What Is Your Lighthouse Product?

You never actually reach the lighthouse, but you use it as a guiding principle every step of the way in order to dock your boat in the harbour successfully.

I heard this very interesting idea in a meeting when the concept of a lighthouse product was shared with me. A lighthouse product is something that will likely cost too much money and time to ever create, but everything you do should be moving you in that direction.

To that note, my friend Bill (owner of www.empirebuilding.net) and I have begun a new Facebook community page called The Social Branding Network. It essentially replaces my experiment of the coreytyhurst.com fan page, and has a focus on discussing issues surrounding personal and professional branding in everything you do, particularly online.

The name is very deliberate:


Social- This is a place for conversation, debate, and asking questions. I've learned from my mistakes that there is no point in having a community page unless you are active in it!


Branding- It's all about branding; personal, professional, location, product. You name it, we want to talk about branding it.


Network- You cannot have a conversation without a network. As such, this is a place for those who may or may not know each other to meet others and explore what different perspectives have to offer.

You'll also note that the logo design is very similar to the Empire Building Network. This is deliberate as well. Bill and I are working together to help promote our social networks, and we wanted that to be clear to everyone involved.

If you are interested, you can visit the page or "Like" it via the big box on the right, or by clicking here. I expect it will often contain articles from your favourite sites like Mashable and Digg, but we also hope that it can have some unique content; be it user created or even pictures and videos that exemplify how important it is to take your brand by the horns and actively manage it.

There is still much work to do on www.coreytyhurst.com as well as on my personal blog to be sure. However a career in brand building can take many paths, and I feel like this step is moving me a little bit closer to my lighthouse product.

Personal Marketing Plan Fail- I Probably Need Better Content!

Well, my first attempt of getting people to give me and kaitsouch.com feedback on the design for coreytyhurst.com hasn't gone very far, but I am staying resilient! To be fair, I haven't really been around to promote my $25 reward for helping Kait and I design my new personal website, but I thought for sure someone in my network would have at least liked my fan page and made a snarky comment. I probably overestimate the amount of time my friends actually spend online compared to me.

Luckily for me, this lack of traffic has allow me to notice that when I post something to my personal Facebook as well as the coreytyhurst.com page it will send out dual news feed updates. This would be uber annoying for anyone who has actually liked the fb page and has me in their news feed. What I'm not sure about is what to do about this...
On one hand, I could only post somethings to my personal page so I know my friends will see them... but then my fan page doesn't get updated. The other option is to only post to my fb page, but then all of my two fans will see the updates... I guess for now I just have to be choiceful and find a more convincing way for people to join my fb page than offering cash and interesting commentary!

One of the good things is that this gave me an opportunity to play around with Facebook ads. I put in a bid of $0.50 per click and a maximum of $2/day during the promotion (till the end of June). So far I've gotten 2 clicks, no signups, and a bill for $0.92!! Hardly successful, but this is an experiment more than a true ad campaign, so I'm not that upset by it.

Another interesting thing that I learned is that until you have 25 1000 people as fans, you have to have an obscenely long URL (mine is http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/?id=107132832663434#!/pages/coreytyhurstcom/107132832663434). Once you hit the magic number of 25 1000, you can set up a custom username/URL so it's easy to find and search for your fan page.

June 10 Update: Apparently Facebook just changed the threshold to 1000 people for a custom URL. Gonna need a whole lot more likes!

I think it just speaks to one of the truisms of the net: CONTENT IS EVERYTHING!! I guess I have more work to do! :)

EAVB_DUVHXDGAHT

Make $25CAD... the easy way!!

Want to win $25 in cold hard, Canadian cash? If so, check out coreytyhurst.com on Facebook and let me know what you think of my new website mockup! In collaboration with kaitsouch.com, I am launching the official coreytyhurst.com website in a few weeks, and I want my loyal fans (all 8 of you!) to give feedback and help make the site as good as it can be!

Kaitlyn Souch is a fledgling web designer and she has done a great job in preparing a site that really reflects my personal brand. I would recommend her work to anyone, so I thought I would share her expertise with the world by asking for input into the design of coreytyhurst.com.

Leave your comments... when the site launches Kait and I will pick the best fan feedback and I will send then $25CAD in cold, hard cash. It's easy, give constructive feedback, make sure it's better than everyone else', and you win $$$
(Note, this contest is for individuals only; no companies or 3rd party advertisers are permitted to win)

Here's the initial design (don't mind the spelling and language stuff... its just a draft!):

This puppy is going to be linked to my Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the coreytyhurst.com Facebook page, and many of my other social networking sites. If you like it, become a fan of coreytyhurst.com on Facebook!

About coreytyhurst.com:
This is a personal website where I will be sharing my latest endeavors in technology, media, video games, politics, economics, and anything else that I find interesting about how people interact in the crazy world we live in. I'm not out to make money, simply share my experiences with the world.

About kaitsouch.com:
Kaitlyn Souch is a web design student at Sir Sanford Fleming College. She has produced many multimedia projects, including websites, print, and photographic works. Her passion for design and her bubbly personality ensure that your project is done on time and without hassle.