The problem with internet marketing is that some activities are more interesting than others. This means that some marketers tend to ignore systems or activities that could be extremely beneficial for their business.
Are you guilty of not doing the things that bore you? Are you guilty of just doing what you enjoy?
I call the second phase in my 26-Week Internet Marketing Plan Get Social & Turn On The Tap! and a lot of the activities contained in this phase tend not to be the most interesting. However, just because they dont interest you doesnt mean that they arent beneficial for your business!
Today Id like to explore 7 marketing related activities and explore why many people find them to be boring...
1. Blogging
Blogging is one of these activities that people love... for a while. The chances are that if youve been blogging for a while that youve lost interest at some point. Unfortunately though adding new content to your site is an integral part of maintaining your Google juice. Make sure you have a long-term content production strategy to maintain your blogging abilities.
2. RSS syndication
RSS has a very important role to play " but not just for giving your readers a means to subscribe to your latest updates, but for syndicating your blog posts all over the web. There are literally hundreds of blog and RSS directories, and theyll update with your latest content as soon as you publish it " but only if you take the time to submit your site details.
3. Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook updates
Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are all like micro versions of running a blog " they effectively give you a platform to voice your opinion about some particular topic and interact with your subscribers on a platform that they feel comfortable. But the important thing about social media is consistency " consistency of voice and consistency of content delivery. Its easy to start it off, but can you keep it going?
4. Social Media Syndication
Even if you muster up the motivation to interact on your chosen social media sites on a regular basis, you may end up talking to a man and his dog. One way of trying to ensure that this doesnt happen is to syndicate your content to social media profile directories. Examples of these include WeFollow and Twellow for Twitter.
5. Reputation Management
Even if youre not actively involved in social media, it doesnt mean that people arent talking about your business on the web. And if youre not aware of whats being said about your business, you wont be able to counteract any negative, misinformed publicity " but are you willing to take the time to subscribe to and read all your Google Alerts?
6. Press Releases and Journalist Networking
Writing press releases requires a different mindset and skillset to writing articles " short, punch pieces from an independent perspective often dont come naturally to those who want to promote their own business. But if youre willing to take the time to learn this skill, interacting with journalists and writing releases on a regular basis could be extremely worthwhile.
7. Pay Per Click
The most common pay-per-click marketing mistake is to select a wide range of industry-generic keyword phrases and use them to direct traffic towards a low-converting home page. A much more profitable way is to use exact or phrase-based keyword phrases and drive traffic from them towards highly targeted landing pages with strong calls to action. But are you willing to do what it takes?
Thats just a quick summary of some of the internet marketing activities which are likely to be completed in a sub-standard manner, simply because whoevers tasked with completing the activity doesnt find it enjoyable. What internet marketing activities do you find the most boring?
I’d put PR at number one and add in anything to do with link building! 🙂 I actually enjoy PPC and microblogging.
How about Backlinking as another? Very time consuming to do it correctly.
Anything that includes writing. And my personal worst is website design.
Very true, but I think the most tedious has to be link building! Shame really considering it is so important to most SEO campaigns. Dont mind blogging that much though, just dont have time to do it as much as I would like!
Guess it depends too on the type of link building, Chris? Link building by attracting links can be fun. Pure hands-on link building is … hard. I have the utmost respect for our in-house team.
Pffff, I hate Press Releases 🙂
The worst thing is to find out the information or make somebody in my company to give me them!
I have to find the way how to explain to my boss that Press Releases are profitable and make better sight of our company.
Have a nice day,
Veronika
Good one, Veronika! Press releases also require a very special way of writing. Hat off to those who do this all the time
Great list of boring tasks. I would also include the boring, yet very important task of consistent link building through forum and blog posts. Like I’m doing now, :). BTW, I’m enjoying the concept of your 26-week plan. The breakdown in phases has been helpful in organizing our IM plans for various clients.
Of course here it is more a case or relation ship building as we don’t link author names 😉
Touche’ Ruud 🙂 Still a fan of the 26-week plan none-the-less.
Thanks Matt 🙂
Yes, it the consistency that’s required when link building that grinds a lot of people down!
Great list. These are the most boring internet marketing services. Ever! 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Yes, thanks for the list David! There seems to a direct correlation between how boring an activity is and how important it is to keep doing it unfortunately 🙂
/Brian
I don’t even think link building is that boring, waiting for them to be indexed maybe.
No.6 is the winner (loser?)
I cringe when I hear myself writing press releases. It’s just that particular style of writing goes against the way I normally write.
It’s really a special job in itself, isn’t it, Gina? I’ve noticed that someone who writes good general content doesn’t necessarily write good press releases.
Like you say; totally different language.