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001 Two Challenges All Digital Content Must Conquer

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001 Two Challenges All Digital Content Must Conquer

March 2, 2015

001 Two Challenges All Digital Content Must Conquer

The web gives you the opportunity to have a voice. The only problem is there are two almost-insurmountable obstacles standing in your way.

We all love the web. It’s changed the way we communicate, research, and write. More importantly, it’s opened up opportunities for you. To build a website, publish a blog.

You now have a voice.

But you are still a voice on a dark, dark sea … because web content is buried beneath billions of web pages. And if anyone actually finds your page, will they read it or simply ignore it?

So, if you want to have fun and make a living on the web as a writer, you have to learn how to write on the web so you get found … and you have to write in such a way that when people find you, they care about you.

In this roughly 4-minute episode you’ll discover:

  • A very brief history of the birth of the web
  • Why knowing everything about the sex pheromone of boar saliva maybe isn’t that great
  • The goofy way we get to emote
  • The two challenges all web content faces
  • The strange reason you should be actually encouraged

Listen to Rough Draft below ...

001 Two Challenges All Digital Content Must ConquerDemian Farnworth
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The Show Notes

  • The Elements of Content Strategy
  • A History of the Web
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The Transcript

Two Challenges All Digital Content Must Conquer

Demian Farnworth: Hi, welcome to Rough Draft, the daily podcast that delivers the essential writing advice you need to succeed online as a writer. I’m your host, Demian Farnworth, Chief Content Writer for Copyblogger Media. And thank you for sharing the next four minutes of your life with me.

A Very Brief History of the Birth of the Web

Let’s start with a simple history lesson on this inaugural episode of Rough Draft. Taking you back — I don’t know — two decades to the early 1990s. There was a host of developers. Scientists. Programmers. Men and a few women joking about servers. Sharing. Communicating across universities, governments, and defense agencies.

The Goofy Way to Get to Emote

And then this thing happened. They connected all of these networks together. It was like a chain letter. You could search. People celebrated this development. And it would not be an understatement to say it has changed our lives. The way we communicate, shop, research, emote.

Yeah, emote. Some people say it brings out the worst in people. I can’t argue with that. But it seems wonderful the way we have information — at our fingertips.

Why Knowing Everything About the Sex Pheromone of Boar Saliva Maybe Isn’t That Great

That information, though, is large. It’s gargantuan. It is beyond comprehension. But if I want to know what the sex pheromone of boar saliva has to do with truffles (mushroom variety).

Now this gets at the crux of the web. Because of the amount of content. But who is creating all this content.

The Two Challenges All Web Content Faces

All content on the web suffers from two main challenges: obscurity and neglect.

When I say obscurity, I mean web content is buried beneath billions of web pages. By neglect, I mean if someone actually finds your page, they’ll more than likely ignore it or abandon it.

The web also opens up opportunities for you to build a website, publish a blog. You now have become a voice. But you are still a voice in a dark, dark sea. If you want to have fun, make a living on the web, you have to get found. And when people find you, they have to care about you.

The Strange Reason You Should Be Actually Encouraged

Here’s something you can be encouraged by: “the fact that anyone reads anything at all online is a demonstration of an extraordinary hunger for content.” Erin Kissane, author of The Elements of Content strategy.

That should encourage you that there are people out there who want information. Who are looking for entertainment. Would like to be educated. And you could quite possibly be the person who does that. The question is, are you going to be found? And when they find you, will they actually care to read what you have? And that’s the point of Rough Draft.

This podcast will teach you the tips, the strategies and the tactics that you need to know in order to not only survive online but actually thrive, be found and become noticed in a world full of noise.

I’ll see you in the next episode of Rough Draft.

Rough Draft is brought to you by Authority Rainmaker, a carefully designed live educational experience that presents a complete and effective online marketing strategy to help you immediately accelerate your business. Don’t miss the opportunity to see Dan Pink, Sally Hogshead, punk legend Henry Rollins, and many other incredible speakers live … not to mention the secret sauce of it all: building real-world relationships with other attendees. Get all the details right now at rainmaker.fm/event, and we look forward to seeing you in Denver, Colorado this May. That’s rainmaker.fm/event.

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Comments

  1. Erik van Mechelen says

    March 16, 2015 at 8:39 PM

    Thanks Demian! Looking forward to more and modeling my network after you guys! Just trying to get my show lists to show up favorably in my theme. Cheers and will be listening.

    Reply
    • Demian Farnworth says

      March 17, 2015 at 11:10 AM

      Hey Erik, you’re welcome. Thanks for listening. And good luck on your network!

      Reply
  2. Ramin says

    March 23, 2015 at 2:10 AM

    I like the short format. With longer podcasts, I tend to start multitasking when I listen, but four minutes I just listen.
    Personally, I’d like at least one piece of actionable advice from an episode. Something I can take and put to use in our business, and this was missing in this first episode.

    Reply
    • Demian Farnworth says

      March 23, 2015 at 3:18 PM

      Great point, I did spend a few episodes laying some groundwork, but I’ll make up for it in the future. Like today’s episode for example: crash course on link building. 😀

      Reply
  3. Morgan Hamish says

    June 2, 2015 at 2:32 PM

    Quite hard to listen to these episodes. You’re doing some weird sexy sensual voice that you didn’t do on other podcasts, makes me feel really ikky! Like the Rainmaker thing but this podcast is really slimey! I imagine you’ll get better as you go but at the moment the over-emphasis and sexing up of some words and the way you break up sentences, I feel is very damaging to a potentially really resourceful podcast. Very peculiar, half-sedated-half-inebriated sounding Iggy Pop look-a-like!

    Reply
    • Demian Farnworth says

      June 4, 2015 at 7:18 AM

      Well, I guess you can’t win them all. Though being compared to Iggy Pop isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Even if it’s a bad version of Iggy. 😀

      Reply
      • Peter Haas says

        June 22, 2015 at 6:39 PM

        I think your unique tone and inflection are great – it really fits your copywriting style.

        Please don’t change it, your style inspires me to not attempt to sound like everybody else.

        Judging by how well you’ve been received in wider circles, I’d say there are plenty of other people who are fans of your style also.

        Reply
        • Demian Farnworth says

          June 23, 2015 at 7:57 AM

          Thanks for the encouragement, Peter. I try to be as natural as I can, and yes, for the most part it seems about 82 percent of people who rate it on iTunes give it five stars. 😀 So I’m doing something right. 😀

          Reply

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