It’s noisy online. How does anyone get heard on the web, Facebook, or Twitter? Even with only 200 friends on Facebook I struggle to hear anyone. And on Twitter, even my two friendly followers have hundreds of people they follow and thousands of people who follow them.
The Internet is like a crowded cocktail party. From any spot in the room the chatter sounds like a stream of noise, yet up close you can tune in to a limitless number of conversations. For this reason it’s hard to attract an online audience and even harder to keep their attention.
So, how do you do it? I don’t know yet. But I know others do. And I know that success at any goal can be broken down into three steps – Define It, Get It, and Get It Done. So, if Define It is the goal and Getting It Done is just doing it, what is Getting It? Well, I define Getting It to be the activity of deconstructing any goal into the few factors that truly matter to success. In the context of building an online audience, although Getting It Done is not, Getting It is simple:
- Content: People with little to say stand alone at cocktail parties and online. Excellent content helps, but producing any appealing content matters most. Writing is akin to manufacturing and a writer must produce.
- Publishing: It’s gotten harder and easier to publish. The collapse of the traditional publishing industries – books and journalism – has made it harder and easier and self publishing has never been easier. Writers must seek out traditional and self publishing and build online communities.
- Promotion: Whether it be traditional or online publishing, writing is a business of self-promotion – like success in many facets of life, it’s about getting your voice heard. Hence, writers must become self-promoters, a la the shameless, noisy, and remarkable one-time author, Tim Ferris.
Now, think of your most important goal. What really matters to success? Are you Getting It?