I am spending about 60 days in Las Vegas to work on assorted content and audience building projects. If you are interested in building audiences and that sort of thing I encourage you to follow my series called 60 Days in Las Vegas. You can find Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE and Part 3 HERE and Part 4 HERE and Part 5 HERE and Part 6 HERE
March 1, 2020 or my 30 Day Review
What I am trying to accomplish during my time in Las Vegas in no particular order of importance.
Media Reach (mainly Canadian radio, tv, newspaper)
- Pursuing and building a contacts list via LinkedIn & web searches
- Creating a press release template that can be emailed on mass at certain milestones
30 Day Review – While I have done a few days of online research I really haven’t accomplished anything in this department except I think I have a good “pitch” written out. So that is some progress.
Magazine article published focused on Canadian magazines
- Reach out to magazine and freelance journalists to see about having a story written about my bike ride.
30 Day Review – Once again, I have done a few days research but accomplished nothing specifically regarding my initial goal. But in my research, I realized I needed to approach my first draft magazine article from a different direction. And as a result, I have so far written 11 short stories about my Canadian crossing around some of the more surreal experiences and I have set up an account on the Medium platform which is a blogging platform where you get paid when people read your content. So, I do consider this some good progress.
That being said this category is technically my biggest priority and I need to be more focused on this.
Corporate Sponsorship
- I am thinking that my initial contact focus will be on tree planting sponsorship and potentially build on a relationship from there.
- And I am thinking once again to stay Canadian focused
30 Day Review – Once again a few days of online research.
Create a source of passive income
- I believe my 18 year old nephew who is very interested in entrepreneurship is interested in creating a brand around Safari Arie.
- We would start small. Release to my audience a t-shirt design (I love my bike design) with logo
- With the same image & logo do a coffee mug & water bottle
- We would also ship the mug or bottle to possible media sources, sponsorship and even bike shops with some sort of call to action or advertisement
- A portion of sales would go to plating trees
30 Day Review – Through my nephew I believe that this will happen. Now it is mostly a wait and see and as quick or as slow he gets things moving given that he is involved in another company and a first year university student. I consider getting this ball rolling a huge accomplishment.
Build my Social Media audience and create quality blog content
- Particular attention to growth on Instagram
30 Day Review – Probably my other greatest area of accomplishment
- 10 blogs written and published
- 7 more blog posts written and not published. 6 of those about my 60 Days in Las Vegas.
- I have written 2 solid blog pieces about bike touring in general. One has been shared to various bike groups with good response. The other post I believe will receive good responses also. I am also sharing some of my previous bike touring blog posts to Facebook groups with continued good responses.
- Close to 120 posts posted to various bike groups (blogs, photos & videos)
- I will continue to strongly share content to Facebook groups to build name recognition and connect my website/blogs as having a level of value for touring information & research
- 11 short stories written (avg 450 words)
Social Media Growth
- Facebook new growth 3 personal followers, 14 new friends & 42 new Safari Arie fans
- 14 new YouTube Subscribers, 45 new Instagram followers and 3 new Strava followers
- Google analytics shows me with a 21% growth for this February vs last year February
I have to disclose that while I have done well in this area of my goals. The work required here is easy for me. Meaning its easy to write a blog post vs send an article pitch to a magazine or a journalist.
Connect my bike ride to my greater passion of tree planting
- Website content and Home page message
- Blog content
30 Day Review – Another area of progress. I have started sharing my tree planting fundraising platform over the last 2 Fridays with $400 in donations coming in so far. It would be nice to see this kind of momentum moving forward but I know that is not likely. But a few dollars every week will eventually add up. I will continue to share my tree planting platform every Friday.
I have made changes to my website. I have added a Tree photo category under my Photos page. I have added a separate Environment & Tree Plating blog category to my Home page. And there is a One Tree Planted banner under that new category.
I have also added a One tree Planted donation link in my “welcome message.” And hopefully next week my Home page banner will get a makeover to help connect the tree planting message.
I organized my notes and posted my first tree blog post on the Mahogany tree.
Belize
Belize content was not initially a major goal but currently working on a YouTube video encouraging people to visit Belize. Me and Brandon did do a video about my story as it relates to Belize with very close to 100 views so far. The current video that we are working on will be shared every Monday to Facebook similar to the tree planting share every Friday.
Overall
I try to be as productive as possible everyday. I feel that I have been reasonably productive and I am also very aware that I have not been as focused on some of the more important tasks in front of me. It can be very challenging and overwhelming with too much information on the web to commit to plan of action. So then it becomes a lot easier to just write another blog post. And it’s very difficult to gauge productivity when there is not an actual paycheck at the end of the day. Leaving one to feel like the day has been wasted.
Reaching out to magazines and media should be my biggest priority.
Instagram is also a priority and work on Instagram about 2 hours a day during my TV breaks. Watching TV is my biggest weakness.
Midway through the month I took two days off to bike through Red Rock Canyon to help refocus. It helped and I have been far more productive in the last two weeks of February verses the first two weeks.
