What Avatar Can Teach You About Repurposing Your Content

BlogPostman — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:58:49 +0000

The entertainment and CGI world has been fawning over the movie Avatar for months, and it seems you can’t watch any entertainment news program without hearing about James Cameron’s groundbreaking 3D epic. And even if Cameron went home last week without the armful of Oscars he expected, directing the highest-grossing movie of all time probably takes the sting out. But despite the movie’s brilliant effects and the unique world it creates, you’ll likely feel as if you’ve heard its underlying story before. In fact, you may very well predict the ending about an hour into the film. So what makes “Avatar” so special? Why did it create such a fanatic following, and what can it teach you about creating a following with your own blog and marketing content? What’s old is new again The basic premise of Avatar involves the protagonist learning the ways of the “enemy” but ultimately gaining a deeper understanding of what’s at stake and siding with them to destroy the hero’s original allies. Avatar’s storyline has been likened to science fiction stories from Edgar Rice Burroughs and dozens of popular movies, such as 1990s blockbuster Dances with Wolves . Avatar’s plot has been done before, clearly. But audiences still made it a box office leader. Instead of being bored to death by the same plot told over and over, we’re all suckers for a good story — even if we can guess what’s going to happen at the end. Just because you might be a little tired of your tried-and-true message doesn’t mean your audience is. Put their needs first. Put your old content back to work Take a look at your older content — even things you’ve written which haven’t been published online. And you don’t have to stop there. The public domain is practically bursting at the seams with sage advice and workable suggestions from well before the Internet, television, or even radio existed. Or, like I’ve done here with Avatar, you can take something people are thinking about and imagine a new slant on it. Ask yourself — Is there a way you could put a fresh new slant on any of these and make them relevant for today’s audience? Walt Disney made a fortune repurposing old fables and fairy tales into animated stories. He added a few tweaks to make them more memorable and interesting for a new generation of children, but the core plots remain unchanged, even hundreds of years later. Here are some great ways to rework your content: Rewrite your headline . You’ve come a long way with your writing (you’re reading Copyblogger, right?). It’s time to see if that great old post with a boring headline from the early days could use some magic. Create a bulleted list . Lists are easier for your readers to scan and get workable ideas from. Lists seem to talk to your readers, rather than at them, the way some paragraphs can. Turn it into a series . If you find that what you have to say about a particular older post becomes a little longer, why not rework it into a weeklong series? These can make for some of your most valuable cornerstone content. Making the connection In Avatar the native inhabitants of the planet can connect with other plants and animals so that connections can be shared at the speed of thought. When it comes to reworking your existing content, don’t hesitate to make your own connections by tapping into social media networks and getting ideas and feedback from your target audience. Create your own version of a social media digital campfire and start looking for exciting ways to stir up the enthusiasm in your readers. No matter how many ways they’ve heard the information before, you might just hit upon that “light bulb moment” that makes it all click! About the Author: Sherice Jacob is an author , copywriter, and designer who makes it her life’s mission to improve websites . For more writing insights, follow @sherice on Twitter.

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What Avatar Can Teach You About Repurposing Your Content

Blogging Lessons from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:00:46 +0000

A 40 year-old unsolved murder mystery. Strange cryptic codes in a bible. Sweden, sandwiches, and many, many cigarettes. The badass-est female protagonist since . . . forever. And an author who has, posthumously, caused quite a ruckus in the book world and in the minds of conspiracy theorists everywhere. Yes, I’m talking about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo . If you haven’t heard of it, the rest of us are inviting you to come out from under your rock. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy ( The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) is topping bestseller lists as we speak and the theatrical release of Dragon Tattoo hits the U.S. next week. I had the good fortune of screening an advanced copy and, of course, my mind went blog, blog, blog . Because that’s what blog obsessed people like us do. So here are the blogging lessons I learned from this tattooed ‘girl’ . . . Gasoline feeds a fire, but first there has to be a spark At one point in the movie, a man lies under a car. Having just flown off the side of the road, both he and the car are demolished, gasoline is spilling out everywhere . . . and he waits, watching, trapped. Finally there’s a spark . . . and then fire, total combustion. So often we have all of the ingredients, right? The design is just right, the writing is perfection, the research says that there’s a need for the content . . . but then, nothing. No traffic, no comments, no buzz. No combustion. What’s missing? There has to be a spark. Maybe it comes in the form of a new partnership, a referral, or an outside event (like a shortage of light bulbs) that makes your product (candles) suddenly burst into high demand. Maybe you have a life-changing event that triggers your passion. Maybe you read a book that causes something to click in your brain or your heart. And then, there’s no stopping the heat. Nothing more, nothing less Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo, is a woman of few words, but they’re always the right ones. She communicates through her gestures, carefully chosen words and even her silences. To some people around her, this is maddening. But others totally get it and they pay incredibly close attention to her. They listen closely . . . and they also watch. As a blogger, what you don’t say can be as important as what you do say. Do you find the positive in challenging situations, gleaning lessons and inspiring others? Or do you bitch and moan, spreading negativity? Do you stick to your topic? Or is your blog scattered, full of everything under the sun? Do you promote everything that could be remotely related to your blog? Or do you bow out of a big launch that, for one reason or another, isn’t quite right for your readers? What is the significance of what you leave on the blogging room floor? Document everything In the movie, as Blomkvist and Salander try to solve the mystery, they are aided again and again by the record-keeping of other characters, the police, the newspapers, and themselves. It’s the last, ‘themselves,’ that holds the lesson. Working to uncover this decades-old secret, the investigators look for the needle in the proverbial haystack. With so much unknown, their path to discovery lies in documenting every thought they have, literally pinning them to the wall for examination — and never, ever brushing aside even one moment of insight or possibility. Ideas for blog content, joint venture partnerships, promotions, ebooks — and even tweets and Facebook updates — often shoot through our brains at a fast and furious pace. Blogging fodder is everywhere. It’s in the conversation you have with the souvlaki guy outside your building every day at lunch, it’s in the color of the car that just drove by, it’s in the ad that you saw for hairplugs. If you don’t grab these ideas as they fly by, they will keep flying. Trust me. Write it all down. Nail it to the wall. Even the thoughts that seem impossible, unreachable, or just plain ridiculous. The clue to your own success will lie in your own observations and insights. Don’t lose them. It’s hard to be brilliant all by yourself The story’s protagonists bounce their ideas off one another — and often hear brilliance in their partner’s ramblings. Blogging is about community. Who can you bounce ideas off? Who might hear your mumblings and, in turn, grab you by the shoulders and tell you that you’re actually onto something? Who can you help by being a sounding board? You might have someone’s missing piece in your back pocket. Like a tattoo, things are permanent on the internet Lisbeth has many tattoos, including a dragon covering her entire back. Getting ink like that is a serious commitment. Yes, you can have laser surgery to get a tattoo removed, but from what I can tell, it never completely disappears. A scar is left behind. And I’m told the process is neither pleasant nor easy. If we really want to get deep here, we can go so far as to say that your memory of the tattoo can never be removed. Blogging is also a commitment. We commit our time, we commit our creativity, we commit our resources. And every time we hit ‘publish’ we commit to our ideas. The internet is a pretty permanent place and it’s hard to ‘take it back’ once the words are out there. Yes, you can go to the trouble of having something uncached — but again, it isn’t pleasant or easy. People will remember your post, they may have even printed your words on paper. We’re time-stamped and cached, linked to and quoted, and even scraped. Be as sure as you can be each and every time you share. Don’t underestimate anyone Played perfectly by Noomi Rapace, Lisbeth is mysterious, tattooed, and pierced. She’s also tiny, often mistaken for a skinny, 14 year-old boy and underestimated because of her small size. But she’s able to fight off grown men — both physically and mentally — time and again. I believe the appropriate term here would be scrappy ass-kicker. And it works to her advantage. She has surprise on her side and she’s impressive, even to those who don’t particularly like her. With a blogosphere more crowded than a Twilight premier (and some days with just as much screaming), it’s a phenomenal idea to stand out. It’s the old case of man bites dog. What can you do, how can you say it, where can you share it so that it lands like a snowman in a cranberry bog? (That is: with a splash, much coolness, and bright by contrast.) Lisbeth is also the underdog. To be honest, she’s the runt. But a few people look beyond that (or don’t even see it at all) and take a chance on her. It helps her, of course, but it also helps them. They don’t see her size, her income, her appearance, her odd personality, her history. They see her skill, her brilliance, her dedication, her inherent goodness. How many Top 10, 25, 50, 100 lists have you seen that tout the best bloggers, the best writers, the twitterati? Sadly, many people get caught up in these lists and think that these people are the only ones to do business with or read, because they look good on paper. But we all start somewhere. Chris Brogan just wrote that it took him 8 years to get 100 subscribers on his blog — and look at him now. As bloggers we can only help each other and the quality of the blogosphere by discovering new talent, sharing what we know and giving people a chance. No matter how small and skinny . . . no matter how many tattoos. About the Author : Julie Roads invites you to join the Dragon Tattoo Blog HUNT — an internet wide scavenger hunt tied to the feature film launch of bestselling book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. You can win great prizes — free movie tickets, books, movie soundtrack, posters and more. To join the contest, start at the beginning of the HUNT by visiting www.dragontattoofilm.com/contest for full details and the first clue. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is in theaters near you starting March 19th. THE NEXT CLUE: Rachel Bilson & Christina Ricci are celebrity supporters of this national network that fights violence against women. Their strong volunteer program just goes to show that when kindness RAINNS , it pours.

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Blogging Lessons from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

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What Avatar Can Teach You About Repurposing Your Content

Blogging Lessons from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo