As a blogger who also critiques movies and television shows, IMDB is an invaluable resource. I use IMDB to find out the names of actors I may know by looks, but not necessarily by name. I also know about actors that aren’t of my time. It can be hard to know everyone when there are millions of actors out there over several decades worth of filming. To say that I use IMDB with every review I write is an understatement.

Become an IMDB News Desk Publisher

What IMDB isn’t always good for is using it to promote yourself or your business. Unless you know how to promote yourself the right away. First, you have to make sure you’re not spamming IMDB. This is an important rule because you want IMDB to work for you, not against you. You also don’t want to get band, because then you can’t use IMDB at all!

Depending on your website, you may actually be featured on IMDB. If your website covers film news, reviews, and more, and it is consistently updated, IMDB may approve you to become part of their “news desk” team. If you write about a specific movie or actor, then everyone browsing IMDB will have access to your movie review on that movie or actor’s page.

You can sign up to become a news desk publisher by clicking here. You must be a registered user of IMDB before you can try and submit your information. This doesn’t have to be your only way of getting your website out there.

Using your IMDB Profile Signature

You can put your website in your profile/forum signature. I’ve had as many as three websites listed. I don’t recommend any more than that. Your actual signature can only hold one or two urls at the most (it has a character limit), but you can edit your signature on individual posts. I generally list li-reviews.com and li-kids.com. However, when I was posting on the Rory O’Shea was Here forum, a movie about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, I also included links to the page for the non-profit organization I’m trying to start, Muscular Dystrophy Patients United. If your website is relevant to the topic, I don’t see someone calling you out as a spammer for posting your URL.

Making your Link Relevant

When I do reviews of certain movies or television shows, I’ll sometimes post the link to my review on that particular movie’s forum. If there is a topic about a DVD coming out, especially ones that asks about the quality of the new DVD, if I’ve done a review of it  I’ll say something to the effect of:

“I just reviewed this DVD at LI Reviews. You can see everything the DVD has to offer”.

Then I can post the link to my review.

Being a reviewer has a bigger advantage posting wise on IMDB. If I owned a Debt Reduction company, I couldn’t flaunt my link anywhere. I might put it in my signature, but it’d be something that I tried not to pay too much attention to when I was posting. I wouldn’t want people to think I was just there to promote my website. IMDB can be valuable, but it also can be abused, so try not to be the one abusing the service.

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Ever since I’ve casually mentioned that I’d love to get back into public speaking, I have received a bit of flack from a group of people that don’t believe that you should speak strictly based on what you know. You need to speak about what people want you to say. In some ways, I agree, but in other ways, I highly disagree. Let me try and explain how I can both agree and disagree with a statement at the same time.

When I mentioned what topics I can discuss in a public setting, I wasn’t looking for people to rush right up and start booking me for speaking engagements. It was merely a casual conversation I was having with the readers of this blog. I was essentially saying, I can talk on a wide and diverse set of topics. That being said, I believe in the “speak what you know” mantra.

For example, I won’t ever become a public speaker on a topic like economics. I don’t know much about economics, so I wouldn’t be qualified, nor would I attempt to be qualified, to speak on this topic. While I’m sure there are groups of people who clamor for a great economic-based speaker, I am not one of them nor do I understand this audience. I can only speak on topics that I know about and those with which I have personal experience.

Within the broad list of topics I mentioned on my previous blog post, I understand that I would have to come up with specific discussion topics and a niche for each. I get I have to sell myself and what I am talking about, because I’ve been in the public speaking arena since I was 10 years old. I know that nobody is going to listen to you if they don’t find the topic worthwhile, engaging, and possibly even relatable. Nobody wants to hear a dry, boring speech that has no value or purpose. I get that. This is where the “Speak What they Want” part comes in.

If I’m speaking at a convention where the topic is child abuse, I’m not going to talk about being transgendered. It has no place in the speech unless it directly relates to being abused because I was transgendered. People don’t want to hear what you’re saying if it doesn’t relate to the topic that is to be discussed. Still, you can’t speak only what people want. If someone wanted me to talk about how I think child abuse is okay in some households because it really isn’t abuse, it’s corporal punishment, I would turn down the speaking engagement. I’m not so desperate to become a public speaker that I’m willing to talk about any old topic, especially those that I don’t believe are true or viable to my life or perspective.

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Ashtyn and I sat down and made a list of television shows we’ll be watching this fall. CT is going to have one show that actually relates to his school since they filmed all over the world and it looks to be rather educational. He’s about as excited about Fall television as we are. I had a period where I didn’t watch much television. As I’ve been blogging and as I’ve come to review television shows for LI Reviews and LI Kids, I’ve developed an appreciation for the shows that actually are good.

Some of the new shows have already started and some of the returning shows are now on air.

Within this first week of Fall television I’ve come to realize the following things:

-Guys can be addicted to Gossip Girl, too
-The writing for GG is what makes it good
-Blair’s hot
-90210’s premiere wasn’t as great as expected
-the writing wasn’t solid, the dialogue sucked, and so did some of the young actors
-Next week’s 90210 looks more promising
-Sons of Anarchy f’n rocks man!
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