Summary: Before you get down to business online, you need to find the topic(s) and market(s) that can support that business. And, after answering your questions on digital sharecropping and content curation, thats exactly what Brian and I get into on this weeks episode of Rainmaker FM. Listen in and check out the seven-part process for finding the topic market that can fuel your online business ... In this 43-minute episode we discuss: Why you need to be the market youre serving The innovative power of the traditional magazine rack How to achieve niche positioning within a big topic The critical difference between fads and trends Why you shouldnt fear big competition The right way to conduct audience surveys The minimum viable membership site strategy Listen to Rainmaker.FM Episode No. 16 below: [player] Download AudioSubscribe in iTunesDownload Transcript The Show Notes Image by Sylwia Bartyzel via Unsplash Tumblrs Image Size Changes Dave Pells Next Draft Trend Watching Trend Hunter Springwise The Power of Repeating Yourself *Rainmaker.FM is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete website solution for content marketers and internet entrepreneurs. The Transcript 7 Ways to Find a Topical Market that Will Fuel Your Digital Commerce Business Robert Bruce: This is Rainmaker FM, the broadcast that provides you with the knowledge you need to build your own digital marketing and sales platform that works. I am Robert Bruce here with Brian Clark. Today were going to answer a couple of your questions before we get into the main topic, which is seven ways to inexpensively find a topic market that will fuel your digital commerce business. Brian, heres our first question. Jane Doe asks, Is it really that big of a deal to build an online platform on properties you dont own? She says she sees lots of successful people doing it in places like Tumblr, Squarespace, Twitter, and Facebook but whats the true danger here? Understanding the True Danger of Digital Sharecropping Brian Clark: Were still getting this question. Robert Bruce: How many years has it been? Brian Clark: I dont know. The evidence keeps mounting and we dont have to do anything because youve got the big Silicon Valley platforms that are constantly screwing people over. And people still wonder, But whats the harm? I will say that she included Squarespace. Squarespace is a website suite of tools, so its your site, its just the way you build it, so I wouldnt include Squarespace. We distinguish between Squarespace from Rainmaker in that Rainmaker is way, way, way more sophisticated and powerful. Most of the people were talking to especially on the topic of membership sites and digital commerce and all this, theyve graduated beyond Squarespace. But otherwise, I dont consider that sharecropping. Robert Bruce: Well, we know the stories of Facebook. And you just brought something about Tumblr this morning to me that I hadnt heard about yet. Brian Clark: Facebook of course, did the biggest bait and switch on people ever. They basically let people build audiences there, and you had a lot of bad advice from short sighted social media consultants who said, You dont need a website, just build on Facebook. Effectively, Facebook has changed the rules so many times since that time that its ridiculous. The biggest thing of course is that the audience that you built, you now have to pay to reach. And youre still missing out on all the value of owning your own media property, which has real value. You can sell a site. Youre not going to sell your Facebook page. No one is going to buy that. They may buy it in conjunction with your overall media business, but no, youre not going to sell your Facebook page. Im still a little perplexed abou
