CyPR – A businesslike approach to marketing,
communications and productivity
Overview
My plan is to build a UK based information site on developing a low cost, practical approach to:
- developing a business, freelance or community website using the content management system, WordPress
- low-cost digital marketing strategies: content marketing, search engine strategies and the use of social media
- business strategies and productivity
The site will be of interest to:
- anyone working from home, freelancers, consultants, craftspeople
- small and medium sized businesses
- charities and campaigns
- those wanting to learn about business and computing
- those running small and medium-sized projects in the public sector and corporations
- writers and journalists
- college students
- the unemployed
- those wanting to develop their careers.
I am starting this project as a brand new start-up using low-cost strategies. The plan is to use unspectacular, search engine optimisation techniques that will allow the audience to this site to grow, gradually, but organically. The success or failure of these techniques will help you develop your website.
The site will be gradually developed and the planned formal launch date will be sometime in September 2017. It is planned to add videos and animation.
The commercial side of the blog
The blog is a mixture of consolidating my knowledge and experience of the web, but also I plan to make some money from it by placing advertisements and providing affiliate links to some carefully selected products.
In 2018 the plan is to develop and sell ebooks and online training courses.
How CyPR was born
Originally the idea was to develop a separate PR/ Marketing offshoot of a very large mega-project. The name was the result of a night of brainstorming and influenced by a few glasses of wine.
Cy or CyPR sound like Cyber – which sounds computerish or techie. If you are a Doctor Who fan, which I am, then you will be very aware of one of the Doctor’s most frightening enemies – the Cybermen.
PR, of course, stands for public relations. So the concept of a techie marketing business was born. I’ve held the name for quite a few years.
A little about me
My name is Paul Mason, however, I am writing on this site as CyPRman. This is part of a self-branding technique as there are too many successful writers with the name Paul Mason. I am also interested, as an experiment, to see how a brand new, unique persona can be developed in the online world. It also allows me to separate my home life from my business life.
I had a varied career and only went to university, as a late developer, in my early thirties. There I discovered an interest in computing and followed my degree, in European Studies, to be trained as a business/ systems analyst. I have worked in industry as an analyst, provided technical support, consultant and trainer. I then spent twenty years as a computer and business studies further education lecturer, (the UK equivalent of community college). I have taught around 7,000 people: ranging from short half day IT courses to one-year degree level database and project management courses. I have written one book, Integrated Computing, developed numerous training courses, and in the past few years, I have worked on quite a few internet based projects.
I live in Teddington, which is one of the nicest parts of Greater London area. Ten minutes walk from my house I have the River Thames, a great park with herds of deer and nice places to eat. A little further there are good cinemas and theatres and an easy ride into central London. I am married, have three children, four grandchildren and some really nice neighbours. All in all, I’m a fairly happy person. (In English English ‘fairly’ means ‘extremely’).
A bit of an update.
The original plan for CyPR was to develop it into a hardcore SEO and digital marketing service. However, after I got diagnosed with a sarcoma. This is a rare type of cancer, which involved removing a big chunk of my stomach. I’ve now been clear for over three years and should be OK, providing I keep taking the tablets.
As a result, I took some time off, went to visit relatives, including a trip to Australia and wound down a few other projects and online businesses. I’ve decided on a much quieter life than a full-on business. I will now use this site to write a blog on subjects that interest me and will eventually develop the posts into training courses and ebooks.