Successful Blog

Do you need to livestream?

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The short answer is no.

Unless your business is broadcasting, you probably don’t need to lose sleep tonight worrying about your “Periscope strategy.”

Periscope is the live streaming app that was acquired by Twitter a few weeks ago. Around the same time, another live streaming app called Meerkat was making waves at SXSW. Both apps use Twitter as the delivery mechanism, and both focus on live video (although Periscope allows you to save your streams selectively).

Another app? Another tool for me to learn? I can hear your groaning from here.

But fear not, I have a roadmap for you.

Why You Might Need to Add Periscope or MeerKat to Your Marketing Mix

  • If you are camera-ready and articulate on the fly, and have useful information to communicate.
  • If your audience is predominantly on Twitter.
  • If your content marketing is already very video-centric.
  • If your business involves live events, where a live stream could give valuable insider status to your audience.
  • If you’ve mapped out live-streaming content that fits into your marketing plan for the next few months at least. Don’t go in without a plan.

If you don’t answer “heck yeah” to any of the above criteria, then by all means enjoy watching other folks’ live streams, but save your valuable marketing time for things that will add value to your bottom line.

Have you checked out either of these apps? What’s your opinion?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

 

How Are Guest Articles Different From Guest Posts?

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By Mickie Kennedy

So you heard that one terrific way to attract new traffic to your site can be to drop a few well-written articles on other popular websites or blogs. Seems pretty straightforward, right? You write an article full of useful advice, a potential new client or fan reads it, surfs over to your webpage, lands in your funnel and — boom! — your follower base expands.

At first glance, guest articles on online websites seem very similar to guest blog posts. However, while similar in quality content, they differ in how they are written, the editing process, and their place on the website.

So before you go sending off a dozen emails to leading blogs in your space, check out these rules and tips.

Guest Articles

Guest articles are usually more formally written for an online publication like a magazine. They also have a more formal review process. Most likely, you will be working with an editor who may have significant changes for your submitted work. In addition, a guest article may have a permanent place on the website or a link from the main page to your content.

Guest Blog Posts

A blog post is slightly different in that it is more informal. You are still presenting quality information, however, the review process is usually, but not always less stringent. The blog creator or their staff may have a few changes or might want to write an introduction for your post. In addition on a blog post, as new posts are added, your post will fall down on the page. Your work will still be incorporated on the website, but it will not have a permanent position. So for example, you couldn’t just send someone to the main blog URL and expect it to be there.

Best Practices for Guest Writing of Any Kind

To write for both of these, however, you will still be following quality writing guidelines. Things to keep in mind while writing either a guest article or a guest blog post:

  • The headline needs to reel people in. You want to keep it short, interesting and factual. It should be between 60-80 characters ideally, so that it’s easily readable in search engine listings.
  • Know your audience. Do they respond to anecdotes or do they like ‘just the facts.’ Don’t be afraid to ask the blogger or editor for any guidelines or to give feedback on the piece.
  • Another important feature of guest blog posts is the call to action. This is especially important if you are trying to get your product in front of a different audience. You want them to be able to go to your website and either by your product or sign up with your service, so make sure they know who you are and what you want from them.

Remember that in either situation, you want to send quality work to these websites. Refrain from using too many links or veering off topic in your posts.

Have questions about writing guest posts? Ask us in the comments.

Author’s Bio: Mickie Kennedy is author of the PR Fuel blog and President of eReleases Press Release Distribution.

Are you Villanova Piccolo Girl passionate about your business?

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week or so, you’ve probably seen “Villanova Piccolo Girl,” a heartbroken Villanova basketball fan who persevered with her bandmates even though she was overcome with emotion.

We can all draw some lessons from this young lady.

  • Keep going in the face of disappointment. Keep your eyes on your mission. As a business owner, you will encounter lots of setbacks. If you can stay focused on your unique contribution, and “why” you’re doing it, you’ll always come out ahead, and you won’t let your bandmates down.
  • It’s ok to cry if you’re sad. Everyone is always trying hard to look cool. That’s one reason this clip has resonated; she is being completely authentic in that moment. I’m not recommending bursting into tears in the middle of a business meeting, but keep the fire in your belly. Showing a little bit of emotion is ok when it’s real.
  • It’s ok to laugh at yourself. The girl in the video, Roxanne Chalifoux, has taken her sudden fame in stride, and it only makes her more endearing. We all want to be 100% confident and unflappable, especially running a business, but showing your humanity when you slip up is important.
  • There’s always a silver lining. Roxanne’s moment of raw honesty has now led to opportunities, including an appearance on Jimmy Fallon, where she played with The Roots. Even in your darkest moments, there might be an opportunity lurking. Keep your eyes open in those moments!

When your face hits the JumboTron, how will you react?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

 

Book Review: Content Code, by Mark W. Schaefer

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I suppose it was Mark Schaefer’s responsibility to write this book after he set off the earthquake that was his original post about “content shock” last year. He terrified huge swathes of marketers who were happily cranking out useful, relevant content and hoping for the best. After all, what can a small business or entrepreneur do when they’re up against big brands with agency resources, editors, and video crews?

According to Mark’s newest book, The Content Code, the secret is that content marketing doesn’t end when you create the content. That’s only the beginning.

Content Code book, by Mark W. Schaefer

Mark is, at his heart, an excellent teacher, and that shines through in this very approachable book. Each chapter lays out one of the ways you can “ignite your content” and crack the code.

He explores concepts like how to differentiate your voice, get attention for your brand, and be the go-to resource for your customers.

He has actually lived through the experience of cultivating his own community and successful consulting business, so he is speaking from direct knowledge, not from hypothetical concepts.

Here are the six factors of the content code:

  • Brand development
  • Audience and influencers
  • Distribution, Advertising, Promotion, and SEO
  • Authority
  • “Shareability” embedded into each piece of content
  • Social proof and social signals

There are so many concrete ideas for you to implement, but here are a few great ones just to whet your appetite:

  • Get emotional. Find a way to weave inspiration, laughter, awe, or entertainment into your next blog post.
  • Don’t abandon your older content. That great thing you wrote two weeks ago is still relevant and engaging, and useful to your customers, right? Build in a mechanism where you can re-share older content down the road, and watch it get shared more! Go one step further and re-share content that accrues lots of shares the first time you post it.
  • Comment on new research or ideas. Many of your readers want to share your content because it makes them helpful to their own readers (double karma). Be the one who reads the whole trend report for your industry and makes incisive commentary first.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone involved in marketing, regardless of where they are in their career. There are tidbits in the Content Code for the new marketer as well as the seasoned veteran.

Get the book now, before your competitors do.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Disclosure: I was provided with a digital copy of the book for review purposes.

Helping our “invisible” community

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This blog and community is about the “doers.”

Yes, we share a lot of food for thought as you build your business, but the goal is to stimulate action.

Today’s post highlights a man of action who is also a member of our community– Mark Horvath, founder of Invisible People, a nonprofit that uses social media to help change the story of homelessness.

In 2010 a film production company followed Mark around to produce a documentary on his work and homelessness.

@Home movie Mark Horvath
The good news, well great news actually, is that the movie, called “@home,” will be airing on PBS in 35 States starting 3/25. The not-so-great news is that there is zero promotion or campaign to accompany the film.

When Mark agreed to participate in the film it was with the hope that there would be an awareness campaign to accompany the movie. As he put it, “the last thing I wanted was a film that ended the conversion after the movie was over kind of like ‘homelessness sucks, but lets go get ice cream!'”

For whatever reason, neither a campaign or promotion of any significance has happened.

The current plan is to try to remedy the lack of promotion with some grass roots effort, and Mark has been inspired by a successful project from 2009 (called Twestival). For that project, Amanda Rose started a grassroots movement that was truly amazing. Her community crowdsourced tweetups (do those even exist anymore?) in 202 cities around the world and raised huge money for charity:water.

Some of the events were pretty significant, while some were just a few people gathering at a bar or restaurant. It showed how social media can be used to organically organize people to gather for a purpose and have impact.

This is where Mark needs our help.

At the end of this post we are listing cities, stations and times. If you live in one of those communities and are a make-things-happen type person, it would be awesome if you (or a team of you) would start promoting the PBS airing and make some kind of an event happen.

If you want to make it a fundraiser, PLEASE PICK A LOCAL HOMELESS SERVICE to benefit. It’s important to fight homelessness at a local level. Plus, supporting a local homeless service would just be a better fit for any local event.

The point of this movie is just that – create a conversation on people experiencing homelessness.

Mark has made available a couple of resources that can support your efforts to spread the word. One is a study guide for the film, created by Seattle University.

@home-discussion-guide

He also has a website called InvisiblePeople.tv where he highlights the stories of specific homeless people in our communities.

Anything you can do to help spread the word about this important film, and Mark’s vital work, would be much appreciated.

These are the scheduled showings of the film on PBS stations around the United States:

EASTERN STANDARD TIME
Wednesday, March 25 at 7:00 PM
Thursday, March 26 at 12:00 AM, 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM
Saturday, March 28 at 1:00 PM ET
WEDU – Tampa, FL NHPTV – Durham, NH
WPBT – North Miami, FL WNET – New York, NY
WUCF – Orlando, FL WNED – Buffalo, NY
WXEL – West Palm Beach, FL WMHT – Troy, NY
WJCT – Jacksonville, FL WXXI – Rochester, NY
WSRE – Pensacola, FL WCNY – Syracuse, NY
WGCU – Fort Myers, FL WCFE – Plattsburgh, NY
WUFT – Gainesville, FL WSKG – Vestal, NY
GEOR – Atlanta, GA WPBS – Watertown, NY
ALAB – Birmingham, AL WVIZ – Cleveland, OH
WGBH – Boston, MA WOUB – Athens, OH
WGBY – Springfield, MA WCTE – Cookeville, TN
MAIN – Bangor, ME WKNO – Cordova, TN
WTVS – Wixom, MI WETP – Knoxville, TN
WKAR – East Lansing, MI WLJT – Martin, TN
WHYY – Philadelphia, PA WHRO – Norfolk, VA
WQED – Pittsburgh, PA WBRA – Roanoke, VA
WPSU – University Park, PA VERM – Colchester, VT
WQLN – Erie, PA

CENTRAL STANDARD TIME
Wednesday, March 25 at 6:00 PM and 11:00 PM
Thursday, March 26 at 7:00 AM and 1:00 PM
Saturday, March 28 at 12:00 PM
ARKA – Conway, AR KENT – Lexington, KY
IOWA – Johnston, IA WYES – New Orleans, LA
WTTW – Chicago, IL KWCM – Appleton, MN
WSIU – Carbondale, IL KETC – St. Louis, MO
WILL – Urbana, IL NDAK – Fargo, ND
WMEC – Chatham, IL NEBR – Lincoln, NE
WTVP – Peoria, IL KERA – Dallas, TX
WTIU – Bloomington, IN KLRN – San Antonio, TX
WVUT – Vincennes, IN WMVS – Milwaukee, WI

MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME
Wednesday, March 25 at 5:00 PM ant 10:00 PM
Thursday, March 26 at 6:00 AM and 12:00 PM
Saturday, March 28 at 11:00 AM
IDAH – Boise, ID SDAK – Vermillion, SD
MONT – Bozeman, MT KUED – Salt Lake City, UT

PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Wednesday, March 25 at 4:00 PM and 9:00 PM
Thursday, March 26 at 5:00 AM and 11:00 AM
Saturday, March 28 at 10:00 AM
KUAC – Fairbanks, AK KIXE – Redding, CA
KAET – Phoenix, AZ KEET – Eureka, CA
KUAT – Tucson, AZ KNME – Albuquerque, NM
KOCE – Santa Ana, CA KSYS – Medford, OR
KQED – San Francisco, CA KSPS – Spokane, WA
KVIE – Sacramento, CA

If you have questions, or would like to help, you can contact Mark Horvath directly: info [at] invisiblepeople [dot] tv.

How to Kickstart a Product-Based Business

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This week I’m pleased to interview the two creative minds behind the Ryo adaptor (launching today on Kickstarter), Lori Liu and Kevin Lieber. Crowdfunding is a great way to road-test an idea, gauge market demand, and obtain financing for your project.

I thought it would be interesting to get the insider scoop on what it’s like to take the leap from idea to Kickstarter campaign.

Ryo adaptor

1. What are the backgrounds of your founders?

We are a team of four made up of a creator/entrepreneur, a legal adviser, an auditor, and a Youtube channel producer and host. It’s a good mix of creative talents and business acumen.

2. How did you come together for this project (since some are in New Zealand and one is in the US?)

The three of us in New Zealand are associates and we came together because we believed in Julian’s idea and also because we just wanted to go all in and take a real shot at creating something outside of our day jobs. We needed a US partner to be able to launch a US based Kickstarter project, so we pitched our idea to Kevin as he is active in the science and tech space and seemed like somebody who would be interested. Our pitch was honest and personal, and Kevin jumped onboard quite quickly. We’ve found that if you are open and honest with people, you will get the same back.

3. Any tips or advice on working together remotely with a business partner?

It really isn’t hard if everyone shares a common goal and is invested in the project. The logistics are a bit more difficult than working with local people, but we’ve found that there’s almost nothing you can’t sort out over email and Skype (of course, Julian had to fly over to the New York to shoot our video with Kevin). The only difference in working with a remote partner is that there needs to be a clear division of labour so that he can be a lot more independent in what he is doing. Back home we just tag team a lot and pick up the slack for each other whenever it becomes necessary.

4. What made you decide to use Kickstarter to get the product launched?

We are a small startup working on a very tight budget. Kickstarter is fantastic because it is basically free market validation, and it’s a great platform for newbies like us to build a following for future projects.

5. Any tips for someone considering going to Kickstarter with their project?

It’s still a bit early for us to be giving advice as we’re still testing the waters ourselves. Rather than a tip we can share the approach that we’ve taken with Kickstarter. We have invested a LOT of time and energy to create a good Kickstarter page. Everything from the video to the visual assets and the text has been created with the utmost care and attention to detail. We believe that while the idea itself is important and is obviously central to the project, it takes a good looking campaign page to give people that extra push to really want to check out what you’re doing. At this point we just really really really hope we’re right.

6. How do you go from product to business? Do you have a strategy in place for how you will scale and grow?

We have a business plan for taking the product to retail after the campaign. Of course that will depend on the success of this campaign. If we are successfully funded we will be able to do our first run of production and get the ryo adapter and kushi out to our backers. If we get a decent amount of funding we will be taking this to local retailers here in our relatively small New Zealand market. If we raise a significant amount of funding we will be well placed to take this to the larger retailers overseas. We have also looked into exit strategies for our worst case scenarios. We are all at pretty critical points in our respective careers so if we don’t hit certain targets, then this project will not be worth quitting our day jobs for. In this case we will have to look for a buyer to take over. I think if that happens the best deal we could reach would be agreeing to a majority takeover with the original founders taking reduced shareholdings as silent partners.

7. Can you share any tips from your marketing plan? Any successes so far?

I don’t think our success can be measured until we launch. As a startup we aren’t too focused on a commercially driven marketing campaign that shoves the ryo adapter down people’s throats. We really just want people to know we exist and we’ve basically tried to use every avenue available within budget. One thing we’re definitely limiting our spend on is banner and sidebar ads. It might have been good a while back, but if you think about the sheer number of startups we have today vying for ad revenue versus the slower growing target audience, it just doesn’t make financial sense. We were pretty blown away by how much these ads cost, the prices have been driven up by the fast growing number of startups and other ad sellers all chasing a limited pool of money.

8. Anything I forgot to ask about that you’d like to share?

Yeah, my credentials! I’m so new at this myself and I don’t feel qualified at all to be giving any tips. I hope my answers are of some value to your audience. You should hit me up again after the campaign and hopefully then I’ll have some gems to share!

I think that’s a great idea. Look for a followup article here, once the campaign closes!

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee