Gorgeous and I both like Sci-Fi. Our Tivo is set to record the Sci-Fi channel‘s Friday night line up of Doctor Who, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica when they are in season.

Have been for years.

So when I got the usual monthly (or so) email from Twitter that had a blurb saying Dave Hewlett twitters, I went to check it out right away.

Who is Dave Hewlett?

He’s the actor who plays the geeky scientist Dr. Rodney McKay on Stargate Atlantis. If you are at all into sci-fi you’ll know the character type.Dr. Rodney McKay

It’s sort of an “I know I’m a genius and this particular problem is way bigger than any mortal could reasonably expect to figure out if they had years to work on it but I know we’ve only got a few hours before we all die if I don’t get it worked out so I’ll do my best but don’t expect much and it’s been nice knowing you” kind of thing.

And he always gets it done. In his doom-and-gloom, negative, man this is really bad style.

He’s one of those characters I can relate to. 😉

On To the Web Site

So anyway I went into Twitter and “friended” David because I enjoy the show.

While looking at David’s Twitter profile I took a look at his web site, as is my habit. All I could see of the domain was http://adogsbrea… and I was curious what that was all about.

It turns out David just made a movie that is about to be released on DVD called A Dog’s Breakfast. He’s using the site and his blog to promote his film.

And it’s working. In a big way.

This post from back in January pretty much tells it all.

YouTube and $8 Website Sells Indie Film to MGM! Here’s the money paragraph:

Dr. Rodney McKay
However, the “hyper-drive” engine for “A Dog’s Breakfast”’s real world success is a $8 a month Joomla web hosting account. After receiving quotes from designers that were “tens of thousands of dollars more than we had” Hewlett dedicated his hiatus from Stargate to creating www.adogsbreakfastmovie.com. Using free and donation based open source software, the website has lead to thousands of members, fan posters, promotional and merchandising campaigns and over 2,000 screening requests. MGM and NBC/Universal couldn’t help but hear that kind of buzz. The deals lead to international recognition in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Screen International and television spots on KNBC and Entertainment Tonight, not to mention the thousands of online, news, video and blog entries.

Go read the whole post. Then poke around the site. There’s some funny video clips to check out!

The Take Aways

There are a couple take aways in all this.

First and foremost, Blogging Works to support your business. You don’t need to spend a ton of money on a beautiful web site to make your web communications efforts successful. A good blogging platform and a little hard work will give your business huge returns.

There is nothing wrong with pretty design. A good design is useful, helpful, and will no doubt improve your success. That’s a big reason why I am working on a redesign for SuccessCREEations right now.

But a great design can’t do it alone. An ugly blog and a little hard work probably can. It shouldn’t be an either/or choice. The ideal is all/both.

There are probably folks who disagree with me, but if I had to choose I’d rather have an average looking site that gets traffic than a pretty site no one sees.

The second take away is Social Media sites can supercharge your web communication efforts.

David is using YouTube to promote his film. Makes perfect sense to promote a movie on a video sharing website.

I found out about his business via Twitter. Now most of us are probably not starring in a network television show. But my point is, David’s fame wasn’t enough for me to hear about his movie (his business). If he wasn’t actively engaged using one of the same social media sites that I am, I wouldn’t know about his blog or his film.

As it stands now, I’ll probably buy a copy of his DVD when it comes out. I bet I’ll even tell y’all about it when I do. How many additional sales might that add up to for him that he wouldn’t have seen had he not engaged the social media sites?

You want to supercharge your business web communications? Start blogging about your business. Find the social media sites where your customers are and get active on them.

It will pay off big time for you.

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SuccessCREEations is now Kingdom House Productions

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