Paul Uduk iSchool – Internet Business Mastery Course.
Should you launch your blog or use established social media platforms for prospecting? This is a choice every newbie faces.
Every online business, whether selling physical or digital products, needs customers. How to reach prospects you can convert to customers is both a strategic and tactical decision.
I repeat the choice facing every newbie is typically the decision of whether to launch a blog or use established platforms. Established platforms come in various shapes and sizes, reach, levels of complexity, cost, and result potential.
You have one choice: launch your own blog (or website) or use established social media platforms. Your decision will have repercussions on the result you achieve for years and it may be difficult to reverse. A seemingly simple choice but it’s not as simple as you think.
Using established platforms is like renting a flat, you can move in almost immediately once the contract has been signed.
Depending on your interest you have choices, with Facebook, Quora, and LinkedIn the top easiest picks. You can start posting on Facebook and LinkedIn almost immediately. Quora requires a little study.
If you’re a little adventurous, you can head to Instagram, X, and TikTok and start spreading your wings.
And if you’re the fire-eating type, you can head straight to YouTube and start uploading your videos. You can even use the audio from your videos and start a podcast channel on Spotify.
As you can see, with established platforms, you can be up and running within a few short weeks. I assume you’re truly determined and really know what you’re doing.
Sadly, most people starting are always newbies who know very little about how social media operates. You can be an expert in your field offline, but online, on social media, you’re a novice.
Writing and sending out emails on Outlook or Gmail is different from creating a post on Facebook or LinkedIn.
Every social media platform operates on a different algorithm, so there is a learning curve to master each one. Luckily once you master one, mastering others becomes easier.
So, when starting out, the question arises: Should you launch your blog or use established platforms to grow leads?
The opinions of experts vary on the matter.
Personally, I have had eight websites and eight “webmasters” since I started my online journey. In the first seven instances, I didn’t know what I wanted and thought the “webmasters” knew. I was wrong. Two turned out to be thieves, one was a thief and a charlatan, and the others “tried their best.” Beware.
So when you want to launch your website, you will run into problems with unreliable webmasters. Some have dubious characters. Have that in mind. Remember, you can’t give what you don’t have. Most webmasters you meet especially in this part of the world are charlatans to say it mildly.
To get an effective dynamic website optimized for SEO up and running costs money. Bear that too in mind.
So, back to the question, should you launch your website or use established platforms when starting out as a newbie?
Not too long ago the India-based guru, Digital Deepak, sided with those that say, have your website. In his LinkedIn post, he demonstrated how to build a “Content Empire” and become a great influencer.
My response was, the “Content Empire” may as well work in the long run, however, in the long run we are all dead.
I went on to say that the framework doesn’t matter, every postulation must be taken with a pinch of salt. A framework may look elegant on paper, but elegance and result are two different things.
Nicolas Cole, however, advised those starting out, never to start their own blogs but to latch on to existing platforms. Cole is the author of the book, The Art and Business of Online Writing. Cole argued that existing platforms like Quora and Facebook have millions of users so it makes sense to latch onto them.
Nicolas practices what he preaches. In 2014 he wrote on Quora for 365 days and in January 2015 landed on the front page of Reddit. That’s when he launched his own website, not to write, but to sell his products.
He continued writing on Quora and by the end of 2015, he’d become the King of Quora. He’d become the most-read writer on all of Quora.
It was not long before Huffington Post, TIME, Business Insider, Fortune, and Forbes, Inc. contracted him to write for them. In all, he’d accumulated over 5,000,000 views before he became an international sensation.
That’s when he released his book, The Art and Business of Online Writing, which became an instant best seller.
This is what Dr. Benjamin Hardy, the author of Personality Isn’t Permanent, wrote on the cover of The Art and Business of Online Writing, “My articles have been read by over 100 million people. Cole’s articles have been read more than mine, and I can personally attest this book will teach you everything you need to know to reach millions of people with your writing.”
If Cole had started writing on his website, would he have amassed 5 million views within three years?
Big influencers like Alex Hormozi, Gary Vee, and Ali Abdaal used established platforms to attract followers and not their websites.
On the other hand, top bloggers like Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, and Jon Morrow achieved huge success using their blogs.
Also, top course creators like Jenna Kutcher, Amy Porterfield, and Brendon Burchard used their websites to achieve stardom.
Tom Martin, in his “The Invisible Sale”, emphasized the importance of having a home base, embassies, outposts, and listening posts.
This is what Tom has in the book’s description:
- Discover the “invisible funnel,” where self-educated buyers are making decisions before you know they exist.
- Leverage Funnel Optimized website design to identify your prospects’ key challenges before you ever speak to them.
- Integrate social media, content, and email to optimize the entire prospecting process.
- Make every sales call count with behaviorally targeted email prospecting.
- Leverage Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to efficiently “prospect at scale”.
- Use the science of propinquity to choose “outposts,” strategize social networking, and drive offline campaigns.
- Save money by rightsizing production quality to each marketing requirement.
- Rapidly create keyword-rich text content, and use it widely to promote self-qualification.
- Create webinars and tutorials more easily and painlessly than you ever thought possible.
- Choose low-cost devices, apps, and software.
- Learn how to apply Aikido Selling Techniques to close self-educated buyers.
Tom discussed integrating and leveraging social media to efficiently “prospect at scale.”
What opponents of using third-party platforms to build a business emphasize is that the platforms don’t belong to you. The platform owners can decide to kick you out for infringing their policies.
The truth is that using your platform does not preclude you from using third-party platforms. You have to find a balance and be clear on what you want.
Using your website gives you flexibility and freedom to do whatever you want to do. You must balance this advantage against having access to thousands of eyeballs already available on established platforms.
In all, whether to start with your website or use established platforms is a choice you have to make.
There is no way to prospect at scale without social media. Your website comes in after you have established your reputation and fame as Nicolas Cole did.
For a beginner, who knows nothing about website optimization, script writing, and so on, Cole advises you to practice in public. That is, using social media.
Practicing in public is what Alex Hormozi calls paying down ignorance debt. When you practice in public, you have nowhere to hide. You’ll learn faster.
If you start with a website, you will be toiling for years in obscurity with very little feedback. Very likely, no one will even know you exist because your website will not be optimized and indexed to Google. You will be lost and forgotten with no hope of redemption.
To learn and gain traction, social media is the place to start. Once you become an “expert” you can create a home base and the sky will be your limit.
Looking at the matter closely, you soon discover that it’s not an ‘either-or’ decision. In short, it’s not a binary decision. You can have the best of both if you really know what to do.
Yes, whether to start with your website or use established platforms is a choice you have to make.
At any rate this is my personal take. You can create “Your Blog” as a beginner as I did and it will do you no good. You’ll waste thousands on domain name, domain renewal, hosting, website maintenance fees, etc. but it will remain a waste pipe for years. The reason is: NO ONE KNOWS YOU EVEN EXIST.
One of my webmasters once told me, “Your website is in your pocket.” When I asked why and what it meant, she replied, “Because no one knows your website even exits”. None of my blog posts had meta-tags and so on.
I’d earlier carried out a website review using Ubersuggest and one of the deficiencies of the site was absence of meta-tags. To be frank, I didn’t know what Ubersuggest was talking about.
The aim of being on social media is to attract buyers not followers as Khaby Lame. This may sound controversial and contradictory, so you have to understand the context.
Lame is a TikTok personality with over 3.6 billion views and makes money through endorsement deals and adverts.
As trainers, we monetize by selling courses, so having 100,000 subscribers is a worthy goal to aim for.
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