I’ve recently come to the realisation that people don’t really care about you and they don’t care about your opinion. It sounds so sad, and some people won’t agree with me, but let me explain why I’m saying this.
Two main things have led me to write this post. Firstly, I’ve been reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People“, which, by the way, is a freakin’ awesome book, grab yourself a copy! It’s basically about understanding some basic and seemingly obvious things about the way people behave, things that most people acknowledge but don’t really implement. Small but important things such as smiling at people, remembering their name and listening intently. It’s a bit cheesy at times but good old Mr Carnegie knows how to drive a point home. Some great tips you can apply to your business in there as well! Anyway, I digress.
Secondly, I recently read a post on Copyblogger called “Why Nobody Cares About Your Content (And What to do About it)“.
The basic premise of the book and the post on Copyblogger is that people only want what is in THEIR BEST INTERESTS.
If you want people to get to know you, you’ve got to earn the right! Yeah, sounds unfair, but it’s true! People want to know what you can do for them, not what you can do for yourself.
I’m not in the habit of moaning without providing a solution. So what can you do!?
The answer is simple:
“Adding value” is one of those annoying marketing “buzz words”, but it’s so important for every business. From an Internet Marketing perspective, some of the biggest and most successful “gurus” are the guys that give away the most high quality stuff for free.
Let me give you an example of a couple of guys in the blogging space that have got this down to a fine art:
Danny & Peter “FirepoleMarketing.com“
Both of the guys above give away great content that they could easily charge for. They each get so many visitors because they are constantly finding ways to add value to people. If you read their posts, your pretty much guaranteed to learn something. These are the guys making money as well, something that most of us aim to do eventually through our blogs.
The more value you add to someone, the more interested they will become in who you are.
Put yourself in your reader’s position, would they want to read your stuff? Rants and stuff are cool now and again, but the main basis of any blog, or indeed any business, should be adding value. How are you adding value? How are you helping the people that read your blog? If you want to rant, then at least try and offer a feasible and practical solution to whatever you’re complaining about.
If you’re not adding value, you’ll struggle to keep your head above water.
I’m going to make some of my next few posts “value-adding” posts, and see what response I get.
So in a nutshell, put your reader first, not yourself. If you want to grow your blog and your readership, concentrate on adding value to people. The rest will come. You begin to establish yourself as an expert, and when you do release a product, you’ve already earned the credibility through your “expert” and value-adding blog posts.
Please leave me some “feedback” below. If you don’t agree that’s cool, pop a comment in explaining your reasons 
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