7ft Actor's Video Recipe Site For Athletes

[conanstevens]

http://www.CookingWithConan.com

I am a muscular 300lb, 7ft tall Actor who trains at the gym regularly.

When I first had to start cooking for myself I had a lot of trouble, first knowing what to cook, secondly how to cook it - so I made this site for others looking to put on muscle or eat better for their sports.

I chose to make videos with each recipe;

• It shows my physique, and adds to my credibility
• To show how easy they are to make
• To self promote my personality (as an actor it is important to be likable or relatable) and pushes my (truthful) image as being down to earth straight talking guy

The reasons I chose to make this site specifically are covered in this article:
http://www.conanstevens.com/blogging-ad ... conan.html

Due to some experiences with badly written modules in my main website I kept extensions to a minimum but have used:
* ARTIO SEF (necessary for Google ranking)
* eXtplorer (useful for a quick edit of code)
* Xmap (sitemap generator, again necessary for Google ranking)

Any suggestions for improvement would be most welcome.

At present about 35% of the recipes are uploaded, there are a lot more filmed and edited ready to go up

[Ace2110]

It's a pretty good site. My eye is drawn to the book for sale on the right hand side though as an FYI. Additionally, if I were you I would try putting a short blurb about yourself and why I should keep reading right in the middle of that page....perhaps right below where your adsense is running.

[zomb1984]

yeh the content and structure is solid but it lacks any immediate personality. you could try finding or making a new template but as ACE2110 says a nice personal introduction, just a "hello my name is" would be a good start.

Also if you have any social networks like Facebook or twitter [youtube] or Vimeo etc, they would go along way to "add to your credibility" as you put it earlier

[conanstevens]

yeh the content and structure is solid but it lacks any immediate personality. you could try finding or making a new template but as ACE2110 says a nice personal introduction, just a "hello my name is" would be a good start.

Also if you have any social networks like Facebook or twitter [youtube] or Vimeo etc, they would go along way to "add to your credibility" as you put it earlier

Thanks, the personal intro does sound like a good idea.

Can you tell me how the social networks would be able to help my credibility? I have a reasonably large facebook following and over 500,000 views on my [youtube] Channel.

[zomb1984]

Social networking can have alot of advantages :

1. It provides your sites users with a reference to WHO YOU are, thus giving you credability

2. It provides links INTO your site from those social channels, directly and through utilising those sites extensive "sharing" networks

3. I t provides users with an easy way to BE UPDATED about your site.

for example you provide a "become a fan on FB" link on your site, a user clicks on it and adds your page to their profile. Now, you decide to add a new peice of content to your site, the user may not check your site again for a while, BUT then you decide to add a Status update to your FB page saying "hey new recipee!".

Whilst the user hasnt checked your site they will probably load their facebook page up at which point they get to see your page status and click on the link to see what this new content is... ...bringing them back into your site.

Just imagine it like a virtual flyer, you are able to interact with your visitors through these other mediums which open up your site to wider and wider audiences.

the same would go for twitter for example.

In the case of [youtube] I assume you pull all your sites vids from your [youtube] channel, so link to the channel page and back to your site, that way someone who finds your vid on [youtube] will be pulled to the main site and people at the main site can follow directly from [youtube] if they choose.

the key word is NETWORKING

things toi look into other than Facbook and [youtube] might be Digg and Delicious social bookmarking sites. by attaching links to your articles people will be able to share individual articles as and when you publish them. check them out and read more about how they work.

good article on social networking from webdesigner depot :
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2008/12 ... r-clients/
(its written from the perspective of a designer selling to a client but its a good read noun the less)

Joomla Extensions Social Netwroking modules/plugins :
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions ... l-profiles

enjoy!

[conanstevens]

Thanks. I like the idea of putting a follow me on facebook/twitter, etc but I thought to not post on those channles so much and to use them for advertising and announcing bigger things like the new movie I am in coming out Feb 2010 worldwide or the new workout DVD I'll be selling soon. Maybe I am wrong in this, I'll check out the article you have linked to.

The videos are all hosted privately, I only upload some videos to [youtube] to use as advertising for my sites, which is why there is only 1/2 million views. I like to own and control my videos, not have them at the mercy of some other company.

The other thing is, on [youtube] I have only about 500 members and facebook a bit less as I have just started taking on 'friends' that I do not know.

My main site http://www.ConanStevens.com pulls in a yearly average of 1700 unique visitors a day (just a site, no forum) so the current figues in my social channels are insignificant compared to my search traffic figures. Which is why I have put little effort into my social networks so far.

I used digg/technorati/delicious/ etc a few years ago and not being a technical or macbook site I did not draw any significant traffic for the total effort expended

Also to add the main point of the cooking site is to draw additional attention to my acting site which is where I get movie offers and auditions from - which is the primary focus of the sites. No matter how much adsense I make, how many books I sell one good movie part will eclipse all previous earnings

Thankyou for the

[zomb1984]

well, you use them as you need them.

check out the article though as you may find some things that your wernt aware of. Social networking CAN be a powerful tool if used correctly, I missed one point of my list of reasons so here goes.

4. Interaction. Social media alows you to interact with your users, it provides to ability to communicate and deal with the people who use your sites everyday quickly, effectivly and most importantly PERSONALLY.

People like to feel involved with things. As an actor you can probably see the benefits of that.
some more food for thought :

http://theengagingbrand.[spam].com/the ... brand.html

http://www.doshdosh.com/the-importance- ... marketing/

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/03/twitte ... itter.html

[conanstevens]

4. Interaction. Social media alows you to interact with your users, it provides to ability to communicate and deal with the people who use your sites everyday quickly, effectivly and most importantly PERSONALLY. As an actor you can probably see the benefits of that.
some more food for thought :

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/03/twitte ... itter.html

Thanks - it seems to me that it will become increasingly important as my 'fame' rises but at the present my main website seems to fullfil all the other functions of a social site - i can post to all my regular readers, they can contact me directly and I can ignore the fools who write (and there are a lot on the web believe me), they get to know me personally and they can learn what it took for me to get where I am in life - i have posted my entire history and most of my struggles on the main site.

PLUS when I post on my site I make money from the advertising and I control what stays up or goes down if Twitter is sold or goes Bankrupt, etc I get to keep all my work.

I just don't see how I can make money from the social networks at present besides accepting friends and then advertising product to them occassionally.

But then living in Asia now for 5 years I tend to forget how Westerners treat celebrities, Thais, Laos, Chinese, and Indians are all very polite, extremely polite, and nothing like the Western celebrity worship and mania you see in those trashy magazines.

Thanks again, I don't disagree, it's just at present I don't see how I can benefit.

I don't make revenue and it's not like movie Producers and Directors have time to go wandering around facebook making random friends.

[Ace2110]

Well social networks are about a lot more then celebrity culture and I'd venture that Japanese society is at least as interested in celebrity as Americans are....the Indian culture in my experience treat their famous Bollywood actors in about the same reverence as actors here in the states.

Ok, so that stuff really isn't important for this discussion-to each their own and I hope everyone lives somewhere where they're able to feel comfortable.

Social media is kind of like creating a mailing list. You can sell to them on a regular basis, I know a few marketers that have response rate to new products of 15-20% because they consistently send out new useful information on a weekly basis.

In your situation you could send a weekly email with a new workout exercise, or a recipe only for your email subscribers.

My last note about the whole social media thing-there are certainly producers and directors that use Twitter. I do have a couple of friends that work in the industry(I currently live and am from Southern California) and I know they've made some good connections through Twitter, as I have for my business.

I'd give it a shot-all you really can lose is a bit of time and the potential rewards are certainly worth the 30 minutes a few times a week that it would take.

[zomb1984]

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/03/06/mov ... n-twitter/

social media is even more usefull whilst you ARE BECOMMING famous

In the UK there have been several major pop/rock acts (Lilly Allen, Artic Monkies etc) who generated all their pre debut fanbase via social media such as Myspace and twitter.