Dealer Dan, pictured here with WWE Superstar Mick Foley, has been in internet marketing since 1996. He likes hugs, long walks on the beach, and making money while wearing his jammy jams. For more information, you can read all 
This week we are Thanking Feeny It’s Monday.
By “Feeny” I am of course referring to the man that guided Cory, Topanga and Shawn through Grade School, High School and even College in the awesome TV show Boy Meets World.
Thanks to that guidance, Cory and Topanga got together, stayed together(well, eventually) and become parents. The sort of parents that get to have a sitcom around their lives! Just a couple of weeks ago, Girl Meets World was announced, a quasi-sequel to Boy Meets World. Sadly it is more of its own show – but they can’t keep Feeny away for long.
Seriously, you have no idea how freaking pumped I am about this show. I felt the same euphoria that I felt when Netflix picked up Arrested Development.
During my teen years, I was into the punk scene. And I still have fond memories of those Friday nights. Prior to heading out to a club to jump around in the mosh pit and beat the crap out of each other, I’d force my friends to sit down and watch Boy Meets World while we pre-drank.
Amazing news, and I haven’t stopped smiling since. Let’s get rolling…
Productivity Tip of the Week:
I’ve written about this before – how on a regular basis I like to go through some of my quality websites like CasinoAnswers.com and lengthen an article. I’ll usually pick an article at random and add 100-200 words of relevant quality information on it.
We had purchased a couple of websites and had Casino Answers “eat them up”, so to speak. When we did that, I noticed there was a lot of content that was very short – only 100-300 words in length. So what I did was make a list of all of those articles – about 300 in all. Then every morning, part of my morning routine is to pick one of those articles at random, and turn it into a quality article of 600 words or more.
The whole process takes me maybe 20 minutes, and MAN does it feel good after it. Basically the very first thing I’ve did all morning is super productive, and it’s a great start to the day.
I’d recommend trying that – finding something you can do first thing in the morning to really get the ball rolling. It makes all those massive to do lists look a lot less daunting when you accomplish something immediately upon sitting down.
Shit That Kept Me Sane Last Month:
With this being a TV inspired T_IM, I thought it might be fun to add a new monthly section where I talk about any form of media that kept me entertained over the last month. When I work, I always have the TV on. It’s usually on a sports channel but if it’s tedious work I’ll have a TV show on. I usually have my Kindle nearby or my XBox on too – then if I need a quick break from work I go play video games for 10 minutes to recharge.
So the first week of every month I’ll do this section on AB:
TV Shows/Movies:
- Mad Men: I started this show in November, and now am almost all done it. Really loving it. If you’ve never seen it, try it. But go in with low as hell expectations. If someone said it was boring as shit, then I could completely understand that POV. It’s just one of those shows that you can get hooked on though. My wife, numerous times, has sat down and watched a bit of it with me and then asked “How can you watch this show? It’s boring.” Then I’ve pointed out that she has just spent the last 20 minutes engrossed in this “boring show”. That’s just how it is – plus Don Draper is the F’N Man.
- It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Finally got round to watching this, after having it recommended to me numerous times. Only watched the first season. Average, thus far.
Video Games:
- Batman Arkham City: This is pretty much the ultimate video game in general terms. A super fun story where everything about it is covered well – from the layout of the levels to the combat. Then when you’re done there’s a zillion more things to do before you’ve “beat” the game. I mean if you focus mostly on the main story, by the time you’re done it’s like you’ve barely even scratched the surface and still have many, many more hours of entertainment left.
- Sniper Elite 2: Awesome game if you have a buddy to play co-op with. Still fun on single player.
- Toejam & Earl: This was re-released for XBox Live Arcade and I picked it up. Not just a nostalgia run – this is still a really fun game that’s stood the test of time.
Books:
- Enid Blyton: If you’re not from the UK, you won’t know who this is most likely. If you ARE from the UK, you’re probably wondering WTF. I don’t know why, but I got an urging to go back and read this children book author, who kept me entertained through childhood. I read all 15 of the Five Finder-Outer books. It really does start to wear on you after awhile though, the simplicity of it, the racism, and of course the repeated sayings of “Rather!”. Plus it gives you cravings for lashings of ginger beer.
- Tom Cain: I read his first book, The Accident Man. Fantastic stuff. If you like that airport fiction, brain mush, lone hero/spy fiction style of book(Mitch Rapp, Jack Reacher etc), and I do, then this is perfect for you.
And that’s what kept me sane through November, and a little bit of December. Feel free to post in the comments with what you’re reading, watching or playing.
Simple Media Manipulation:
One thing that never fails to amaze me is how easy the media manipulate people. And they do it in a manner that makes them more money too, whether it is pageviews or buying their newspapers – people just can’t resist.
I mean just go to your local grocery store and look at some of the ridiculous headlines on one of those celebrity magazines. Yet people buy it because of that crap!
Seriously, the majority of people are just complete fools, and it really makes affiliate marketing so much easier. “Controversy Creates Cash” has never been a truer statement.
Take this week for example – it was announced that Kate Middleton was pregnant. Practically every news site or newspaper had this as their headline.
HOWEVER – every single one of these sites also had the sub-heading: Princess in hospital for morning sickness.
Now if you actually READ the article you’d know it wasn’t just morning sickness – it was a bit more serious than that. It was Hyperemisis Gravidarum. Of course, people are idiots who can’t take two seconds to actually read the details behind something, so every web article on the topic was littered by comments of people raging about this, and how they had morning sickness and never went to the hospital. All falling for the medias trap, which is to get them to add to the site as well as interact with the site, and also come back to the site. Plus then you have people who DID read the article in the comments arguing with them – exactly as the sites wanted them to do.
Another example of this was this article about Liam Ridgewell. To quickly sum it up – West Brom Football Liam Ridgewell made a bet with a friend. The friend lost and had to give Ridgewell money. Ridgewell, to taunt his friend, took a picture of him pretending to wipe his arse with the money.
That’s the actual story. No big deal, right? Yet the media version is slightly different. Let me bullet point the article for you:
- Describe Ridgewell as the “Vilest Footballer in Britain
- Mention that he makes £20k a week
- State that he uses cash as toilet paper
- States that this is a photo that should enrage every football fan in Britain.
- Reminds you he makes £20,000 a week.
- Alleges he actually uses cash instead of toilet paper.
- Points out his salary per week is the same as the average salary per year in the West Midlands.
- Posts quotes/testimonials from people backing up their claims about how vile it is.
What’s the point of this? To get people to share the article, as well as comment on it etc. And guess what? it worked.
- Shared 1471 times on Twitter
- 545 comments
- 6,500 likes on Facebook
Time and time again people get manipulated with ease. Really – pick up a newspaper or log onto a news website and just look at the way the majority of the stories are tilted – to raise controversy, and get people talking, sharing and viewing.
Of course I’m not complaining – with people like that it makes marketing a LOT easier. And don’t worry – they’ll never smarten up. You can run this type of marketing into the ground, and people will still swallow it hook, line and sinker.
Bleacher Report is living proof of that.
Awesome Marketing Video of the Week:
Major props to Microsoft for this ballsy video for IE 10:
I love it. That’s just fantastic marketing for about a million reasons, yet it’s also so basic. They picked a portion of potential customers – the ones that used to use IE and have now left – and really targeted them by learning about their problems with IE and presenting it in a humorous fashion, manipulating their mindset along the way.
Beautiful.
Motivational Video of the Week:
It HAS to be from an episode of Boy Meets World of course.
If you want you can watch the full, awesome episode:
Or just skip to the motivational lesson learning climax which is at 18:08 and watch the last few minutes.
The theme of it is simple: Nothing Is Impossible.
That’s the mindset you should have this week. Look at all your potential work, look at all your potential goals, and realize that nothing is impossible, and you can achieve it all.
Then go do it.
Now if you don’t mind, I’m off outside to scrape my car. We had freezing rain last night, and the car is just covered in it. Of course I’m not worried – I’ll be able to scrape it all off. Why? Because nothing is impossible.
Sometimes it’s just a pain in the ass!
This article was written on December 10, 2012 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.
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