One phrase came up over and over again: “follow your passion.”
People are tired of hearing “follow your passion.” You’ve heard it. You know you should to do what you love.
The real question is: now what? How can you follow your passion AND earn a living? How can you know if your “passion” is worth following? How can you know if it will make a good business or career idea?
What if you want to don’t want to risk ruining your passion by turning it into a business in the first place?
The “follow your passion” model is more complicated than it first appears.
Imagine if your site was featured regularly on some of the biggest sites on the web related directly to your site’s topic.
What might that do for your profile and your traffic?
What if you were featured 83 times in less than a year on huge sites like CopyBlogger, Freelance Switch, ProBlogger, Get Rich Slowly, Smashing Magazine, DIYThemes, Stepcase Lifehack, Daily Blog Tips, KISS Metrics and even little old Think Traffic?
That’s exactly what happened to Danny Iny in 2011.
Actually, I shouldn’t say “it happened to” Danny, because all of this was very planned and intentional. Danny figured out how to get his content and his site featured regularly on all these sites and suddenly he was everywhere.
It’s no wonder Danny’s site Firepole Marketing has become so popular lately. Your site would probably be pretty damn hot right now if you were featured in so many places in a short time.
How did Danny pull off this incredible feat?
I decided to sit down with Danny to ask that specific question, and the answer might surprise you.
Watch below as Danny reveals his not-so-secret strategies.
We have an incredible interview coming up with Chris Guillebeau next week that you won’t want to miss. Just click the link above and click the “subscribe” button. [Continue reading…]
A couple months ago, Steve Kamb from Nerd Fitness told us about his friend in Boston who successfully launched a beer company through social media.
Now that’s unique.
Helder Pimentel built the brand and demand of Backlash Beer purely through social media. And they sell out of each batch to bars and liquor stores within days. One of which sold out in just 4 days.
We just had to hear this story first hand from Helder, so keep reading to find out how he has carved out a piece of the highly competitive beer market in New England by using Twitter and Facebook.
Well, there’s one surefire way to still publish epic content on a regular basis without getting burnt out.
Start running interviews on your blog.
Just look at blogs like BlogcastFM, RiseToTheTop, and Mixergy that only do interviews and have even built an entire business around it.
Besides, if you are the only person who ever writes on your site it will be refreshing for your audience to hear another person’s perspective.
In this post we’ll discuss our experience with and advice for doing interviews in all sorts of mediums (audio, video, text) as well as some tips for how to reach out to A-Listers and land an interview with them.[Continue reading…]
There are literally hundreds of millions of blogs in existence. Thousands more are started every day.
In a world where 99.9+% of blogs go mostly unnoticed, Derek Halpern has made a big name for himself and his blog Social Triggers in less than a year.
If you’re interested in blogging, marketing or the psychology behind what makes people “tick” online, don’t miss this over-the-top interview with Derek.
Here are just a few things you’ll learn:
Why Derek doesn’t subscribe to the “1,000 true fans” rule
The one decision Derek made early on that set the stage for Social Trigger’s incredible growth
Derek’s strategy for making it easier to win in your niche
How Derek identified his blog’s “secret sauce”
The overlooked place you can rely on for breakthrough topic ideas
How you can become known for your most powerful ideas
Why you’re shooting yourself in the foot by promoting your social media accounts on your website
The most important thing to accomplish with your next blog post
And trust me, there’s much, much more in this video. This was one of the best conversations I’ve had in a while.
(If you know of any other amazing stories of people that have used blogs to make a living, email us and let us know. We love featuring people that are doing amazing things because of their blogs.)
Today we’re happy to interview Sarai Minick from the sewing pattern company Colette Patterns. Sarai uses her blog as a platform to share her expertise on sewing, give people free patterns, and grow the audience for her sewing pattern store.
In this interview you’ll find outhow you can create a valuable product, give away great content to get traffic, and convert that to sales. No tricks, no shortcuts. It just works. [Continue reading…]
Like we talked about Tuesday, sometimes you just 
