Making money on the web curriculum – the path to professional online micro-business management
In my quest to understand phenomena on the web (webnomena) I spent the past few months learning about what that I now call the professional online micro-businesses phenomenon. I plan to share more findings about running a micro-busienss in future post(s) and I’m in the midst of writing an eBook about… well I will wait with this for a little longer.
My definition for professional online micro-business owner: A professional online micro-business owner is an entity who is building a web asset. Size-wise, it is a single or couple of people business at the most. Some of the common methods that micro-businesses are using to generate their revenue includes: blogging sponsorship, Affiliated Marketing, selling eBooks, selling virtual goods, consulting, and more. Since micro-business is lean on resources its owner has to be knowledgeable in all the aspect of the trade and also to be able to find cheap, and better free, available resources and tools.
So, how do you become one? What ground do you need to cover?
If I had to build the curriculum for the professional online micro-business owner degre, this is how it would look like. One thing is for sure – it takes time. I could see these four semesters span over a year, two or even more. The list of subjects below is far from complete but I think that these are the essential skills to become a well rounded professional who can run his own online business today. Even if you are not interested in making money online but you do want to learn about social media tools and marketing, blogging, self branding and how the online micro-businesses wo rls work check out these excellent resources.
Semester I – basic skills:
| Subject | Professor | Content |
| Blogging and building relationships | Chris Brogan | Bonus: marketing, self help and inspiration |
| Social Media and tools | Danny Brown | Bonus: blogging for a good cause |
| Search engines, searching technologies, and methods | Charles Knight and Danny Sullivan | Bonus: Real-time search, and crowd sourcing search |
Semester II – pro-blogging:
| Subject | Professor | Notes |
| Technology | Michael Arrington | Bonus: the connection between strong blogging voice and readers engagement |
| Professional blogging | Darren Rowse | Bonus: sell with pride |
| Online revenue | RevNews | Bonus: getting also the Affiliated Marketer point of view |
| Self starting and multiple streams of online income | Caroline Middlebrook | Bonus: finding more great resources for making money on the web |
Semester III – marketing:
| Subject | Professor | Notes |
| Digital marketing | Christopher Penn | Bonus: what is podcamp? |
| Social media PR and Marketing | Amber Naslund | Bonus: learn to listen to the web |
| Community/Tribes building | Seth Godin | Bonus: out of the box thinking |
| Personal Branding | Dan Schawbel | Bonus: follow him on Twitter |
Semester IV – advance skills
| Subject | Professor | Notes |
| SEO – Search Engine Optimization | Brad Callen, the team at SEOmoz and more | Covers both off and on page SEO |
| Web-analytics | Avinash Kaushik | Seriously consider buying his book(s) |
| Web-strategy | Jeremiah Owyang | Bonus: getting the corporate point of view |
| Web-automation | ProgrammableWeb, and Dion Hinchcliffe | Bonus: speaking JSON |
The fun part about being an online micro-business owner is that there is always more to learn, like: SEM and how to live a Second Life. In my opinion the key to success is to quickly exercise what that you’ve just learned.
What did I miss? Do you see a degree or certificate in professional online micro-business management in the future?
Update 10-29-09: If you like this blog post and want to learn more about building high value twitter accounts for marketing, selling, networking, influence or any other purposes please consider reading my eBook: Timing the tweet
Note: as you can see this is my personal web-site and not an online micro-business:)
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