The
upcoming sections describe two features that served as different
advertising experiments hoping to draw the right audience
to my website. One of them was more successful than the other,
but both taught me a great deal about the effects of deliberately
over-hyping expectations and allowing gradual diffusion across
the internet.
I
don’t sell anything through my site, but it still offers
both a service AND a product, and each is promoted in their
own way. In the service role, it serves multiple purposes.
One of the main is simple entertainment – people tune
in to see what new stuff is going on, or they tune in to watch
old stuff they’ve seen before in the archive section.
Another purpose is reminiscence, geared mostly towards people
I know personally, who tune in to go through the hundreds
of photographs I have archived for viewing.
The website also offers a product
– and that’s ME! If I’m trying to make a
good impression to a perspective employer who wants to see
my artistic or creative abilities, then this is where I send
him. I maintain and update this site to make sure that it
remains a consistent and adequate representation of both myself
and the service it offers.
One last thing before we get
into the features themselves: the advertising that is done
to draw people to my site is all done for free. It takes a
long time to create the features I intend to send out in hopes
of them finding the right kind of people and drawing them
in, but in terms of financial cost – I don’t spend
a dime.
I’ve found that there are
effective ways to advertise on the net for free, and I’m
about to show you a couple of examples. Afterwards, I’ll
explain the benefits of what I do, and the consequences I
suffer for being so visible on the internet.
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