In the last article I wrote, entitled The Fundamentals of Starting Your Own Blog Based Pay For Access Community, I introduced you to something called the Buying Process.
The buying process must be activated in order to sell the benefits of your blogs topic to a target group of people. You have to sell the benefit of your your blogs topic to a target audience before you can be truly be successful at selling anything else.
Once you have established what solution benefit your target audience will obtain from reading your blog then you will have the foundation you need to sell access to a pay for access community membership site in the future.
Now here is a concept that I want you to understand, the implementation and the activation of the buying process is the foundational frame work in which all your blogs business development activities should come from.
In other words, the buying process is the ‘thing’ that must set the tone on how you develop your blogs core information pages because your blog core information pages is what people read to assess if the topic you write about will provide them with something that they want.
Do you remember what Darren Rowse taught us?
The About page is single most important page on a blog.
Therefore you should use your About page to activate the buying process so that potential blog readers can immediately know how your blog will work to help them.
What are you selling on your About page?
You are selling the benefit of your ideas, you want people to buy into the fact that you can help them solve a problem.
The benefit ideas that come out of your blog must be sold in the same way that you will sell an affiliate product or service.
The act of selling the benefit ideas of your blog is where most bloggers have difficulty. You have to sell the thoughts of your blog first then after the benefit idea is made clear then you can sell the benefits of your recommended products/services.
The fact that a blog is a media platform means that everything is based on a psychological and emotional communication between you and your blog readers. Its a mind thing and you must plant a seed in your readers mind and then provide a steady flow of information so that your ideas will take root into their psyche.
Once people believe that your blog is a good tool to help them solve a problem and the ideas of your blog take root in the mind and heart of your blog readers then you will have a chance at selling the benefits of your community site.
In order to plant idea seeds into the minds of your blog reader you must use the buying process. You have to make people buy your ideas.
And to sell your ideas, you should start with your About Page.
Once the benefit idea of your blog is clearly defined, you must establish a firm foundation by producing a steady flow of articles and other forms of media that will clarify ideas that surrounds your blogs topic.
Once you establish you benefit idea with content then you must use interaction on your blog with blog readers so that your blog readers can come to a logical conclusion that you as the blog creator are the only person that can get them to solve a certain problem.
That is how the buying process is supposed to work on a blog.
I don’t want to scare by using the term
because it is not a bad thing especially if you are providing positive solutions for a group.
Here is the truth of the matter.
A media outlet is designed to
. A media outlet is a psychological and emotional tool and it is designed to garner influence over people and when you couple the power of a media platform with the buying process then the concept of an idea seed is just a logical conclusion of the niche you are in.
In conclusion, to get the ball rolling, to set up the foundation of your blog in order to sell in the future the benefits of a pay for access community, you should re write your About page in a way that triggers the buying process.
On your About page you job is to get a target audience to recognize the need to read your content.
If you blog about a topic then you are in a prime position to cultivate a pay for access community here is why:
The Logic
Blog are part of the social media realm
People that go online desire education, fun and social interaction
Blog readers form attachments to the blog creator
Blogs offer a 2 way communication system that connects the blog creator with their blog readers.
Blogs are designed to get people to rally around an idea or a body of information.
Blogs also follow a one à many communication style
The mechanics of a blog can be used to put the blog creator into a strong leadership position.
Blog software is very pliable. A blog can be manipulated to host almost any kind of media content.Audio Video Text Live Broadcasts Live Chatting Community Forums
Blogs can make money in a diverse amount of ways
Blogs can offer both free and fee to access content.
Blogs are considered to be a global phenomenon that has hit the media mainstream.
Blogs can be used to teach and entertain large groups.
Blogs are a medium that can be used to get very close to people.
How To Get Started
The process of setting a pay for access social network community involves several steps:
You have got to get people to recognize the value of the information that you produce on your blog. You got to sell your blogs topic idea.
To get people to recognize the value of the information you produce or to sell your blogs topic idea, you have to know what kind of information people will “buy” or go after and here is the secret answer:
People buy personalized information solutions. People are attracted to information that will solve a specific problem and that means that you must attach a target audience to your blogs topic.
Why You Need A Target
Here is what I have learned while doing in my research about online communites and how to make money with blogs, people will buy all sorts of things but in order to get people to buy stuff, you have got to trigger the buying process.
The Buying Process is a social scientific formula that outlines the steps tha people go through when they are prompted to buy something.
Step One – Need/Want Recognition
Step Two – Information Search
Step Three – Evaluation
Step Four - Purchase
Step Five – Post Purchase Anxiety
People buy things in 5 predictable steps and in order to trigger the buying process in people they will first have to recognize value of the information your produce.
Therefore if you want to make money with an online community the first thing you must do is get people to recognize the importance of the body of ideas.
In other words you have to first sell the benefits of your blogs information first before you can sell the benefits of a pay for access community.
You have to use your blogs as the platform to sell to access to your community because you community must be a well defined organization with a purpose and your blog is the tool that you will use to define the purpose of your community.
But here is the thing, in order to trigger the buying process so that people will recognize the value of your blogs content, you will have to attach your blogs body of ideas to a social group because people are only happy to buy personal solutions.
Here is something else I learned about the buying habits of people. People are happy to buy only three things in life.
Products and Services that will take care of a basic need, such as food, clothing, shelter and cell phone.
Products and Services that will solve a personal problem, such as weight loss advice, how to start prevent your man from cheating, plastic surgery.
Products and Services that will make them feel good; such as music cds, dvds, family vacation etc.
Therefore in order to set the foundation to sell the benefits of your social network, you will have to package your blogs information to be a service that will provide a personal solutions and that is the logic behind the need to identify a target audience to make your blogs body of information to.
How To Identify Your Ideal Target Audience?
To identify your ideal target audience, you must create a description of a social group that can be empowered by the information your produce on your blog. The social group that you define must be able to relate to your personal perceptions regarding the topic your write about.
Are you following me?
Your first step in setting up your blog to make money with a social network site is to sell the benefits of your blogs information to a target audience, so that you can use the right marketing messages to trigger the buying process and the only way that you can trigger the buying process is to package your blog to be an information service that will solve personal problems.
If you are going t solve personal problems that means you will have to have a target audience and in order to define your ideal target audience you must identify a social group that you can align yourself with.
So here is an exercise for you to do, I want you to identify a social group that can use your information to solve a problem and then please identify your social group by posting a comment to this post.
If you are having difficulty with doing this don’t worry because I will posting a how to article on the best way to identify a social group soon.
The fear of Google banning you will become less and less of a threat when you build your blogs business to serve people.
I know that the income that you get from contextual ads can be very seductive but i have learned that it is better to get people to like you and your blog than than to rely on Google sending you traffic.
Google is an important search engine, don’t get me wrong but they should not dictate whether or not you can buy links to me that it crossing the line and that is dictatorship.
Because in the long run people that practice bad habits in order to build their business will suffer any way. Google does not have to control that.
They don’t want you to profit from manipulating the search engine traffic but they can profit by putting links on your website.
They pay you a couple cents per click and you jump for joy.
Who the hell is Google to say that you can’t buy links? I will admit that I like Google for certain things. I like the apps that they offer to people because I like G Talk and Gmail but I don’t worship Google like other web masters and bloggers.
When I see comments about Google like this:
Google does not mind paid links as long as they have the nofollow on them… Its the profitting from manipulating the serps that is the issue
I won’t recommend basing your online marketing strategy around this offering! The method is out in the open and the clever peoples at Google will soon find a way to penalize you! Loads of lemmings will go this route though, guaranteed, and will crash and burn, as lemmings are wont to do!
Sorry, nothing to you personally of course but that cracks me up. Google will find them. Google will smack you down. Google will chuckle heartily at the fact that the same company created another of the exact same product because no one wants their first one anymore.
It sicks me to my stomach.
When you depend on Google income then you are giving up your power.
That is why it is better to build a business for people, build an email list and try to cultivate a following of people that can identify with your ideas.
It may be harder in the beginning but at least you won’t have to depend on the Mighty Google to make money.
You don’t need Google to build an email list. You don’t need Google to build relationships with people on your email list.
If get 1000 people to see value in your information services then that is all you need to develop a steady monthly income.
You don’t need Google authority to build an online community of people.
I want you to take note that I do recognize that some people are just plain greedy and that they practice very spamming type behaviors but Google can use a different approach to try to control that.
Google is a billion dollar company, why should they penalize me a small blog business owner because that owner brought a link on somebody else s commercial website?
If I am missing some concepts please comment and let me know but as far as I see it, Google is full of shit and they just want to control the money being made in cyberspace.
That is exactly why I don’t use Google Adsense on my blog. I want to build an online business without depending on that income.
I want to build relationships with my readers and then use those relationships to provide great services.
To hell with Google my vote goes to the people, I believe in the power of the bonds that can be created with my blog readers and you should too!
Even though I am going to teach you how to set up your foundation to sell the benefits of a pay for access community with your blog and you will have the benefit of owning a membership site without having to produce extra content.
You still will have certain responsibilities that you must take seriously because you will have the new role of being a community thought leader.
And the thought leader of a community must be able to properly steer the growth of his/her community in order to keep the community alive and prosperous.
Find out if you got what it really takes to be an online community leader.
Vision
Where there is no vision the people will perish. A vision is a goal the has not yet come into fruition.
You will have to understand that the present situation of your members need for information and guidance is actually the foundation to provide for them another existence that is greater.
Your community must have a long term goals that it wants to achieve if you expect people to hang around on a long term basis. Don’t make the mistake in thinking that people won’t cancel their subscriptions and they won’t get tired talking about the same topic over and over again. You will have to continually assess the informational and emotional needs of your community members and you will have to be able to come up with fresh new ideas that will keep your members excited and wanting to learn.
Every so often you will have to introduce new challenges for your group to overcome and that means there will be times that you will have to expand the ideas behind the content you produce with your blog.
You might have to investigate new topics that relate to your current topic. You may have to get other people involved to produce content on your site. You may have to invent a new service but the bottom line is that have the ability to think way ahead if you want people to follow you for a long time.
I want you to start thinking of the long term goals of your online community business and blog.
Charm
To be a leader of a group of people that will love you and stick by your side, you will have to have what I call some Obama Style charm. What is charm?
Charm is a particular quality, or characteristic, of one’s personality or manner that people find engaging, delightful or fascinating.
To be an engaging person, you got to be able to come off as smart and resourceful but you also have to have a little sex or fun appeal. You don’t have to use overt sexual behaviors or language, that’s not what I am talking about, I mean that people in general like personalities with depth.
You got to be a lot good and a little bad.You got to deal with people like people and not just subscribers to your content. You can use your access to email correspondence as a way to engage with people on a personal level.The personal interactions that a blogger provides is part of the whole charm of the blog platform in the first place. Do you remember the research that I mentioned in the Science of Blog Power?
Blog readers form personal attachments to the blog creator. Therefore you must be able to develop that kind of connection and you can develop that kind of connection by using email. Every time you send email to people on your list, it shouldn’t be just to promote a product. You should use your email access to solidify real life connections with the people that decide to follow your advice.
The people that support you are the life blood of your community business and you should be close with them and to get close to people, you have to be your natural charming self. You don’t have to like a polished goodies two shoes unless that is a role that is needed to help your community members and to develop the ideas behind your blog and community.
Integrity
Did you know that being at head of a social group will give you access to social power? Social power gives you the ability to influence people on a very personal level. As the thought leader of a group, your community members will have alot of faith in you and eventually they will rely on the infomation that your produce on your blog without having any fear. They will trust that you are guiding them into doing the right things and that is a scared bond that you must keep clean.
Money can be a very seductive thing that may entice you to give up your integrity. Learn from me and don’t fall for the trick of greed.
Do you remember what I did after I finished writing my book? I mentioned it on the video that was posted on my About Page. I wanted charge big money with a membership site and I broke a principle in my desire to make money. I forget that trust and integrious relationships with people must be established first before I can even dream of having an expensive membership site. So I ended up paying to get a website designed that I don’t even use right now.
Greed and lack of integrity made me do that but I have repented and the principles of doing business have been confirmed for me. Intergrity is very important, sometimes you may want to over look it t achieve goal by using people but you shouldn’t because it is illogical and mathematically incorrect.
Don’t use your influence over people simply as a way to make money because it will eventually catch up with you and people will eventually find you out and then you will stuck having to get new members all the time instead of developing more profitable business services with your exisiting members.
Listening Skills
There can be no chief without Indians ( sorry I know that I am breaking some writing rules but I like to use cliches). You are going to become successful, don’t have any doubt about it and with having success as a community leader may start to get a cocky strut in strides, so to speech but and that will be Okay up a to a certain point but as a leader you must be able to nurture relationships with your community members and as such you got to be apply to listen and then act accordingly to their concerns and needs.
Why I am I teaching you this now?
I preparing you for success and financial independence and that is why I produce these kinds of articles. I want you to begin thinking like a successful person and to already plan how you will behave when you reach your goals and you got to understand that they are many forms of leaders and that use their influence over people differently.
If you come from my school of though that means you have to learn how to nurture the people that follow you and not act like too much of a big shot. I want you the realize that owning an online community that is centered around the development of an idea will be a very personal interaction that is happening between you and your group and there are ways that you must behave if you want that group to remain loyal and in love with you.
The most popular social networking websites online today were first created to help friends, coworkers, and family members stay in contact. They make it easy for people to message each other, share news in the form of blog posts or bulletins, or even share outside news or blog feeds. There are many social networking websites online today that all help individuals and businesses network usually completely free of charge. The community software used to create these websites is designed to make it easy for the average computer user to easily set up an account and communicate with other users.
Community software comes in many different forms and is designed to include features that the website owner believes users would want or appreciate. Some software programs are designed to offer high levels of account security and easy functionality. Others are designed to be visually appealing and promote blogging or other forms of communication or information sharing. Regardless of the main goal of the community the website owners will have the software designed and installed in a way that is easy for the average user to manage.
One thing all community software users and owners must remember is that software will, on occasion, fail. This will often happen when thousands or millions of users are all trying to access parts of the site simultaneously or when a user’s computer is not compatible to some of the sites features. Community software often involves many trials and errors and if you are someone interested in investing in community software to use on your own site always test things out before committing to a full launch. Many large companies have sponsored limited beta trials of their social networking sites to find, and fix, all major bugs before completely launching their site.
Once you understand the downfalls of community software and its advantages you will be able to decide whether or not signing up for a social networking community is right for your business. Many website owners have found that signing up for social networking sites has positively influenced their business sales and website traffic. If you are still unsure about the benefits of using social networking software experiment with a few social networking sites that operate using different types of community software before making your final decision.
For more information on social networking solutions visit http://www.MegaStarMedia.com