Well, Its a new month. and as with last month ill be starting off with a Minecraft post ^^
Minecraft is the phenomenal indie Java game that's swept the Internet, and, given the sea of copycats springing up out there, might yet prove to revolutionize the game industry. Here, I'm going to use seven game lessons as metaphors for Internet Marketing:
1. Build you first night's shelter *fast*!
In Minecraft, you start with the environment around you and two empty hands. In about ten minutes, "nighttime" in the game will fall and monsters come out to kill you. You have to be fast to succeed the first night. Similarly, in web businesses you want to be self-sustaining as soon as possible. The longer your web business isn't paying for itself, the more it's going to feel like you're taking a beating instead of getting ahead.
2. Be willing to explore.
You're unlikely to have everything you need right in front of you. Maybe you spawned near trees and some sand and dirt; but you're still going to have to find lava, clay, animals, and resources if you want the full game experience. In Internet Marketing, no matter how much you know, there's more you don't know. There's web business models out there waiting to be discovered. Just when you think you've seen everything, along comes some wise guy who has a new way of doing business you never thought of before.
3. The competition isn't tough, just numerous.
In Minecraft, you have enemies which include spiders, zombies, skeletons, and "creepers" which you'll discover are the most bothersome. There's a lot of them and you always have to keep an eye out for them, but the good news is that none of them have very sophisticated AI. They see you, they charge, you kill them, they die. Likewise in web marketing, it may seem like everybody else has a secret formula for getting in the first page of search results or converting more customers. In fact, everybody's using the same tools you are - it's just tough to make it because there's a lot of hands competing for each dollar.
4. Dig deep!
In Minecraft, diamonds, gold, coal, lapus lazuli, and iron are all waiting for you to dig them up and convert them into handy resources and tools. and so with Internet Marketing, there's a lot of money out there that's spread very thin. Take a miner's view of it. Grind for 100 yards and make ten dollars in ad impressions. Well, keep grinding!
5. Impress yourself first.
If you play Minecraft in single-player, at times it feels like a lonely game while you build your castles and railroads. But it is still fun, as long as you're building something beautiful and impressive. If all you end up with is an ugly mud hut, then it feels twice as lonely. In the web business game, your product and your site should wow you, first. Your own criticism comes free, after all, so if you feel like you believe in your own business, your customers will too.
6. Tinker and invent.
Minecraft rewards the tinkerer. Go on YouTube and there's thousands of crafters showing off their work. Using the "redstone" element which acts like electrical wiring, together with other mechanical devices in the game, they've built working calculators, roller coasters, water slides, player pianos, harvesting systems, and even a full-scale model of the Starship Enterprise! Likewise, in Internet Marketing, there's tons of geeky toys to play with and connect together into profitable systems in new ways. What gadget written in PHP, Javascript, or Flash could you have on your site right now to draw visitors? Could the pieces to put together the next Twitter be right in front of you?
7. Gain fame by showing off your work.
Of course, those YouTube videos I mentioned, in themselves, are sometimes clever Internet Marketing. As with the Second Life game, businesses are starting to use Minecraft to market themselves. Even without the Minecraft metaphor, you don't need us to tell you that advertising your work to the world is the way to get people to appreciate it.
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