Once upon a time a woman decided to start writing a blog….called Ordinary Legacy.
It’s pretty cool. It’s about the everyday, the ordinary little things and thoughts and feelings that make up a life. It’s mostly about her life, because that’s what she knows best, but she includes bits and pieces from all her experiences which obviously include other people. She believes that most lives are ordinary but the residual effects of those lives have the potential to leave an extraordinary legacy. With me so far? One of these days she is hoping to retire from the really cool job she has now and expand Ordinary Legacy into a book or seminars or who knows what possibilities there might be. Still with me? That would require that people know about it….and are open to it…..and are already talking about it. That, in the world of what’s happening at this very moment, is called a platform. She’s writing, because she loves it and has something to say, and to build a platform so people can hear it. How the hell does one do that?
Well, first by getting people to read the blog. Third base….
Her people can subscribe to the blog by giving their email address. How fabulous is that? You can get the post right there in your mailbox each time she hits publish. If they like the post they can FORWARD it to their friends and ask them to subscribe. And so on and so on…she can then see on her site stats how many people are following her blog through email.
Then there is the ubiquitous Facebook which many of her fans don’t really get… Just sayin. If you choose to go to www.ordinarylegacy.com to read the post you will find at the end of every post, I mean every post, never missed one yet:
This will put the link and the picture and the title of the post on YOUR WALL. Translation; all your 597 friends will see that you are reading Ordinary Legacy. If you put a comment like, I enjoy reading this really cool blog then maybe they will too…..just sayin.
So every time she posts to her blog, she also shares the post on the Ordinary Legacy Fan page on Facebook. Have you been there? When you’re on Facebook just go to search and type in Ordinary Legacy, its the first thing to come up, give it a click and it will take you right there, no problem. Works every time and if you think the Fan page is cool, you should hit…wait for it…LIKE, which you see below, I’ve already done.
The more people who like the fan page, the bigger her platform begins to grow. Whew it’s tough this platform building thing.
To make it even tougher, and this is where she loses a lot of her friends. There is a difference, a big difference, HUGE difference between LIKE and SHARE on an individual timeline entry.
Stay with me now it’s not really all that hard. If you LIKE an individual entry (Thanks Liz, you’re the best), that’s really nice and it makes a person feel really good, but no one knows about it, just the person. It doesn’t go anywhere, it stays right there on the timeline and well it’s nice, really. No growth, no platform anything. But it’s nice, really.
However, if you SHARE and put in that same comment; I enjoy reading this really cool blog, then guess what happens? Your 597 friends will see this on your timeline and maybe, just maybe, take a click over to Ordinary Legacy and subscribe or SHARE with their 257 friends and so on and so on and so on.
From there a platform is born and the potential of Ordinary Legacy grows by leaps and bounds. Pretty soon the woman can just keep writing and stop worrying about whether or not her retirement from her really cool job will transition into another really cool job blogging about ordinary people leaving extraordinary legacies…like hers.
Notice there is never a mention of what might happen if you think the blog sucks…
She could just live happily ever after, just sayin.