Likeable, Successful, Unique & Tragi-Comic…

David in his den attempting to make a point about something or other…

 Here’s episode four of David’s Den…

I’m not quite sure what happened to the rest of May… I kinda lost focus on promoting my sites and building my lists…

I find that it takes a while to build up momentum with a routine, once I get out of sync it seems to take a long time to get a going with the routine work of promoting and list building…

Not that May was a bad month at all. Actually, I managed to publish another ebook on Tripleclicks and my “other business” over at Japanese-Games-Shop.com had it’s best month so far this year.

How do I know when it’s a good month?

When I have to “turn the page” of my order book in any single month! That’s what happened in May, which kept me busy packing and posting orders.

JGS Facebook Page – How Do You “Like” It?

My Japanese Games Shop Facebook Page

One more thing I’d like to mention about my games business is that I have just set up a Japanese Games Shop Facebook Page so if you are at all into games or things Japanese, please check it out and “like it” – if you like it!

Also, are there any Japanese products you are into that you’d like me to feature on the page? No worries if the products aren’t games!

To help me set up my Facebook Page and make it “likeable” I have been reading a couple of books about social networking which have been very helpful.

 Facebook Marketing All-In-One For Dummies by Amy Porterfield et al.

I bought the book on the strength of Amy Porterfield’s reputation as a leading social media strategist (she was responsible for promoting Tony Robbins and for two of Traffic Geyser’s product launches for example).

Things move fast on Facebook and some of the instructions are already out of date, but it is good handbook to refer to when setting up and promoting pages on Facebook. There’s a lot of stuff that you can easily overlook without a guide like this. Just make sure you get the most up-to-date edition possible. Another option would be to do what I did and “like” Amy Porterfield’s Facebook Page (NB: I’m NOT being paid to endorse Amy Porterfield – but it would be a nice idea! lol )

Likaeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen

This is a useful guide to the ethos of successful business social marketing and it follows in the hallowed footsteps of Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing. “The secret to successful word-of-mouth marketing on the social web is easy,” says Dave Kerpen: “BE LIKEABLE”.

The book expands upon that theme and illustrates it with examples of HOW to be truly “likeable” in your social marketing campaigns.

Here are a few tips:

• Listen first – and never stop listening.
• Define your target market.
• Think from the perspective of your consumers.
• Respond quickly to all comments, good and bad.
• Be authentic, honest and transparent.
• Ask questions.
• Share stories.
• Don’t sell – be likeable so that people will want to buy.

 My Latest Website Project: OS Aussies

OSAussies.com

Last month I helped a fellow ex-pat living in Hiroshima, an Aussie called Adam Howard, to move his burgeoning blog about overseas Australian footballers from Blogger to a new site at OSAussies.com where it runs on a self-hosted WordPress platform.

The new blog is attracting a lot of traffic and has some excellent content, with two dedicated writers to keep it freshly updated.

One of the writers is Ryan Marveggio a professional footballer who plays for SC Telstar in Holland’s Eerste Divisie.

Want Your Own Unique WordPress Website?

If you’d like me to design and set up a unique WordPress site for you and do not yet have a web hosting account, I will do it free of charge for you if you purchase a web hosting package with DavidHurley.RunHosting.com and drop me a line via my web form asking me to set up a free WordPress blog for you.

If you already have a hosting account and are happy with it, that’s fine. I charge $65 to create and set up a unique WordPress blog on existing hosting accounts. Another option would be to transfer your website to my hosting account on a two year business poackage and then you’d qualify to have a free WordPress Website set up. 

 The SFI Affiliate Success Handbook

One of my aims for May was finally to complete and publish my long projected report about how to succeed as an SFI affiliate, the SFI Affiliate Success Handbook. I’m pleased to report that I managed to finish the text about half way through the month, then added the graphics and links and had it accepted by Tripleclicks just before the end of May.

It was a case of “get it done and perfect it later”… The book was published without a fancy book cover (I’ll add one later) and with no publicity beyond the Tripleclicks sales page. It consists of 48 pages of solid content going into detail about:

• How I Make Money With SFI

• How I Motivate My SFI Team To Take Action

• How I Train My SFI Team To Duplicate My Efforts

• How I Recruit Prospects To My SFI Team

I reveal several of my key “secret strategies” and show you how to use Tripleclicks to make money up-front to cover all your marketing expenses for the SFI business opportunity. You get 48 pages of top quality content and a complete blueprint for turning your SFI business into a profitable venture. Click here to check out my SFI Affiliate Success Handbook on Tripleclicks.

Minifig Macbeth

One event in May that got me out of my den was the annual performance of a Shakespeare play by The International Theatre Company London at Jogakuin Univesity in Hiroshima, where I have a part time teaching post.

The ITCL specializes in making Shakespeare plays enjoyable for Japanese audiences by the imaginative – and energetic – use of music, dance and humour.

This year they were performing Macbeth and my 9 year old daughter wanted to see the play, so we spent the Sunday before the performance recreating the play as a Lego Minifig table-top theatre show!

It was a lot of fun, but it took up most of the day!

You can check out some photos of Minifig Macbeth over on my personal blog if you really want to!

The performance, which we saw the next day, was very enjoyable and fine for kids – there were several children from English-speaking and mixed-heritage families sat in the front row along with my daughter, laughing at the witches and especially at the Drunken Porter, who nearly lost his underpants in a fine piece of slapstick dance, much to the kids’ delight!

You might not think there is much comedy in Macbeth, but the unrestrained laughter of the kids and their interaction with actors seems to give the Japanese members of the audience a kind of permission to laugh at the sanctified “Wirriamu Shaykesupeeru’s” Scottish tragedy as well.

Is it any surprise that my best intentions for promoting my websites and building my list unravel when there is so much enjoyment to be had? (Did you hear the floorboards creak as a rusty old excuse was wheeled out…?)

Here’s to an action-packed high-intensity June!

David Hurley

By the way, if you’re new here then I’d like to invite you to join my friend list by putting your name and primary e-mail address in the little boxes below. Thank you! DH.