Write What You Know

To continue my coverage from my content marketing post, I'm going to lump the next two themes together.

Find a niche and make your information useful!

According to Wikipedia, "a niche is a focused, targetable portion (subset) of a market sector." Okay, like I said, a piece of the big picture.

In the Strategic Profits blog, the post "Jersey Boy Cracks The Code And Transforms Into A $50 Million Maven - Here’s How He Did It…" there was a discussion about niche marketing. The interview was with Gary Vaynerchuk, the wine guy, he used sunglasses as an example in developing a niche.

He basically said, for the longest time you could pick up a pair of sunglasses at a store, like Wal-Mart, and still can. Suddenly someone in the sun glass industry realized that sunglasses needed a store of their own and little kiosk and sun glass shops popped up everywhere selling special sunglasses.

Vaynerchuk did the same thing with wine. He's video blogging wine tasting, giving away his information as a "maven" (expert in the field), and gaining fame and fortune in the process.

When it comes to useful information, I can't tell you how many times I searched a subject and clicked articles that fell short. They lured me in and all I found was a sales pitch offering me the information for a small fee. Don't offer your self up as a source unless you're going to give up the goods.

I hate to say it but, I've even seen this tactic on my home site. I read an article or two that offer links to other articles that are supposed to give more information. The link would be to a site selling some "informative" ebook. Well, that's fine, if that's the way you want to play.

I don't buy ebooks. Not anymore. I bought one once and it was full of links to other "sources" where you could buy more ebooks.

Once you've found something you know, that you are interested in, and can specialize in, make it your own. Think benefit, will the content be beneficial? Learn everything you can about it and keep it up to date. If your information is useful, you will gain popularity. If you become an expert, you will be sought out.