We channeled questions we hear from lensmasters every day and unleashed them on our founder. Essentially what a lot of people wonder is “I’ve made a lens. Now what?” Here is a short interview with Seth about what to *do* once you’ve created those masterpiece lenses. Hint: Diving in and being fearless is important. Publishing and shipping are critical. But after that, waiting for readers and fame and traffic and love isn’t the answer.
1. I’ve written the best lens I know how. It’s niche, it’s timely, it’s got a ton of unique content, personal stories and places for people to participate and give feedback. I’ve spent hours on the lens but it is getting absolutely no traffic. What can I do?
SETH: My rule is “first, ten.” What happens when you expose this, by hand, to ten people you like and trust (and that like and trust you?). If the ten are moved, amused or motivated, they’ll each tell four people and the next thing you know, you’re on your way. But if the ten say, “that’s nice,” then it’s not as good as you thought it was.
2. Squidoo HQ is constantly teaching us how to make masterpiece lenses and great content, but I can’t feel that I’m missing a step. Why doesn’t my remarkable content spread?
SETH: Spreading ideas is more than just being really good. It’s about leading a tribe, using your social network as a lever to do work for them, to connect them, to create ideas that they WANT to spread. You don’t need a lot of people, but those people need to be motivated to spread the word as well. The tribe might be a few bloggers who count on you for insights or reciprocation. It might be your church. There are people everywhere and they are waiting for ideas they should or could spread.
3. What three things should I do immediately after hitting the Publish button on a new lens?
SETH: Are there ten bloggers that you reference, link to, comment on and engage with? If not, there should be. If there are, then let them know when you make a new lens. Or build similar relationships with people on Facebook or twitter or on your own blog.
4. I have a lens that is one month old. When it was new it got a fair amount of traffic and comments but now there’s nothing. How can I renew interest and attention to this lens?
SETH: If you were one of the visitors, would YOU go back? If not, what would it take? How can you create personal interactions, promote individuals and their ideas, create news, highlight new Amazon products, generate and maintain debates…
5. People always talk about getting the word out, using Facebook or Twitter or email or whatever. But at some point doesn’t getting the word out too much turn into spam? When do you know if you’ve overstepped your bounds and people don’t want to hear from you anymore?
SETH: When it’s about you, not them. When they don’t ask “where have you been?” When they don’t respond…
Find a regular schedule. Anticipated, personal and relevant messages always outperform spam.
6. I really don’t understand how to use Twitter to spread the word about my lenses. Can you give me 5 hypotheticals of what I could do?
SETH: Why will people choose to follow you?
Book picks
Contests, spotlights
Interesting debates, polls, quizzes
Newsworthy analysis
Personalities
Imagine that the Apple iPad is announced or Tiger Woods quits golf or there’s a big stock market adjustment. It’s one thing to write a sentence or two, but what happens if you use a lens to dive deeper, to highlight links and pictures and tweets or debates? Won’t there be people who want to be updated when you do that?
7. Same goes for Facebook actually. My friends don’t care if I just updated my Squidoo lens. So how am I supposed to get them interested in visiting it?
SETH: I’m not kidding here: get new friends.
You can either make lenses your friends are in to (mostly personal and personality stuff) or you can find friends who like the lenses you want to build.
Most of the people who read my blog don’t like ME. They like what I write about, because I write about THEM.
8. Are blogs outdated, and am I wasting my time running a blog about Squidoo and Squidoo lenses and tips for making them? It seems like everyone is too much in a hurry to read a blog.
SETH: “Everyone” is a group you will never be able to reach. Don’t worry about everyone. Worry about just enough someones.
9. Megan is always talking about how we should all play “Editor in Chief” of our favorite niche topics, but I still don’t get it. What do I get out of spotlighting OTHER people’s lenses?
SETH: Once again, the way you need to act on behalf of people with many choices. People will follow you and listen to you when you start acting for them, as opposed to for you.
10: I’ve been on Squidoo now for a few months and I have dozens of high ranking lenses but not a lot of sales or traffic. How long should it take for me to get traffic/sales results?
SETH: I think generating revenue is a byproduct of two things: 1. build a tribe, an audience, people who trust you, and 2. build lenses that lend themselves to commerce (if that’s your thing). If a lens is all about buying a book, you’re going to sell a book. If you picked something like the Dilbert collection, which was marked down over Christmas from $80 to $30, you might have sold ten or twenty. That’s a decent return for one month for one lens.
Bonus Question! Your new book Linchpin is great, but how does it apply to a regular old Squidoo lensmaster?
SETH: Be brave. Don’t ask for instructions. Do things that frighten you. Make connections. Do art first, commerce second. Squidoo is a platform, just waiting for you to invent bold new ways to use it.
Go! Make something happen.
