This is What You Need to Succeed in Online Business (Part 2)

People make things too complicated. Bloggers have a wonderful habit of getting mired down in minutia. They’ll spend all the time writing loads of posts, messing with their blog theme, reading other blogs looking for new strategies and tactics, screwing with meta tags etc. Most bloggers need to get above the tree tops and see the overall scene rather than spending their time down in the weeds on the forest floor.

 

When you get some altitude, you will clearly see that online business is a people business. We’re dealing with real, living, breathing human beings. Our blog readers aren’t just pixels on our traffic graphs. When you look at what we’re doing as a people activity rather than a hodge-podge mix of themes, posts, comments and trackbacks, things get simpler. This is what you need to do after you have successfully commanded peoples attention to you.

 

So, let me break it down:

1. Blogging is a form of communication between real people.
2. Those are real, thinking people. They have needs and wants and our job is to interact with them and serve those needs and wants.

 

Once again, it seems pretty simple. That’s because it is. Let’s break blogging into a simple line of communication.

 

Communication is simply an idea moving from point A to point B, with a full understanding of the idea at point B. If we string a line between A and B, we can imagine that idea flowing over that line. For there to be real communication, the idea needs to be understood on the receiving end. For there to be a real understanding, there needs to be some level of reality and likability for the originator. Let’s look at this from a real-world perspective.

 

You are having a conversation. You say something to another person. (NOTE: You’re talking TO them and not AT them – the distinction is important). The idea travels through the air using sound waves and arrives at the other person. When it arrives, the person either understands it or not. If you’re talking about something they simply don’t care about, then there is no reality and they don’t understand you. If they aren’t paying you any attention, then there is no understanding even though, technically, the idea did hit their ears.

 

I’m not trying to get all weird with you on this idea, but it is very important. Our goal is to form a solid line of communication with our audience, where we can say something and it actually arrives in the minds of our reader and results in an understanding. That understanding is based on a common reality. You develop that common reality by creating content that helps them and provides value. You can tell stories which they identify with. You can be a likable person.

 

You can use humor to make your audience laugh. There are numerous ways to go about creating a bond with your audience and most of them should come naturally to you. Once you have that bond (common reality), your audience is receptive to your communication. You say things and they’ll listen. They’ll understand. The communication line is complete.

 

In the offline world, this is common sense (even though people tend to forget it). In the online world, people much more easily lose sight of this simplicity because they’re too busy worrying about the medium. That would be analogous to worrying about the air quality in between you and the person you’re talking to in a pub. Some of the ugliest websites in the world attract huge audiences because they pulled this off. Sure, site design does matter because it can affect the quality of communication and the factor of distraction. At the end of the day, however, this is all about communication. The medium you use to get there isn’t nearly as important. It is going to be communication which puts you on the map in this business. Communication is what will attract those attention units.

 

Your job is to connect with ACTUAL people. Find common reality. Form a bond. Earn their attention units. Then, direct them as appropriate. That is, in a nutshell, the entire business of blogging. You should now go ahead and start communicating with your audience. Don’t just draw their attention, keep their attention by communicating effectively with them and their needs. Make sure you subscribe with your email address, RSS, follow me on Twitter, become my friend on Facebook, become my fan at www.facebook.com/jadesojiadegbulu and also join my inner circle using the form further below so as not to miss the effective post we publish here.