A close friend called me and told me the story of Linda Ikeji blogs removal. Although I’ve heard the news few hours after it happened but what surprised me was that this person doesn’t have time for this kind of talk and has never brought news about gossip blogs to me since we’ve been great friends and confidants for many years.
My response to him was that: Linda Ikeji was losing nothing and that was her best opportunity ever.
Recently, Linda ikeji has been making the news more than ever after the purchase of N24million Range Rover sport SUV through money she earns as a result of blogging.
On 8th October, 2014, I was looking through my Facebook wall when I saw the post in the screenshot below by a friend:
I don’t really read gossip blogs but I had to move down to Linda Ikeji’s blog and the current post I saw then was the following:
The only thing I could deduce after reading that and previous related posts by her was that: some people are really hunting her.
Then around 8:00pm after returning from mosque that same day, I was looking through Facebook again when I noticed my wall was cluttered with posts all clamoring Linda Ikeji blog has been deleted. Linda ikeji blog is gone, linda ikeji blog is removed, Bringbacklindaikejiblog and all sorts of things like that.
Some pitied her, some were praying for her, many were accusing her of plagiarism, some were using the opportunity to advise other bloggers to move away from blogspot while some were promoting their services that they can change a blogspot blog to a custom domain.
Immediately I saw all these, it downed on me that the hard-working Linda Ikeji, the No 1 gossip and entertainment blogger and the foremost and richest Nigerian blogger is in the best time ever of her career since she started blogging.
I never doubted that opinion again but completely certain of a great opportunity for her.
That night, I did the following in case I need to enlighten somebody.
- I went to Google.com and typed in “Linda Ikeji” and the number one thing was news about Linda Ikeji. Below is the screenshot.
As you can see circled above, first thing on the screenshot is news on her suspension by Google from different leading media in Nigeria. Then the next thing is still link to her deleted blog followed by her registered mobile site lindaikeji.mobi which was still live.
- After this I went to the most popular Nigerian site. If you don’t know it’s Nairaland.com and her news was also on front page as you can see in the screenshot below:
- Then I went on to twitter where man makes all the noise like birds to see what was happening and you know what?
Linda Ikeji was the top trending at the moment. Below is the screenshot:
And all that were done on the night of the day the blog was shut down.
The following day 9th of October,2014, I was reading Punch newspaper and the news of her blog shut down was inside.
And I believe it wouldn’t be in Punch newspaper alone but several other newspapers and most of these newspapers would have carried her news again now that the blog is restored.
As at this night as I prepare this blog post, here is what I saw when I went back to Google and typed in her name.
You can see some of the same newspapers carried the news again.
There are lots of explanations to all these as well as other things that can be done to confirm this opinion but the main message all these are telling you is that Linda Ikeji has gained publicity worth millions of Naira if not in dollars free of charge.
She is getting free attention than anybody can ever gain in the blogging planet in this part of the world which will definitely promote her brand and make her known more than ever before.
The attention she’s getting now is definitely reminding people of her powerful stories and also creating more viral stories that will register her in the mind of more and more people.
Even this blog post you’re currently reading is promoting her whether you like it or not and I’m not paid to do so.
The shut down is truly a great blessing to her
Some IT genius or guru might come out and say I don’t know what I’m writing here and start talking about her direct domain names which have been taken by others or start talking about SEO jargons like 404 errors and other stuffs if her blog was not restored by Google.
Great! I rejoice Google restored her blog.
Whether Google did that or not, Linda was in control if she knew. She has already outsmarted the critics and haters who are happy of the shut down ,the cyber squatters who have taken all her names and everybody going against her.
To me, all people that didn’t know the real root of how her blog was shut down who started accusing her of plagiarism or copyright issue were doing it more out of hatred and jealous than saying the truth about the real issue.
I respect copyright laws but when it comes to entertainment, gossip and news blogs, lifting of some content is something they can’t do without.
Look around and show me any entertainment blog whether popular or not without some lifted contents. Putting these contents on their blogs doesn’t mean the contents belong to them once they don’t credit it as their properties.
If not for hatred and jealous, she has been in business for almost 8 years, why is it now that her blog was removed that everyone is accusing her publicly of copyright. I think the only reason is because of her amazing success.
People like to justify the reason they are not so successful like others by finding faults in the success of those that are so successful.
Imagine people posting things like this social media:
“Good for her, she has become so rich all this while on sweat of others by stealing content”
Linda worked hard to create her name, built a story with a brand and no matter what happens even if she had to come up with a completely new domain name, she would have bounced back to her number one position with more force, nobody can replace her. She’s made.
She already has attentions on her brand. She’s a guarantee deal.
Hard work pays.
Even when she saw the buzz on her name that day the blog was taken down, she was really amazed that she had to post on her twitter handle that has over 415,000 followers:
The fact is:
“It might be hard and tough for you to get to the top but once you get there, it’s easy for you to remain there.”
All she needs do now is to take all these mantra attention she’s getting and use it to expand more into the market instead of remaining the same or contracting.
And I trust her on that, she already got a plan as she said in the post I read on her blog before it was deleted. That’s the spirit of entrepreneurship.
There are lots of Lessons you can learn from this but here are just few
- You don’t need to know about technology to build a technology business.
Forget about technology jargons, do the most important, gain attention. The technology that works today might not work tomorrow.
Linda is not a technology geek but she successfully built a technology business that matters. The most important thing in business is control. Getting attention is a key factor to control.
When you have attention, you can control money, success or wealth because they all follow attention.
Have you ever thought why big brands pay celebrities and public figures big to feature in their advert, billboards or be their ambassadors?
Not because of anything but majorly because of the attention on them so they can channel that attention to their products and services.
Imagine if you build a nice product, piece of software, an app or a great website and no one knows it, likes it or uses it.
You’re already a failure.
But if you have attention and build audience from it, even if you have no product to sell somebody somewhere is going to need that audience and that means you’ve got a profitable product.
Linda’s group of audience is her product not the website and she is in control. She is registered in the mind of hundreds of thousands of her different groups of audience which is made up of criticizers, haters, admirers and the normal readers
2. You need more haters than admirers.
I have actually seen somebody accusing Google of getting rich on stealing and aggregating contents of others websites.
When you’re doing something and no one criticizes, hates or jealous you, you might not be doing something great enough.
You don’t need to adapt to the environment, you’re a human being. Human being changes environment, animals adapt. You’re a potential changer.
If what you’re doing does not harm, kill anybody or go against your creator, don’t stop because people are complaining, accusing, criticizing or hating you.
Keep doing it and double up to get more haters. Sooner or later they will begin admiring and endorsing you.
Your haters will promote you more than your admirers can.
3. Work hard and go fast
Mark Zuckerberg (co-founder of facebook) was credited to have said
“if you’re not breaking things, you’re not going fast enough”
The world we are in now is filled with tremendous amount of uncertainty. Things are changing pretty fast everyday, if there’s anyway you can help yourself, it’s to work hard and go fast.
Linda is a hard working blogger.
She doesn’t really have much social life. She sits at her computer at home busy blogging all day.
She didn’t have the money to build her brand when she was starting out, but she has the time which she sacrificed with hard work and it pays off.
Although, she broke things as she was growing fast due to lack of IT knowledge. If she knew, she would have secured her domain name earlier and even hosted her website by now. But that don’t matter anymore.
She’s already registered in the mind of people which more important.
4. Focus on the most important thing
Most people waste time on things like trying to find a perfect logo or name for their business in the beginning without even knowing whether their idea will be welcomed in the market place or not.
This is a complete waste of time. What is most important is what you bring to the marketplace.
If you look at history of some great brands today, most of them started with a different name than what they bear now.
Facebook didn’t start exactly as facebook.com.
Same thing Paypal and many other brands.
That Linda Ikeji names were hijacked and that some people reported her and Google automatically deleted her blog don’t mean she’s finished but it’s the best opportunity for her to expand into the market place. Attention is already on her and wherever she goes, admirers and great number of haters will definitely rush there and promote her.
If she comes up with a completely new domain name tomorrow, everybody is rushing there.
Remember, Control, power, money and wealth all follow attention
Like Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba group, said:
If you’re 35 and poor you deserve it
If you’re sitting at one corner under the planet earth finding fault in success or something great, that way you’ll be a loser as all you’re doing is trying to justify why you’re not so successful.
Successful people are busy building more success and that’s why they deserve their success and you deserve where you are according to Jack Ma statement.
Nobody is telling you is going to be easy. It’s going to be rough and tough most times, but in the end hard work pays.
Work doesn’t kill, it builds.
If you want to be successful in life, the mistake you might be making now is looking for some shortcuts and easy ways to things all the time.
I wanted to write just three lessons but I ended writing four which are even loaded with more lessons. It seems I can write a whole book about this little incidence but let me raise my hand from the keyboard and get busy on other things.
Regards
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