The Essential Role (C)reating Value Plays In Building Your Platform
Plus, the three components of the Value (C)reation equation.
Welcome to week one of twenty-four in the series: The C.A.R.E. Platform Building Process For Writers. Before we dive in, a little housekeeping...
First, I've made some changes to the way the material will be organized, and you might want to reacquaint yourself with the path I'll be leading you down, if you haven't already.
Second, if you want to get the most out of the C.A.R.E. Process, it's vitally important you take a moment to sign-up for the Wordslinger E-Mail list. If you know what an RSS reader is (and you'll soon learn if you don't), then subscribe to the feed, too, but don't skip the email subscription, because I'll be providing certain information only to subscribers. Specifically, I'll be sharing a weekly "behind the scenes" take on exactly what I implement here on the Wordslinger site, and more importantly, why I'm implementing something a certain way. 1
Third, we're going to be utilizing certain tools like Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed (among others) quite a bit. You don't have to know how to use them right now (and if you don't, you might be at an advantage, because I'm going to show you the Write Way™ going forward), but do yourself a favor and at least sign up for these three services in particular, and after you've signed up, follow / friend me. Doing so will save you time later, with the added benefit that you won't be as likely to miss something important I share on those platforms (and yeah, I share different things in different places for different reasons,2 and as you ride along with the Wordslinger Posse you'll see why).
Alrighty. Let's get started. The theme for this week is all about (C)reating Value...the fundamental, do-not-pass-go, do-not-collect-two-hundred-dollars REQUIREMENT for building a platform. Although it now occurs to me, I haven't yet defined what I mean by "platform." Let's do that first.