Tag Archives: Advertising

Advertising

I just decided to do some paid advertising for Inspiration for Success on Facebook and it feels a bit strange, as I am kind of against advertising and I kind of decided not to put money in Inspiration for Success. But traffic is not increasing, on the contrary, a few months ago it went down quite a lot and only the last week or so it has stabilized and goes up a little bit now, but it is nowhere to what I wanted and expected when I started this site, this blog, this idea.

And I have no clue to earn from it or something, or even what the site means as it all got lost in not meeting my expectations, traffic not increasing, people not commenting and the team leaving me long time ago.

And I know I am persistent and together with the ideas from Think and Grow Rich that keeps me going, but for a long time it has been no fun anymore, where I started so enthusiastically sharing the stuff I found about inspiration and success, the Principles of Success.

Anyhow, something needs to happen and a few days ago I started paid advertising for one of my customers as I thought that would be a good way to promote his businesses, and I think I was right, as the advertisements at least produced “Like’s”, which means people are following those pages now. So well, why not do it for Inspiration for Success, and The Malasag House, so I decided to spend a little money on that just half an hour ago or so.

And it is kind of against my ideas, supporting big companies like Facebook, as they seem to have the power and earn more and more. But maybe they deserve it and maybe this works for me (and customers/interested people).

And I also want to become rich through something like Facebook, so somehow I am the same.

Anyhow, strange to do this and it was kind of an impulse, but keeping doing the things I did before doesn’t seem to work, so I have to do something else.

And Facebook works, so why not for me?

Advertising

3D WordcraftWell, I was a bit confused yesterday. As John Pitkin from 3dWordCraft e-mailed me about advertising on this site (or in the e-mail) related to the daily inspirational quote. As he is selling 3D objects with words. And of course that would be perfect for quotes. So someone liking one of the quotes I send, might want to have a physical object with that quote.

So this is a great idea and I believe would certainly benefit people, but, the business model I chose is about ‘give and receive’ and not about ‘selling’, getting money directly for services or products, in this case advertising.

And wow, I just checked his site and I am laughing, as it appears to be a one page very simple site and it is built with Drupal. That’s like renting a super crane to move a small bench or something. But that’s not what this post is about, although it is a bit as of course I also would like to share my knowledge about websites and sell my services related to that.

Anyhow, the last is of course applicable as this is about selling through the internet and this page is certainly intended for promoting 3dWordCraft by e.g. putting some links to his site and to the shop.

The main issue is here that I am confronted with an idea that is very good, where I often see ‘selling’ and ‘advertising’ as bad. And the problem I am encountering a bit is that if I ‘give’ without ‘receiving’ (money) means I am the one in charge of what is going to happen, what is being displayed or posted or sent or whatever. Where it is also logical that a person advertising, selling his or her services, would want to have (full?) control over how the advertising is going to happen.

So somehow my chosen business model is about control as it implies I want full control over how this site looks like and what the functionality is. Which has a good side, but apparently also a (possible?) bad side.

So very well worth rethinking the business model I have in mind and how that would or could or should work in the real world. As John Pitkin really threw me off balance with his request. Which is a good thing. Thank you, John.

Earning as a blogger

Today I got an e-mail from Alden Tan as I get many. Often even e-mails with the same text with a different title, ‘as that works’ according to him. And his e-mail was about the commercial side of his blogging, the commercial side of blogging in general. That most bloggers earn from advertisements and people clicking on links. And ‘that works’. And I don’t mind, as I also earn from some of my sites, our sites (as most are earned by the company of me and my partner). And the last year the income from these sites were very welcome, looking at the financial status I am still in.

And his e-mail made me think, again, about this site. And yes, I know it has become some kind of personal diary, often of my problems and stuff, maybe even a site with my complaints, with me sometimes or often feeling a victim. So maybe my writing is not always that good, maybe it doesn’t really help people, maybe it isn’t all useful. But especially in the beginning I did my very best to also put more useful content, especially in the form of pages related to stuff I learned from the Principles of Success as described in Think and Grow Rich. And I started the IFS Tools, on my own in the end, as I couldn’t find any programmer to help me with it. And yes, I know they are kind of a draft, far from perfect and I guess for them being really useful they would need to be extended a bit. But when is good good enough?

Ah, and yes, I send a daily quote, now to around 150 e-mail addresses, partially from my initially entering e-mail addresses I had and found, but more recently from people signing up, as it is supposed to be.

So no, until now I didn’t earn anything with this site. And that bothers me. As either it is useless, except maybe for myself, or people just don’t care about the people behind many things like this blog, as ‘everything internet’ is ‘free’. And yes, I am also guilty of that, of using all kinds of stuff for free. As that is how the market works, first giving things for free, and in a later stage charge. Or just charge for additional stuff.

Well, the above makes me think again. As I still don’t understand how Facebook e.g. works. How can so many people use a system so much for free, presumably hardly clicking on advertisements, and Facebook still making a profit? Yes, maybe I still don’t fully understand what is real ‘mass production’ or ‘mass use’, the benefits of millions or billions of people using something. And even so, are we still willing to use services by paying for it indirectly, to especially the large companies paying for their advertisements to be put? Is this really the way how we want it? Should I really start putting advertisements here ‘because that is how the market works’? I don’t think so, but sometimes it is frustrating seeing ‘successful people’ and ‘successful companies’ earn so much, where I also do my best to put some value, even if it were just by sharing my thoughts.

P.S. I guess my request for a camera is still some kind of begging and maybe I should rephrase or just buy one, but is there really no one out there having some few years old decent camera he or she doesn’t use anymore and willing to send it to me?