Ravi's Rants – Rndaom, Yet <Well Formed/>

I Create For Creators

9/2/2020 By Ravi Jayagopal

My Plugins are for Digital Creators.

My Kindle books are for Digital Creators.

My Podcast is for Digital Creators.

My Courses are for Digital Creators.

My Coaching is for Digital Creators.

My Community is for Digital Creators.

That’s the momentum you get when you dig deep, not wide.

Follow me and I will help you along your journey in any which way I can.

And when you get a chance, please check out my Podcast about Digital Marketing, creating Membership Sites and Online Courses, how to Create, Sell and Deliver Digital Content, Content Marketing, Creating Audio, Video and PDF’s and Reports and Kindle books, at SubscribeMe.fm .

Or you can also search for “SubscribeMe.fm” as one word, in your favorite podcast app – like Apple Podcasts, Overcast and even Spotify. On my home page at SubscribeMe.fm , you can see a number of different platforms where you can listen to my show.

I frequently give away my paid content via my podcast. So be sure to subscribe.

Skyscraper

8/26/2020 By Ravi Jayagopal

I’m writing a Skyscraper post – basically a massive, all-in-one article for S3MediaVault

How (and Why) to use Amazon S3 to Deliver Audio, Video and PDF on your WordPress website

It will be an “all you ever wanted to know” type of post about files, delivery, storage, security, S3, CloudFront, etc. This post will also be released as a 30-50 page Kindle ebook.

Then I will take snippets of it and post it on my other sites and link back to it. The most important thing: I am not waiting for the entire Skyscraper to be completed before publishing it.

It’s only complete 50% (at the moment), but it’s up and running from when it was probably 5% complete. It’s live and getting indexed and building up Google-juice.

I’ve started linking to it from other sites to get the incoming-links going.

My point is, in digital marketing – thanks to the sheer “digital” nature – there are a LOT of things that can be published WAYYYY before it’s “100%” complete, whether that’s your online course, Kindle book, blog post, or even your podcast (yes, just launch with 1 single episode – don’t listen to fools who ask you to record-and-release 8 episodes together).

So don’t waste time or energy trying to be a perfectionist. Ship it quick, publish it fast, there’s always the powerful “Edit” button.

1st most powerful button: “Create”

2nd most powerful button: “Publish”

3rd most powerful button: “Edit”

(Image shows my mindmap planning and brainstorming my article – I do the same whether it’s an online course, Kindle book, WordPress plugin, online business planning, product development or skyscraper post).

Check out my post at S3MediaVault.com/blog for everything I’m writing primarily for the sake of my current and future customers, as well as for SEO.

Always write for people first, and search engines next.

Do you prefer listening to a podcast that is edited? Or nah?

7/29/2020 By Ravi Jayagopal

Q: “Do you prefer listening to a podcast that is edited? Or nah?”

My Answer: For the most part, I prefer podcasts that are edited for umms and aahs and pauses.

Now, there are shows which the conversations are just absolutely incredible (Bill Simmons, Tim Ferriss, Marketing Over Coffee), and it would actually do it injustice to edit the natural flow – so such shows are the exception. But those are far and few in-between.

Most regular “interview” shows can use all the editing they can, not just to improve the length of the show, but for improving the audio quality (sound leveling, cross-talk, etc), and to improve the show quality just by cutting out the completely unnecessary stuff – like “Can you hear me now?” pre-interview banter, “Hold on, my door bell just rang”, “Sorry, my child is calling me, let me quickly check what it is”, “Mind if I grab a quick drink of water?”, type stuff which is not important to the show or to the listeners.

Some other points: I listen at 1.8x speed, I skip the intros and outros for all shows, fast-forward thru the ads, skip the last 1-2 minutes as soon as I realize the show is ending and outro is coming up, etc. Only 24 hours in a day. Even a few minutes saved as long as I’m still getting what I need, is big for me.

My main interest is in education and information in my niche. So, while I’m not specifically looking for podcasts primarily to be entertained (like comedy, for eg.), I absolutely WANT to be entertained while I’m getting what I need. I need to have fun listening to the show.

So if a show has the greatest information and education, but is boring as hell, or the show’s host has no personality, or the guests or questioning are/is annoying, or it takes too much time to get to what I care about, then I won’t subscribe to such shows.

So everything has to be entertaining, at a minimum, or it becomes C-SPAN to me

P.S: That’s me in the picture listening to a podcast while getting my teeth worked on.

P.P.S: CoolCastPlayer.com is arguably the best podcast player WordPress plugin for your website. Don’t take my word for it – check out this post comparing the 9 Best Podcasting Plugin for WordPress 2021 – they rank us #1 too 🙂

Pirates Keep Out

6/10/2020 By Ravi Jayagopal

If you’re an Online Course Creator you probably have Audio, Video, PDF and other files like mindmaps, powerpoints, docs, zips, etc – in your courses or on your website.

If you use WordPress, the most important features you’re going to need from an Amazon S3 & CloudFront video player plugin, are the following:

Easy to use
Create secure videos that cannot be accessed by unauthorized users
So this plugin must allow you to create an actual Video Player (not just a link to your video)
Should have basic features like all player controls, splash image, ability to speed up the video
Create both Single Video players as well as Video Playlists * It must do both regular videos (aka “progressive downloads”) as well as Streaming videos
It must allow you to Transcribe your videos (that you can repurpose)
It must provide you with user stats as to which user has watched which videos for how long
Also create Audio players for your s3 audio files.
A bigger plus if the player is not ugly, like the standard WordPress player, and instead is really pretty and customizable
Biggest plus if it could also protect other regular files, like PDF, Zip, Doc, XLS, and even Images like JPG and PNG.

Yes, there’s a plugin that does all of this, and it’s arguably the #1 plugin for Amazon S3 and CloudFront, and can create secure S3 videos, supports both S3 and CloudFront, can do regular videos and streaming videos, supports Audio players, supports Video and Audio Playlists, can transcribe Audio and Video, can protect regular files, and most importantly, is now available for a one-time fee (no more subscription).

Features? Check.
Usability? Check.
Price? Check.
Support? Check.

If you are a digital creator, you create premium content, and you have a WordPress website, then S3MediaVault.com is the perfect plugin for you.

Sands of Time

6/8/2020 By Ravi Jayagopal

Time is FINITE. Nobody wakes up with a few extra hours a day.

Everybody gets the same 24 – even Jack Bauer ?, or should I say, *especially Jack Bauer (from the show “24”).

We all have to “make” time – for the things that are important to us. Like Family, mental & physical health. community work, side-hustle, hobbies, education. execution.

You can and will “make” time for whatever you “want”. You’ve just got to “want” it.

If you want to be an author, you will have to make time to write at least 10 minutes a day.

If you want to be a podcaster, you will have to make time to record and edit a couple of hours every week (or two).

If you want to build an audience, you will have to make to do various things like create an epic lead magnet, build a list, repurpose content, etc.

If you want to make money online, you will have to make time to create products and services, and promote them.

And on top of that, you have to continuously stay engaged – with your niche, with your customers, with your audience, with your industry, with technology.

Everything is simple. Nothing is easy.

Nothing is given. Everything is earned.

No exceptions.

The sands of time flow only one way.

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. What you have is today.

So what it is that you’ve been putting off forever that you can get started with today?

PS: Pic is from last year. Haven’t been to the beach yet in 2020. Hopefully soon!