Well, it's finally here, the very first episode of my new podcast for bloggers and entrepreneurs "Above The Fold". After weeks of planning, getting things together, learning how to use certain software, and setting up the mic, I recorded my first show over the weekend. Tune in below.
I can't believe that 18 minutes of audio content took me almost 2 hours to record! Once again I was trying to achieve perfection and although I talked about the stuff I wanted to in this show, I'm not entirely happy with it, but it's my first podcast show since 2013, so things can only get better from here on.
OK so here's a summary of what in episode 1:
A brief introduction about who I am (for those connecting with me for the first time via the podcast), a little bit about my blogging background, mistakes, and experiences. For those having to hear or read all this again, my apologies to you sincerely, but I wanted to add a good introduction in the first show, especially for those I'm connecting with for the first time.
I talk about my upcoming eBook, and I share with you some tips for taking action!
Hey, what's up everybody and welcome to the very first episode, episode 1 of 'Above The Fold', I'm Fabrizio Van Marciano and I'm so excited and so happy to be back sitting behind the microphone and doing this whole podcasting thing again.
I used to run a podcast show a few years ago with my previous blog Magnet4Marketing, and I think I put out about 5 or 6 episodes, and I had the whole thing set up on iTunes and everything else, and of course when I took that blog offline in early 2014, I stopped recording any further shows and yeah! I have missed it! So I'm really happy and super, super excited to be back doing it all over again and this time people...
I'll be doing it for a little bit longer than last time, let's see how things go.
As far as podcasting goes, I think it's a fantastic platform; it's a brilliant medium to be used to put out your content, and not enough bloggers are doing it.
I mean with podcasting you can reach out to a whole new audience, so seriously folks, if you've been thinking about putting out a podcast show for your blog, stop thinking about it, and get out there and take action! Do it.
OK so, what I want to use this particular episode for is, is to introduce myself properly, especially if we're connecting for the very first time, for all you new visitors and listeners, I just want to share a little bit about my blogging background, and how I got started and the mistakes I made and the valuable lessons I've learned along the way.
I'd also like to use this episode to share with you some exciting news about my upcoming eBook launch.
I've been working very hard for the last 3 or 4 months on this eBook, it's called the Definitive Guide to Smarter Blogging, and it's essentially a power guide containing my tips, ideas, techniques, and effective strategies and my personal insights for not only building your blog the smart way but also becoming a smarter blogger, so I'll be talking a little bit more about that and give you a sneak peek into some of the content of that eBook.
And finally, I want to use this episode to share with you some motivational tips for taking action.
I think it's a very important topic these days, especially amongst newbie bloggers and entrepreneurs, we don't take action enough you know, we plan to do things but that's as far as it goes, we put things off, we wait for the perfect time to come and guess what?
Before we know it, the time has gone by and we've done nothing, we plan not to take action that's as far as it gets, so I'll be sharing with you some tips to get you motivated to take action.
Right, let's get started.
So if this is your first visit on my blog or first time listening to my show, and we're connecting for the first time, I just want to welcome you warmly and thank you mostly, thank you for taking the time out to tune in and listen to the show, I truly appreciate it and I truly appreciate YOU!
I'm super honored to have you here with me, and I hope you'll stick around or even subscribe below to my email newsletter, check out some of the content I already have on my blog, or even look forward to the Future Episodes of Above The Fold.
Hopefully, I'll be able to share with you some truly amazing content, useful information, and techniques that you can use and implement into your own blogging strategies and effectively help you build a better and more successful blog.
So as I said my name is Fabrizio Van Marciano, I'm not Italian and I'm not Dutch, I was born on the small island of Mauritius and raised in England from an early age.
I've been blogging since the middle part of 2010, but before that, I was running an online business selling original artwork, in fact, I still do create and sell art online from time to time.
So the whole blogging thing came about in early 2010, I was influenced by the likes of Darren Rowse from Pro Blogger.net and John Chow from John Chow.com, and essentially it was following and reading those very blogs that kind of inspired me to start my own blog, and so I started my first blog Magnet4Marketing in July 2010, and I ran that blog for almost 4 years.
You know I built up a pretty good reputation online, I had a small audience and I was getting comments and lots of traffic and whatnot, I was making some genuine connections with other bloggers, some whom I'm still connected with today in fact.
But unfortunately, I had to take the blog offline in March 2014 because, well, I made a lot of mistakes like any newbie does, I mean Magnet4Marketing was my first blog, previously to that I had no experience in blogging or using WordPress or doing internet marketing stuff or knew even how to build an audience properly and what have you, so although I was learning all of these things I was making a lot of costly mistakes in the same process.
And looking back now, you know... I'm kind of glad and thankful that I made those mistakes, because I wouldn't be where I am today, I wouldn't have the focus and mindset that I have today with my current blog, those mistakes have made me a smarter blogger, like I said making those costly errors has completely changed my mindset, my focus, my approach, and I'm loving what I'm doing over at Magnet4Blogging.
I'm reaching out and connecting with people in my niche like I've never done before, I'm creating some amazing content for my audience like I've never done before, I'm learning new things still and applying myself consistently, and I'm loving blogging, and I think that's what it's truly about.
You know I put my hands up and I'm not ashamed to admit that I am a blogging failure, I failed with my first blog, I made a lot of mistakes, learned from them and moved on.
I think one of the most valuable things that I can take away from my early blogging experience is not just the mistakes I made, but also all the useful things I learned from namely other bloggers at the time.
During those years I connected with a few influential bloggers with a lot more experience and knowledge than I had, and needless to say I learned some amazing stuff from following, reading and reaching out to those bloggers for help, and I'm really happy I did that.
So as I said earlier I wanted to keep the introduction brief but if you really want to learn more about me and my blogging journey, or my goals and objectives with Magnet4Blogging, please do check out my about page at magnet4blogging.net/about/
OK so I want to move on now and share with you some of the formalities, basically what you can expect from future episodes of Above The Fold, some of the content ideas that I have for future shows.
So one of the reasons why I also decided to start a podcast for this blog was because I realized how powerful and effective the medium was to use to distribute content on and reach out to a whole new audience you know.
Also, I think that it's a great way for you folks following me to consume my content, sometimes it's hard to find time to read blog posts, I mean I struggle to find time to read blog posts being a busy dad and all, and listening to podcasts is perfect.
And these days we all use mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, and so what better way to distribute content, and moreover, for you to consume content on the go, than to tune into a podcast? What better way?
So what I hope to be able to provide through these podcast shows is more of my tips, ideas, strategies, insights into blogging, I want to be able to share with you what's working for me, and what's not, and also I want to be able to bring in special guests, influential people in my niche, do interviews with other bloggers and to give them a chance to share something valuable with you guys, and on that very note...
On that very note peeps, I am hoping that episode 2 will see my first guest, I can't promise anything or name that person just yet, there's some confirmation and other formalities to do beforehand but I'm certainly hoping that I'll have an awesome guest for you in episode 2.
Of course if you come up with any ideas yourself, I'm open to suggestions, you know, if there's something you want me to talk about or somebody you want me to try and get on the show for an interview, reach out to me and let me know about them and I'll certainly consider them.
OK, folks so I now want to share with you some exciting news about my brand new upcoming eBook, the Definitive Guide to Smarter Blogging. If you're a regular reader, you'll no doubt have noticed the eBook cover art in my blog's sidebar with the title "Coming Soon".
Now I've been working on this eBook as I said for the best part of 4 months now and it's taken me a lot longer to complete than I anticipated, namely because of the time that I have to work on it you know. Once again I'm a busy dad by day, I'm trying to run a blog, write my eBook, provide services through my blog and all of those things happen during the evenings and into the night, and occasionally on some weekends, although I passionately hate working on weekends.
But it's coming along and I've almost finished the writing process and will be starting the editing and proofreading process very soon. I'm hoping to have the eBook launched in the early or middle part of May, I'm a little bit unsure at present about the accuracy of the launch date, but I'll of definitely confirm this closer to that time for sure.
So what is in this eBook and who is it for?
Well like I said at the beginning of the show, this is essentially going to be a power guide containing my tips, ideas, techniques and the effective strategies that I've been using myself, combined with my personal insights for not only building your blog the smart way but also becoming a smarter blogger.
So I talk about things like motivation in blogging and how to stay focused, I share my unique strategy for creating content ideas, I share my strategy for writing useful, compelling and engaging content, I talk about posting frequency.
I share with you my ultimate blog post promotion strategy for maximum content visibility, I share my tips for overcoming obstacles in blogging, how to stand out from the crowd, growing a loyal blog audience and relationship building, and I also share with you some useful resources, including a list of all the tools I use to build my blog and become smarter at blogging.
So it's going to be a valuable guide for a lot of bloggers of all levels hopefully.
Once again, I'm hoping to have this eBook launched in early May but with a lot left to do, I'll have to confirm the exact date closer to the time, however, if you want to be notified when the eBook is launched, I've created a special page where you can signup to be notified instantly, just head over to magnet4blogging.net/signup.
OK, folks so I want to finish off by sharing with you some good old motivational tips for taking action! And I think this fits in quite well with the launch of my podcast because I wouldn't be here doing this first episode if I had not taken action.
Now I know we all live busy lives and we all have different things going on, different commitments and things like that, but here's the bitter truth of it all peeps:
As bloggers and online business owners, it's so very easy to get caught up in doing nothing but the "regular stuff".
We go on Facebook to update our status and check out what others are getting up to.
We go on twitter to post a bunch of tweets.
We visit our favorite blogs to catch up on some reading and leave comments and what have you.
We go on YouTube and watch a bunch of videos and you know, that's all well and good, but these are time-consuming activities. And of course, if you're doing all of those things in a productive manner then that's great. And yes, I appreciate the fact that doing all of these things are an essential part of the blogging process.
But seriously ask yourself this:
How is doing any of those activities helping you to move forward with your blog or your online business?
OK here's another question:
How is doing any of those activities I've just mentioned helping you reach your goals?
If you can answer me then forget this conversation ever took place.
What I'm trying to say to you is that some of us are just so caught up in doing the regular stuff day in day out and we put off the things that really matter, we put off taking action on the things we want to do for ourselves for another day.
If you've made plans to do any of those types of things, and haven't yet started, they won't happen until YOU TAKE ACTION!
So what I want you to do after listening here today is to simply take action, I want you to take action on something that will help you move forward with your blog or your online business.
I want you to make a list of the things you planned to do, and prioritize each of those things in order of importance to you, and take action on one! Make a start on something.
What I'd like you to do afterward is come back here, and leave me a comment stating what it is you took action on, (so really kind of holding yourself accountable for achieving whatever you want to achieve with your blog).
OK peeps so that's pretty much all I have for you in this very first episode, I do hope you've enjoyed listening even though I didn't really have much to offer apart from sharing some info about me, some information about my eBook and laying out the formalities of the show so that you know what to expect in the future.
But if there's one thing you can take away from listening today, and that's... You know it! to take action!
OK, thanks for listening once again, I'm hoping to put a show out once per month, so watch out for my special guest in the next episode, if all goes well that is, I'll reveal more information closer to the time.
Oh and I'll also keep you posted on my eBook launch.
Peace and take care.
--End Of Broadcast--
So there you have it, folks, my first podcast episode and many more to come in the future. Don't forget to leave me a comment below, let me know what you thought.
I'd love to get your feedback.
The podcast will be up live on iTunes sometime this week, and I will be adding something to the homepage of my blog as well very soon.
Thanks for listening and reading, I appreciate you and your time here, keep an ear out for session 2 next month.
Your blogging friend
Fabrizio Van Marciano
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