A summary of things you should know about Mindsharing according to Lior Zoref: Introduction In this episode Lior Zoref takes a deep dive into his book, Mindsharing, where he showsRead More
The post A Preview of Mindsharing with Lior Zoref appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Lior Zoref takes a deep dive into his book, Mindsharing, where he shows you how to master the art of crowdsourcing everything.
In his book Zoref offers several practical tools for unleashing powerful creativity that you can get from a large crowd as well as success stories of several people who succeeded by using crowdsourcing. The goal of the book is to help you use social media to learn things faster, build stronger relationships with people online, and understand the intricacies of the digital age today.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are unfamiliar with social media and want to know more about interacting with their friends, followers and influencers.
To my knowledge there isn’t any book that explores what is happening in this era other than my book. My book is tapping into this specific area on how crowd sourcing and social networks can help us solve problems and think better.
I recommend reading the introduction because it will give you a great overview about what to expect from the book. The book is divided into four parts and I think that each part is one that you can jump in and out of.
I would say that We are stronger than Me. When you think with a big crowd it’s basically as if you are upgrading your brain. There is another way in order to solve big problems and it is by going to big crowds and asking questions.
I start by telling you how crowdsourcing can help anyone in their career from startup to big organizations and in the first part I give many examples/stories of this.
Then there is a part about how we can use crowdsourcing in our personal lives. In this part I tell you a story about a startup called CrowdMed who is using crowdsourcing to solve medical mysteries.
There is another chapter where I talk about the How To which is basically going to places where there are big crowds of people and asking questions.
The last part is my favorite part and it’s about making dreams come true. For me it all started a few years ago when I started my PhD. I told a friend of mine that maybe one day I would present my research on the TED stage and my friend told me I had a better chance at winning the lottery. When my Facebook friends heard that they decided they would help me make this dream come true and so we did. And then I tell other stories of how inspiring people used crowdsourcing to make their dreams come true also.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 08:45
“Great minds think alike but clever minds think together.” – Unknown
I am 44 years old, married with three kids. I was obsessed with technology early in age and became a computer scientist and studied computer programming. From there I worked for Microsoft for 14 years. Right before turning 40 I hit my midlife crisis and I decided to retire from Microsoft and started on my journey to get my PhD. In the last few years I have been consulting to brands and startups that are using crowdsourcing as a strategic tool to innovate.
The inspiration is a story I heard a few years ago about Debra who lives in New York and at that time her four year old son Leo had fever. So Debra went to the doctor and told her it’s probably strep but after leaving the doctor she had a bad feeling about it so she took a picture of her sons face and posted it on Facebook. She began to get a lot of messages that said her son might have a very rare illness that could kill him. Immediately she took her son to the hospital to check to see if he had that illness. After checking they concluded that it was in fact the disease, started treatment immediately and were able to save his life. After hearing this story I did my research and wrote the book about the power of big crowds.
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
Buy Mindsharing by Lior Zoref on Amazon today
Visit Mindsharing.info to learn more about Lior and his book
Follow Lior Zoref on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbit
The Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Mindsharing with Lior Zoref appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>When starting any sort of new business venture, social media marketing and online promotion have become two of the most important ways for an entrepreneur to get their products outRead More
The post 5 Social Media Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs Make appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>When starting any sort of new business venture, social media marketing and online promotion have become two of the most important ways for an entrepreneur to get their products out to consumers.
While social media is free (for the most part) and easy to use, it is also easy to make mistakes. Getting distracted by all of the bells and whistles that come with social media can keep a budding startup business from true success.
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” – Seth Godin (Highlight to Share)
There are a variety of social media mistakes that entrepreneurs make when it comes to marketing their business online. Using social media platforms to communicate is a great format, but only when done properly. We’ve interviewed many authors on social media marketing and I compiled a list of the common social media mistakes most entrepreneurs make so you know what to avoid.
Perhaps you were extremely accomplished in your previous ventures or maybe you have a very strong pedigree. There is nothing wrong with being proud of the accomplishments of your past, but most of your social media followers will not care to hear about them on a daily basis. When you share too much about your past achievements, it is a huge turn off to those who do not already know your work.
Just like anything else in life, talking about your past achievements is best done in moderation. There are instances where your past experiences will come in handy and when they are germane to the discussion, there is nothing wrong with bringing them up.
However, social media users are savvier than ever. They will see through any attempts to call attention to yourself by being boastful and may decide not to use your products or services because of your arrogant social media presence. Even worse, this affects your company’s word of mouth in a negative manner.
Social media is great, because it gives potential consumers a chance to get to know you on a more personal level. This can be a bad thing if you are a person who allows themselves to get swept up in negativity. We all have bad days and personal beefs, but social media is no place to air your sour grapes or complain about the hard times in your life.
Consumers use social media as a means for escaping the drudgery of day to day living, so the last thing they want to be confronted with are the harsh realities of your life. Airing your personal frustrations about the problems that you are having with other people or whining about how hard you life is will lose you social media followers and create bad word of mouth.
Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. Would you want to buy a product from someone who used their social media profile as a place to vent and complain? The answer is usually no in most instances. Before you fire off your negative social media post, take a moment to consider what your customer base will think of it.
Social media is a great outlet to speak intelligently, but it is even more important for you to use it as a place to listen. By using social media to garner consumer feedback, you have the opportunity to collect information that is specifically designed to help you. If a consumer has a complaint, you can rectify it immediately and ensure that you do not lose their business.
You can also use social media to engage with customers on a more personal level, getting to know them better. While it is great to let consumers learn more about you, learning more about them allows them to feel more valued. Speaking to them about matters more important than your latest sales and promotions is pivotal.
The plethora of tools and usages that social media provides for its users can be overwhelming, causing an entrepreneur to lose sight of the ones that are most important. Social media comes equipped with analytic tools that are geared towards measuring the impact of your social media marketing push.
These tools often come free or can be purchased at exceedingly reasonable prices. The tools will show you which of your posts have become most popular and let you know if any of your materials have shown the ability to go viral.
Posts can also be scheduled when you are too busy to get to a computer or smartphone. With so many options available to you, an entrepreneur would be a fool not to at least explore some of them. No matter what goal you are trying to accomplish, there is an analytic tool designed to help.
One of the best parts of social media is its ability to offer you a means of promoting several different products at once. An entrepreneur can easily leverage social media’s reach to gain as many new customers as possible. There are so many possibilities and there are a million thoughts that are probably crossing your mind about how to pursue them. Enhancing your business prospects comes first and foremost.
Be careful about getting caught up in the madness of trying to promote several different products and services at once. Over promotion can fatigue the audience and cause them to pass by your posts when they are using social media. Training your focus on just one venture allows the audience to get to know the product better. It also decreases the the number of distractions.
As a business mentor for MentorMojo, virality expert Emerson Spartz gives some more effective social media marketing tips in detail here:
The Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
Trendology by Chris Kerns
Do It! Marketing by David Newman
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt
The post 5 Social Media Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs Make appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>5 Secrets for Developing Your Own Personal Brand What is the secret to successful brand building? Well, it is a combination of a great plan, and lots of hard work.Read More
The post 5 Secrets For Developing Your Own Personal Brand appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>What is the secret to successful brand building? Well, it is a combination of a great plan, and lots of hard work. Whether you are a multi-million dollar enterprise or a home-based small business, you need a clear idea if you want to build a brand identity.
Let’s take a look at the important pointers that can help you with developing your own personal brand:
Want a good example of brand storytelling done right? Just check out the Lego Movie. A fun representation of the possibilities that the brand creates, the movie is equally enjoyable for both children and adults.
Consider who you are, what your business promises are, and how you started out to get some ideas about your brand’s story. Keep it crisp and concise. And be true about who you are. And you’ll have the base on which to build your brand.
Serious? Cool? Quirky? Every business has a personality of its own. It depends on a number of factors, such as your target market, your products/services, your approach, and so on.
While McDonalds and Burger King both serve burgers, they have a distinctive personality. If you sell video games to peppy teens, your brand needs to reflect a hip and cool image to attract the right crowd.
But it won’t surely suit your brand’s image if you offer technology solutions to new businesses. Again, either of these images won’t suit a luxury brand selling fragrances to the ultra high net worth individuals.
The simple logo, use of green and white, and the entire look and feel of Whole Foods Market convey the concepts of health, freshness and sustainability. Consistency is the key to brand building.
After you have identified the personality of your business, it is important to focus on how to reflect it at every step. Your logo, website design, color choice, text use, and every little detail needs to be consistent with the image you want to project.
If you aren’t on social media yet, it is high time you do it. Consider your brand’s personality and who your audience is before you decide which platforms to engage on and how to do it.
A jewelry designer hoping to reach out to women may do well on Pinterest (as Etsy established). But if you are a telecommunication solution provider aiming to connect with followers, Twitter and LinkedIn may be more advantageous.
You also need to come up with the right ways to engage on social media. Remember, a conversation is a two-way thing. And if you fail to converse, your presence alone won’t be of any help to your brand.
The best way to establish your personal brand is to be there for others. Whether it’s as simple as answering a question on social media or as complex as creating a how-to guide, extend a helping hand.
Not only will it make you feel good, it will also help you earn respect and admiration. And you never know when a good turn results in a new opportunity. While it is essential to learn to say no at times, it is also important to say yes, whenever you can.
Little tactics help create a brand identity that is known and valued by all.
Don’t expect overnight results. Developing your own personal brand takes time. You have to plan it well, put in the required work, and wait for the results. It may be slow, but once your brand identity catches on with the audience, it’ll grow on its own.
Lean Branding by Laura Busche
Hello My Name is Awesome by Alexandra Watkins
Pocket Man by Scott Jordan
Body of Work by Pamela Slim
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
The post 5 Secrets For Developing Your Own Personal Brand appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about The Art of Social Media according to Guy Kawasaki: Introduction In this episode Guy Kawasaki reveals all his insights on his andRead More
The post A Preview of The Art of Social Media with Guy Kawasaki appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Guy Kawasaki reveals all his insights on his and Peg Fitzpatrick’s book, The Art of Social Media, where he shares over 100 practical tips and tricks on the most popular social media platforms.
In their book Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick give you an actionable marketing strategy that guides you through steps to build your foundation, amass your digital assets, optimize your profile, attract more followers, and effectively integrate social media and blogging. The goal of the book is to help you improve your online presence and dramatically increase your social media traffic.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are trying to improve their social media marketing efforts to increase brand awareness, build credibility online, and network with other experts.
Many of the other books on social media are at like a 50,000 foot view. They are written with very obvious advice and my book is not at the 50,000 foot level, it’s more at the 1,000 foot level.
In a perfect world I think someone could read through this book in maybe 90 minutes.
I want the read to find that social media is not as big of mystery as you might think. Social media is blocking, tackling, and experimenting and don’t be afraid of making mistakes because everybody makes them.
This book is an extremely tactical practical book to help you start, understand, and get you on the path to mastering social media as a marketing tool. It’s not a book about how to make more friends; it’s not about how to update your college buddies and family about your life. This is a book that is meant for a business person to use social media as a platform.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 07:43
What you want to do is you want to position yourself with someone who is trustworthy, likeable, and competent. And the way you do this is not by constantly pimping yourself but by providing value.
I am currently the Chief Evangelist of an online graphics tool company called Canva. Prior to this I advised the CEO of Motorola for a year, I was also the Evangelist and Chief Evangelist of Apple. I’ve started several companies and I’m a writer and a speaker, I’ve written 13 books.
My main inspiration was royalty. Basically I wanted to enable people to use social media as a fantastic marketing tool.
If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland
Buy The Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick on Amazon today
Visit ArtOf.Social to learn more about the book
Visit GuyKawasaki.com to learn more about Guy and his other books
Follow Guy Kawasaki on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
Trendology by Chris Kerns
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks
5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of The Art of Social Media with Guy Kawasaki appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Do It Marketing according to David Newman: Introduction In this episode David Newman takes a deep dive into his book, Do ItRead More
The post A Preview of Do It Marketing with David Newman appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode David Newman takes a deep dive into his book, Do It Marketing, where he shares 77 instant, actionable tactics to boost sales, maximize profits, and beat the competition.
In his book Newman gives you concrete strategies, tactics, templates, and tools to regain the clarity, confidence, and control your need to succeed when it comes to marketing your business. The goal of the book is to teach you how to get noticed using the power of 3PR, position yourself as a go-to expert in your field, do social media right, generate a steady stream of referrals, and leverage enthusiastic advocates.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who have an understanding of their business and the marketing they need yet fail to see an increase in new prospects, customers, and revenue from their efforts.
My book is really different because it’s a sales driven marketing book.
This book is laid out more like a series of webpages. It’s very graphical, visual, and modular so you don’t actually need to read the book cover to cover.
The whole 280 page book can be boiled down into four words, offer value, invite engagement. Everything we talk about in marketing, sales, and business development is about offering value and inviting engagement.
We start out with the overview chapter and it’s called Marketing Rocks. This chapter is meant to take the fear, uncertainty, and doubt of marketing away. Marketing needs to be easy, effortless, and enjoyable and if it’s not you’re probably doing it wrong.
The second part of the book is about them, not you and the title is It’s About Them, Really. We talk about who are you, who is your business, and your product, services, and programs in the context of your prospects. So learning to speak prospect language about prospect problems is the first big ‘ah ha!’ insight in this second part of the book.
The next part of the book is called Learn to Speak Prospects. In this section we talk about messaging, about what to say and how to say it so that you punch through the noise.
From there we go into Expert Positioning and this really is the core of my work as a coach and a consultant. It’s positioning that business owner or entrepreneur as the go-to expert in their field. This is a combination of what I call your 3 PR game plan. And 3 PR is Personalized Professional Public Relations which is speaking, publishing, and social media. The speaking builds your visibility, the publishing builds your credibility, and the social media builds your share ability. There is a whole section on social media and about how not to be an idiot on social media.
The next part of the book is the S word and the S word is Sales. In this part I talk about an easy effortless sales process, sales tactics and how to have a trusted advisor relationship with your prospects.
In the next couple of chapters I talk about getting better leads and getting better prospects. Because when you break down the sales process so many business owners and entrepreneurs believe that if they can get in front of more people they can make more sales.
We then go into a section about eliminating roadblocks and some of this is your personal productivity, some of it is around your calendar and others is around how to overcome some common objections.
The last couple of section of the book I talk about your business DNA. It’s about really figuring out who is a great fit for you and who is not. We talk about your competition and the fact that many of times we are competing with idiots and the problem is that they are winning.
The section to last chapter we talk about personal success strategies and there we talk about what you need to do as the business owner.
The last section is about taking action and I close out the book with five marketing moves through business success which are move up, move in, move ahead, move aside, and move alone. And then we move to implementation because the last part of the book is the 21 day marketing launch plan. This plan takes all of the ideas that we have talked about and shows you how to implement them.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 6:41
“Action gives you traction.” – David Newman
I run a company called Do It Marketing and coincidentally that is also the title of my book. I work with consultants, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and independent professionals who want to do a better job with their marketing and grow their business. I live outside of Philadelphia Pennsylvania with my beautiful bride of 30 years and two kids. Our son Charlie is 19, our daughter Becca is 22 and life is an ongoing adventure.
It really was founded in my coaching, consulting, and speaking business. So many small business owners, entrepreneurs, and independent professionals are stuck. This is causing so much headache and frustration that a book like this needed to be written.
Linchpin by Seth Godin
Buy Do It! Marketing by David Newman on Amazon today
Visit DoItMarketing.com to learn more about the book and access the free exclusive content
Follow David Newman on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Trendology by Chris Kerns
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
Traction: A Startup Guide To Getting Customers by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks
5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Do It Marketing with David Newman appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Profit Hacking according to Steven Daar: Introduction In this episode Steven Daar shares his book, Profit Hacking, where he gives online entrepreneursRead More
The post A Preview of Profit Hacking with Steven Daar appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Steven Daar shares his book, Profit Hacking, where he gives online entrepreneurs a 3 step formula for marketing and growing a business.
In his book Daar shows you exactly how to hack and scale each of the 3 steps showing you the leverage points hidden in your business and the fastest way to double your monthly profits. The goal of the book is to teach you how to significantly increase traffic, grow your business on a massive level, maximize every marketing activity you do, and stop wasting your time on ineffective business strategies.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who currently own an online business that is struggling to see a consistent increase in digital traffic, conversion rates, and profit.
I believe this book is almost like a piece of art. The designs that helped with the book did an incredible job. This book is also very focused on action and gives very clear bite size action steps for people to do.
Ideally this book is one that you can refer back to over and over to continue to get value from and grow your business from the principles I give in the book.
It would be that traffic conversion and economics are all extremely important and they all need attention but a lot of people outweigh the percentage of their time and resources to getting traffic. Even if you just take 20% of your time of your traffic generating activities and give it to working on A/B testing or conversion optimization as well as figuring out how else to serve or further monetize or give value to your customers you will do your business so many favors.
The subtitle of the book is the entrepreneur’s three part formula for maximizing success and that three part formula is traffic, conversion, and economics.
The very first part of the book is about trying to change the mindset of the reader. What I see a lot of times with entrepreneurs is they creating their website for their business and website is just one big assumption. So everything from the layout, the design, colors, copies, and the images. They are all just guesses as to what is the most effective thing to show to the visitor that will get them to want to engage further. People build their website and think that now they need to drive traffic to it. Driving traffic to a website that you never continue to work on, test or improve to make it more effective at converting visitors, you’re not going to get the full return on investment of the time and/or money that you spent trying to bring traffic to that site. The thing is trying to convince people that they often don’t have a traffic problem but the truth is if you were really good at conversion and economics then traffic would almost never be a problem. A huge lesson of the book is that traffic becomes a lot easier every time you increase your conversions and every time you get stronger at your economics. The two things that increase your revenue per visitor are increasing your conversion rate and increasing the average order value or average customer value. Getting more traffic will never increase that side of your equation or increase your revenue but once you are break even or profitable then traffic is just gasoline that you want to put into the engine of your business.
“Books don’t work, people do.” – Steven Daar
I was basically born and bred entrepreneur and I started my first business really soon after college. I had the passion, drive, and good ideas but I didn’t know that much about marketing and sales. It came clear soon after that if I was going to make this original business successful I would have to learn how to reach the people that I wanted to talk to and speak to them effectively. I got really deep into learning how to do those things specifically on the internet and eventually that lead to me writing Profit Hacking.
The inspiration behind writing this book was it was the book that I wished I had five and a half years ago when I started my first business. If I had this book it would have saved me a lot of time, frustration, and lost money. A big part of the mission and purpose of the book is to inspire more entrepreneurs to not only learn how to drive more traffic, convert it and monetize it so that they are more profitable, but also how to leverage that into more good done for the world.
Choose Yourself by James Altucher
Buy Profit Hacking by Steven Daar on Amazon today
Visit ProfitHacking.com to learn more about Steven and his book
Visit ConversionForGood.com to learn more about Steven’s conversion optimization
Follow Steven Daar on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
The Suitcase Entrepreneur by Natalie Sisson
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Simple Ways Entrepreneurs Can Attract Customers
5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Profit Hacking with Steven Daar appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Trendology according to Chris Kerns: Introduction In this episode Chris Kerns takes a deep dive into his book, Trendology where he sharesRead More
The post A Preview of Trendology with Chris Kerns appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Chris Kerns takes a deep dive into his book, Trendology where he shares the latest technologies that will amplify your marketing efforts tremendously.
In his book, Kerns gives you an action plan for developing real-time marketing to engage your audience on topics that are trending in the media by using his data-driven approach. The goal of the book is to teach you how to measure the performance of your social strategy, leverage new trends on a daily basis, build a data-driven team and avoid the marketing strategies that don’t work.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who have a marketing plan in place or are developing one that includes the use of social media and other digital marketing platforms.
There are a few books behind real time marketing but this is the first book that looks at the data behind it. It’s about the performance which to me means it’s about the audience and if they want brands to be doing this. And the data is telling you that absolutely they do, they respond in huge ways. They share that content more, they reply to it more, and they engage in conversations with brands.
There are two main parts of the book if you divide it in half. The first half is looking at lots of different types of events and understanding how brands are using Twitter during big and small events. The second half of the book is more around how to bring this into your framework, how to build a team, set goals and how to build a data driven process. And also lots of interviews with industry leaders about where this whole real time thing is headed.
The biggest takeaway that I have seen in all sorts of different forms of what we call real time marketing is that it’s not a winner take all. And that the distribution of success is massive. It’s rarer for you to fail at real time marketing than it is for you to succeed at it.
I begin the book with one of the most popular stories out there about real time marketing and that’s the story about Arby’s and the social media manager there name Josh Martin. This was one of the most successful examples of real time marketing which looked like something that somebody did off the cuff but the whole point of this being the intro to the book is that there is actually a lot of planning and process involved. To be spontaneous in social media sometimes it takes a lot of planning. Then I jump in and I talk about real-time marketing and then I walk through some of the current climate around it.
From there I jump on over into real time. I kick off real time with the thing that most people know about which is big events like the Super bowl, the Emmys and the Golden Globes. Brands have war rooms set up so that when a micro moment happens within that event they create quick content around that. So what I look at is not only how many brands are doing that but how effective is it and what’s the result of brands doing that. And what I found is that it works really well and the audience really likes it.
In the next chapter I take a turn from the big events to the smaller events. This takes two forms; one is smaller events like holidays that you know are coming. When brands are doing social media around those and being relevant to their audience based on that smaller event. And then there are all these quirky little holidays that tons of brands are jumping in on these days. One is called May the 4th which is Star Wars day. I saw a ton of brands jump in on that this year and got a great reaction from the audience. Not only do we look at our brands using this type of content to talk to their audience but also how effective it is. And then I also look at daily trending topics that pop up out of nowhere and brands jumping on those. These are things you can’t see coming at all but they can still give your brand a big lift in your social engagement numbers.
After I walk through all the different times of real time marketing I then pivot the book over to understanding how to build out a team and a process around it. I kick off with how to build a data driven foundation for being more nimble in your organization. I show you the processes you have to have in place and the groundwork as well.
In the next chapter I talk about goals. Social media goals have always been a hot topic around how to set goals and how to revise your goals as you are going. The overall finding that I had around goals is pretty similar to what I’ve always preached with social media which is you should be creating new goals when you’re doing real time. If you are running a business everything you do should be supporting the goals that you have already in place.
In the next chapter I talk about the process. Real time marketing, because it is so quick turn, there can be a lot of confusion and mistakes made if you don’t have the right team, process, and technology in place. I step through all those different ways to make sure that you are managing risk while you’re jumping on the opportunity of real time.
In the final chapter is when I bring in the thought leaders from across the industry that are not only doing real time but are seeing the future of real time.
I am the director of analytics and research at Spredfast in Austin, Texas. We are one of the biggest social marketing platforms out there. We work with large enterprise clients to do everything around social media that they are looking to do. Everything from one on one conversations all the way through finding content that’s out there and amplifying current conversations about a brand. My job every day is around the data behind social media.
Trendology is all about real time marketing but more importantly it’s about how brands are looking at trends and leveraging them on social media. There was a lot of conversation about it which was interesting because I work in social media. But based on my background and what I do the interesting thing to me was that there was no data about it. No one was really look at the performance or asked if it actually worked. That is when I started pulling data and that was the inspiration behind the book. The book looks at the 100 biggest brands in the world and how they work in social media and then jumps into their use of real time and trending topics.
The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Buy Trendology by Chris Kerns on Amazon today
Visit TrendologyBook.com to learn more about Chris’s book
Visit Chris-Kerns.com to learn more about Chris
Visit Spredfast.com to learn more about his marketing automation system and company
Follow Chris Kerns on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Digital Bacon by Alex Rodrigues | A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt | Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days by Jay Levinson and Al Lautenslager
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding | 5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Trendology with Chris Kerns appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about The Pop Up Paradigm according to Melissa Gonzalez: Introduction In this episode Melissa Gonzalez takes a deep dive into her book, TheRead More
The post A Preview of The Pop Up Paradigm with Melissa Gonzalez appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Melissa Gonzalez takes a deep dive into her book, The Pop Up Paradigm, where she reveals how businesses can build real connections with their customers.
In her book, Gonzalez describes how businesses can use temporary products to generate customer loyalty, understand new markets, and test innovative concepts. The goal of the book is to teach you the most important ways you can benefit from a pop-up, the best type of marketing for your business, how to stay ahead of the retail market, and what to consider when launching a pop-up.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who own an online business and are considering a move into physical retail or own an established retail business yet struggle to get a product out.
I wrote this book to explain the seven evolutions we’ve seen in retail, seven of the top reasons that we worked with brands who are doing pop ups, and some great case studies for you to learn from and get inspiration from. I think that it’s different in that it’s full of case studies in our years of expertise and there are how-to books out there but this is a different approach.
I think you could read it in just a couple of sittings but because we broke up each chapter for different reason you could jump in and out.
The first action step is to figure out what your goal of the Pop-Up is. Without knowing what the goal is it’s almost impossible to craft a successful activation strategy.
The book is split up in four parts. Part one is talking about the evolution of retail, where retail has been and where we are seeing it now. Then it shifts into how you bridge that gap with a Pop-Up. Pop-Up is really an opportunity where you can connect the on and offline worlds.
In the second part of the book we go into what a pop-up offers your brand. If you are going to be utilizing Pop-Ups we give you some different reasons why and ask you the following questions. What’s your brand promise? Who is your key customer? What is your main goal of the pop up, and what is your budget?
In Part three we think about pop ups A to Z. Now that you have figured out your goals but you need to insure that you’re prepared to properly measure ROI for a Pop-Up. An ROI isn’t just the sales you are having but also how this will benefit your business for the next six months. I give a little Q&A to ask yourself if you are ready to do a Pop-Up. And then we go into some basics of how you can create buzz for your Pop-Up, everything from Guerrilla marketing to social media tactics, to traditional media.
And lastly in Part four we conclude with what’s still to come. The evolution of retail has really been impacted by the progression of technology and so we talk about how we see technology continuing to evolve and different things that are exciting us as we step into the future.
“Go after mindshare, not market share.” – Ron Johnson
I am the founder of The Lion’esque Group, we are pop up architects. Before that I worked on Wall Street on a trading desk. I am a proud mom to an adorable Jack Russell Terrier and I love experiencing new things.
We have been specializing in this since 2009 and really seen a shift as to how brands are utilizing pop up retail and seeing it fit in their budgets as they are coming around to the new year. As we have been a part of that evolution we wanted an opportunity to share with brands top reasons why people are doing it, share case studies, and inspire ideas for brands to utilize it.
Everybody’s Got Something by Robin Roberts
Buy The Pop Up Paradigm by Melissa Gonzalez on Amazon today
Visit LionesqueGroup.com to learn more about Melissa and her company
Follow Melissa Gonzalez on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Lean Branding by Laura Busche | Hello My Name Is Awesome by Alexandra Watkins | Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of The Pop Up Paradigm with Melissa Gonzalez appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Pocket Man according to Scott Jordan: Introduction In this episode Scott Jordan shares his book, Pocket Man, where he shares what itRead More
The post A Preview of Pocket Man with Scott Jordan appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Scott Jordan shares his book, Pocket Man, where he shares what it took him to be featured in thousands of major press articles, made millions of dollars, and made an appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank.
In his book, Jordan reveals the successes and failures he learned when it comes to reinventing yourself by pursuing your passions and mastering the art of personal promotion. The goal of the book is teach you how to get the attention of the public in order to stand above your competition.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are having trouble promoting themselves to the media and need an example of what it takes to get your name or product out the public effectively.
I don’t think there are any other books on the same topic. This book was written in a style that I call unauthorized autobiography.
You can jump in and out or read straight through. I think the reader will be sucked in from the very first chapter. This is a book that you start reading and you don’t want to put it down.
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be willing to put yourself on the line, step outside your comfort zone, and channel your passion for your company into promoting it. If you don’t have the passion to promote your business you’re in the wrong line of work.
The book begins where I begin as a child. I didn’t have a good relationship with my father and he’s been one of the driving forces in my life. I have always been a gadget guy and even as a kid I would collect radios and little TV’s and things like that. My company SCOTTeVEST sells clothing with lots of hidden pockets for gadgets and that was the early connection. I majored in entrepreneurship in college which was before there were majors in entrepreneurship. My first real taste of being an entrepreneur was when I started a calendar company while I was in school and the book goes into some of the things that I learned in that process.
After college my dad tricked me into working for him at the family business cemetery. I went door to door selling cemetery lots and one thing I learned from that was that I needed to believe in something in order to sell it. It’s really hard to believe in selling cemetery lots and as a result I was not successful. My father ended up selling the business out from under me which was a terrible experience and devastating to me at that time but looking back it was the best thing for me.
After that I went to Law school at Case Western Reserve where I graduated at the very top of my class and became a lawyer for years. It was then that I realized just how much I hated practicing law but I found myself in a job that was paying well and I didn’t know how to get out of it.
SCOTTeVEST was founded based upon all the travels I did as a lawyer trying to juggle all my devices and how to carry them in a business casual environment. I knew there had to be a better way to carry your devices stylishly and much to my surprise there wasn’t a solution on the market that looked at clothing as a carrying device. The rest of the book is about how I built SCOTTeVEST by promoting it and the various things I did, some controversial and some not. I talk about the time I went on Shark Tank and the behind the scenes aspects of it all.
“I believe in anything worth doing is worth doing fast.” – Scott Jordan
I just turned 50 years old and I live in Sun Valley, Idaho. I have my wife and three poodles and I am a passionate personal promoter for my product, the SCOTTeVEST, which is a full line of clothing designed to hold your electronic devices.
Buy Pocket Man by Scott Jordan on Amazon today
Visit ScottEvest.com to learn more about Scott and his company
Follow Scott Jordan on Twitter
For questions contact Scott by email here
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Lean Branding by Laura Busche | Hello My Name is Awesome by Alexanda Watkins | Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks | 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Pocket Man with Scott Jordan appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks Marketing a business isn’t everybody’s cup of tea; and even if you are great at other things, it is quite possible that you areRead More
The post 5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks
Marketing a business isn’t everybody’s cup of tea; and even if you are great at other things, it is quite possible that you are doing it all wrong when it comes to marketing. And that could mean the end of the road in a few years time.
If your business, albeit being a potential success, isn’t quite hitting the mark, you need to find out whether your marketing sucks! How do you differentiate between a marketing plan that works and one that doesn’t? It’s simple – just take a look at the points below.
Reason 1 – No plan: Where is your marketing heading towards? Which marketing steps work and which don’t? What do you do to replace the ones that don’t? If you don’t have a proper plan, you won’t have answers to any of these questions.
A marketing plan needs to work to achieve a set of goals, have ample research at its back, identify and use the strategies that work, have means to measure the results, and add and alter as and when necessary. Do you have such a plan?
Reason 2 – No budget: You need to determine how much you want to spend on your marketing even before you take the first step. Don’t treat it as a series of requirements – it will only lead to waste of money.
And don’t opt for the cheapest option – usually you get what you pay for. So, even if you don’t need to pay your nephew to design your business logo, its best to get a professional to do it. Remember, it’s not just a logo; it is the first step in your brand building efforts.
Reason 3 – No cohesion: A black and white logo and a multicolored website or an edgy website and a tacky business card – exactly what impression are you trying to convey? Every element in your marketing plan needs to work together to create a uniform whole.
Disparity in fonts, colors, style and any such element can confuse your target market. What image do you wish for your business – corporate, edgy, contemporary, or something else? Make sure every piece of marketing reflects this core concept.
Reason 4 – No social media: If you aren’t on any social media platform, you are losing out. Your target base is out there. And so is your competition. Failing to mix new age marketing methods using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on is sure to lead to loss.
Create a Facebook business page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn profile, claim your Google+ page, and do whatever it takes. Make sure you update to them regularly. And remember, while Pinterest may work for a jewelry lineup, YouTube works better for a tech service.
Reason 5 – No metrics: Yes, you may think that your marketing efforts are paying off, but unless you are capable of measuring it, how do you know it for sure? Also, you have no idea which of your strategies work and which don’t.
Analyze and evaluate every step to make sure it is of any advantage. Do A/B testing to identify marketing efforts that do well and the ones that don’t. Use the metrics tools available to determine whether your efforts are paying off.
It is easy to sit back and be smug about how good you are at marketing. But it won’t be so easy once you are aware of why it sucks. But don’t despair; rectifying a mistake becomes easier when you have identified it. Take your time, and get your marketing back on track.
Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days by Jay Levinson and Al Lautenslager | Listen to Al give a deep dive here
Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers by Justin Mares | Listen to Justin give a deep dive here
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt | Listen to Mark give a deep dive here
Moving Targets by Gabriel Aluisy | Listen to Gabriel give a deep dive here
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez | Listen to Alex give a deep dive here
The post 5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>