You're really popular. Now what?

I was reviewing the slides for the upcoming webinar "The Future of Social Media and How to Profit from It" and stumbled on a quote by Dr. Rachna Jain:

Popularity is good.
Profitability is better.

Profitable popularity is the Ultimate Goal.

That pretty well sums it up. You need both to truly be successful. And with the evolution of social media and social networking, it's easier than ever to "feel" popular. Building a huge following on twitter or amassing 5000 friends on Facebook really isn't too difficult.

But what do you do with all those "friends"? Now you've got a responsibility to produce. Many (probably not all since there are a lot of spammers and bots out there) want to hear your pearls of wisdom and learn how you can make their lives better. 

This where the rubber meets the road because this is where CONTENT enters the picture. Now, you have give all those friends and followers something to sink their teeth in to. What you produce will determine the amount of trust you earn, how credible you come across and will ultimately determine whether or not your friend is going take out his/her credit card to get more from you.

One of the powerful things about content is that you can repurpose the same content in multiple formats so it not only functions to build trust but increases your visibility as well which helps you attract even more friends and followers. It's a powerful cycle when implemented with care.

Rachna told me she can repurpose one blog post into 10 formats (she reveals her formula on the webinar)! At the very minimum she does an audio recording of every post and offers it as a podcast. Pretty smart. She's giving her audience the content how they want it. Rachna has posted a tutorial about how she does her audio posts.

I often tweak blog posts and reformat them into articles which I submit to EzineArticles.com. It doesn't take too long and my author bio is designed to lead people back to an optin page for a free report or video series so I capture email addresses for future communication. Email marketing still is most effective when it comes to conversion and sales. So, ultimately, in order to be profitable you need to be building a list as well.

It's an elegant web of integrated activity and creation that functions to build your popularity and your profitability simultaneously.

How many ways do you repurpose your content and in what formats? I'd love to hear what you're doing to extend your reach, create more visibility and generate profits!

Comments

[twitter.com/kuno]

Denise,

I would only advise repurposing content if you really don't have time to come up with original content. The really good, popular blogs don't do that, at least not very often. That's why I subscribe to them - knowing that I will get high quality original posts every time.

[Denise Wakeman]

I don't mean to suggest putting repurposed content on your blog - that should be original content. I suggest you can repurpose blog posts into other formats for publishing on other sites. I tweak blog posts and publish them as articles on http://ezinearticles.com

[Rachna Jain]

Denise,

Thank you for the reference, and I agree with your points, especially about responsibility to produce. It's so easy, as we've talked about, to think that friends or follower numbers is the whole picture-it's not. What matters most is engagement- the two way exchange of value. We all need to to think in terms of profitable popularity because that's what actually builds our businesses.

I loved this line in your post especially: "It's an elegant web of integrated activity and creation that functions to build your popularity and your profitability simultaneously."

I'm all for elegance and integration, especially when linked to profitability! :)

Rachna

[Christine Hueber]

Profitable popularity is the Ultimate Goal ... that is an elegant goal!

I appreciate the inspiration your post offers to start thinking about how I want to re-purpose my blog posts.

And I'm still basking in your great call will Liz Lynch last week. Thanks again for all the valuable blog tips you so generously shared.

[Atlanta Web Design]

That is a great point. I was actually putting together an improved flow of a lot of content that I create and was thinking of doing exactly that.

Using portions of content to re use for the article distribution.