media needs its proponents to apologize for all their wrong-doing.

While the messaging of these types of posts may mean well, they only tru...