Is Queen Elizabeth II a shape-shifting lizard?

This is the question I’ve seen asked countless times in my nearly 20 years as a hardened Internet user.

It’s all in the eyes, apparently.

In some photos her left pupil appears as a slit. Evidence that beneath the humanoid flesh is something ancient and terrifying.

And it’s not just the Queen.

The lizards are everywhere.

Conspiracy theorists say that reptilian beings have lived and bred among us since before the time of the Pharaohs.

Former goalkeeper and broadcaster David Icke believes that many powerful people are, in fact, shapeshifting reptiles belonging to the Babylonian Brotherhood, an organisation that is trying to create a new world order.

So why am I telling you this?

Is it because I – your lizard overlord – am attempting to mess with your mind?

Well yes and no.

I have something to say about how understanding lizard conspiracies is essential for getting ahead with your Internet business.

It might sound crazy but please don’t go calling the people in white coats on me. Not just yet.

It’s all about messing with minds to get yourself noticed

Here’s one way of looking at the claims of people like David Icke…

Have you ever heard me talk about ‘reality tunnels’ before?

Basically, humans live in worlds that are largely of our own making.

We accept ideas that back up our prejudices and reject those that don’t fit into our world-view.

What David Icke might be trying to do is disrupt people’s thinking by suggesting a totally different model of reality.

For instance, go out and read the news for the rest of the week with the ‘shapeshifting lizard new world order’ model of reality in mind and suddenly things might begin to look a lot more like this:

You might not believe it, but boy do things become weird and interesting.

And this is my point…

Avoiding the trap of lazy cliché

The common wisdom in digital marketing goes that you need to understand your potential customer’s reality tunnel and then somehow reinforce it… feed into it… be part of it.

For instance, you might have a homeopathic health remedy website where your customers have this reality tunnel:

• Science isn’t always right
• Doctors don’t know everything
• Pharmaceutical companies aren’t looking after our interests
• Pain is bad

So if you want to attract these people to your website and then keep them loyal, you’d want to share articles, ideas, information and tips that tap into this world-view.

However, here’s my own challenge to this idea.

How many homeopathic health remedy websites correspond to the exact same world-view? The same opinions? The same beliefs? The same old articles, just reworded differently?

Almost all of them.

In which case how can you stand out?

How can you show that you are interesting and unique and worth reading above all others?

Perhaps going FULL LIZARD is the answer.

By that I mean you should try and disrupt expectations.

Come out in defence of science, suggest that pain might actually be a positive thing, challenge the lazy thinking of homeopathic therapists, question the logic of your rivals.

Even if you’re still promoting homeopathy in the meat of your content, your blog posts, emails and social media posts will contain unusual and challenging ideas.

This way you can offer something startling that grabs attention.

It could simply be the way you write your headlines, subject lines, tweets and status updates.

Instead of something like ‘The Homeopathy Cure for Headaches’ perhaps try ‘Can Homeopathy CAUSE Headaches?’

This is something I’m working on in more detail for a future issue of Digital Upstart, but it’s worth mentioning here.

Become a leader, not a follower

For an Internet entrepreneur it’s now very easy to get in touch with potential readers, subscribers and customers.

You have free platforms packed with users… Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr… plus forums and community groups where you can join the conversation… or you can grab attention with pop-ups, Google ads and articles that get noticed in the organic search rankings…

You can use these tools 24/7 to get your website out there.

But the downside is that people are now so overloaded with various feeds, alerts, messages and calls-for-attention, that getting them to truly notice you and stick with you for more information over the long term… that’s the hard part.

I found this great quote by Steven Rosembaum that says: “In an era of data abundance, the thing that is scarce is taste.”

He means that for your potential customer, getting information is easy.

What you need to do as an online business owner is to somehow show that you have a unique, interesting and valuable take on the issues that people can’t get anywhere else.

If you’re simply spouting information that can be found anywhere else, with the same viewpoint, outlook and attitude as your rivals, then why should they bother with you?

Internet users are now very wary about signing up to an email service unless it offers something of genuine worth.

And very rarely now is it the information itself that’s most important…

It’s more that users trust you to shape and interpret that information for them.

And not only that, they must like you and enjoy what you have to say.

For that, you need to show personality.

And personality is all about having a distinctive, flawed and human way of looking at the world.

Whether David Icke genuinely believes the world is being taken over by shapeshifting lizards or not, what his claims have done is propel him into cult stardom.

He got himself noticed, that’s for sure.

If it interests you at all you can check out this short film called David Icke: Conspiracy of the Lizard Illuminati.

When you watch it, think about the viewpoint of your business – and also of your closest rivals.

For this you’ll need to do a bit of spying.

Browse their blogs, cut and paste their headlines, follow their Twitter feeds and Facebook pages.

• What are the dominant clichés in your field of interest of business?

• How could you turn some of those clichés on their head?

• How could you turn the most common headlines upside down and say the opposite?

• Is there a theme, belief or idea that almost everyone in your field of interest trots out? Can you disrupt or challenge it in some way? Can you come up with your own take on it?

• Do you have any unusual views, or unique experiences or contrary opinion that you’ve been unwilling to share? As long as they’re not socially unacceptable (no racism, hate-mongering or sexism – not that you would, but I need to make it clear!), then come out and be that person you really are.

• How can you mess with your website visitor’s mind? Can you come up with something startling, weird or unexpected that will compel them to read?

See if you can put this into action this week.

It doesn’t matter whether you try it on a Tweet, Facebook post, blog update, email newsletter or sales promotion.

But make sure you track the response and also encourage feedback.

Similarly, if you’d like to know more about how to get your content noticed by going FULL LIZARD, then drop me a line here: nick@canonburypublishing.com.

I did have something else to say about how lizards are important for your business but I’m going to leave it ’til next week.

But as a teaser – it’s all about how you and I are, genuinely, part lizard, and what that could possibly mean for your future success.

Until then!