“Build it, and they will come.” Everybody remembers this line from Kevin Costner’s film Field of Dreams. It’s an inspiration to anyone who’s creating a new business online, whether you’re building a website, starting a Facebook page or Twitter feed or posting your photos on Flickr.
We all think that if we build it, someone will indeed come. But too many of us are waiting too long wondering when that will finally happen.
Today’s Copyblogger post, “How to Keep Kevin Costner from Ruining Your Blog and Business,” deconstructs the wishful-thinking approach of most websites and social media efforts and can help businesspeople avoid wasting time online on things that don’t work.
The biggest pitfall? Not having a real reason to be reaching out to your audience to turn them into customers — a Unique Selling Proposition.
Instead, most web marketers focus on what stuff they have to sell or give away to their online visitors, whether it’s ebooks, photos or checklists.
On today’s web where more than a million new sites are added every month, you need a better reason than that for people to visit your site, read your blog or follow your Twitter feed.
Really, it’s just old fashioned marketing. What value can you offer to what kind of person?
