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Ariel: 9 Tactics for Thought Leader Engagement

identify your target and only speak to him or her. The biggest thing that happens on social media is the hugeness of it. There's so many millions and billions. And we all know the statistics right. A 1,000,000, people on Facebook and, you know, 500 million people on Twitter, 200 million active. That's a lot of people. Don't talk to all of them. As I was coming to speak here, one of my dear friend said to me, Pretend you're only speaking to me so high, Carmen. So you know, that's one way of really, really addressing it. So again, if you can get really granular about that target market like we talked about with the archetype of writing out, who are they? What color they are their eyes. What's their name? Do they have kids, all that stuff, what they suffer with, right? Your bog post only to her, and you will find all of a sudden she will show up to read them, as opposed to just trying to be a generalist. It's so boring. And so that's the old paradigm of how things used to bay. It's not th...

e new paradigm. The old paradigm is billboards and shouting. The new paradigm is direct connection. Be interesting and interested. Don't hype just share and help. In other words, this is not a sales or marketing campaign. If you are going on a thought leadership campaign to do sales and marketing, you are not on a fault leadership campaign. You are on a self indulgent sales and marketing campaign, which actually won't work. Remember when Wal Mart got caught with their pants down a couple of years ago because they had Pete to people in ah, trailer? This is very, very famous. Ah, driving around. And they were parking in Walmart parking lots and talking about how great it was because while Martin allows RVs and camping at night, does anyone remember this? It was like a big scandal in social. It turned out they had hired the two people that were working for the social media firm, and they came up with this idea. It was completely inauthentic. It was a sales and marketing campaign, and we saw right through it because we're in the most allergic to sales and marketing. But we love to buy, and we love to be marketed to just has to be done well, so don't hype just share and help. Sales and marketing are definitely part of this. This is the undertone of the whole thing. When I go on a sales call or when I'm having a sales conversation, I never feel like I'm having a sales conversation. I feel like I'm having a How can I help you? Conversation. That's the way you need to think about it. Just ask you a quick question. How did you do to get to that point? Because I think that's a fear that so many creatives have total Is sales. Yeah, the s word. I mean, that's, like, the scariest word. I mean, you know how many musicians I represent that they won't They won't say. Please go by my CD. It's at a table back there. It won't say that. Like people are standing listening to your music off course. You it's it's amazing. They don't want to be sales ears. Um um, So the question then becomes How do you weave a commercial into your whole thing without it seeming like that? Well, I would think if you're genuine about it and you're just sharing something, this is why I say to real newbie starting out or people that have hired really bad marketing companies that have done the sales a high P thing that didn't work. I say, Look, next three months, we are not going to sell or plug or talk about anything. No upcoming show, No in the studio, No buy my album. None of it. We're just going to share content, and it usually will turn a community around very quickly. But if you think creatives that you are not in the sales business, you will starve. Unfortunately, I mean, this is the whole thing. I know. So many amazing artists will never have a show cause they can't sell to a gallery. This is a problem. Um, you got a coat? Get get coaching around this read books about this The e myth was a book that I think changed my life. Michael Gerber. He talks about the entrepreneurial myth of being so into loving what you do in being passionate about it, especially if you're creative, like if you're a pie baker. He uses this great example of this woman who bakes these amazing pies but never wants to think about the sales and the business. Guess what? You end up with a lot of really great pie and no customers. So read that book. If you're having like that conversation with yourself and then the other conversation is the old paradigm and Seth Godin says this. There's no magic Santa Claus in the sky Who's gonna come and save you and sell for you? You know, all these major actors have agents and you know, people to get a book deal. They have an agent, and then you know what book deals come. Now, after you build a tribe and you prove that you're worthy, then you've got a book deal. I don't have a book deal. I have three books. I've been in 14 countries. I just wrote a book. I published it and guess what? Great stuff happened. Now I have a distribution deal. Maybe one day I'll have a publishing deal, but I never if I had thought, well, I'm waiting for someone to come and make me famous. It might be nowhere. So you have to really, really understand that this is a big, big journey. And if you're terrified of sales, get sales coaching, watch sales videos learn about the psychology of selling. Read the woman selling game. I just read it. I was reading my mom's book from 1979. Every word of it is still amazingly true that unless you can sell anything to your boss to the person giving you a raise to the guy you go on a date with to your wife, you're not gonna get anywhere. We're constantly in a sales conversation, so that's the truism, and it sucks. But the minute you can kind of get a little bit out of your head around that, this is my art. There is that other thing. I have to suffer for my art or I feel guilty. I don't want to profit from this because I know so many people in my community that can't make money doing this. Andy Warhol didn't feel that way. That will fight your social media always. If you're judging how other people are badly selling, sell your own way. So that's my stick on sales. An amazing, amazing, amazing person never feels like they're selling, and also, I think when you're feeling desperate, if you're in a place of desperation, you know how they say If you have a job, you can always get a job. But if you don't have a job, is really hard to find a job. Same thing with dating. Same thing with anything, right? All right. Tactic Number three Shine a light on pure thought leaders by highlighting and showcasing their ideas, successes and talents. I said it earlier. Social media is not a competition. I will never have a many followers. Is Seth Godin. It's not gonna happen. I don't have 10 bestselling books on marketing. He does, But I would love and I love to share when he says something brilliant and then other people find me and they like it. I think the more you're also willing to lift other people up in public, the more it shows that you're a person of integrity. I really, really believe that this is an amazing tactic and something that you should always be doing. I don't feel like I have any competition at my business, and there are a lot of marketing firms that do social strategy for creative people, and I embrace anyone and collaborate with many. Many people often will have a client that will call and say, Well, we hired a PR firm. Are they going to be upset? Look. Upset About what? There's 200 million blocks. There's not enough hours in the day. If I started now and worked until I died, I wouldn't be able to get you out there as much as I probably could. So this weird competition thing will take you out of the game, especially in these tactics. Number four. Make sure that you're consistent. Compelling content is easy to share. That means if you have a blawg, put a retweet, Facebook, Google plus button on make short links for people like Creativelive did for us. There was that little short link that I could just share on my Facebook page share on my Twitter. It allowed people to quickly and easily get here and sign up for this course. Bentley is your friend, and it's a great tool. I'm sure someone will talk about it within the next two days. But always think if I'm putting out some content, let me make this as viral is possible. If you have a newsletter put social sharing in it. Obviously, Twitter and Facebook are set up to share tactic number five. Yes, on the compelling tactics. Yes. Do you make an editorial calendar because as a year, or how do you go about planning out? Sort of all of these when you think about what you want to share, it is a brilliant thing to do to have an editorial calendar, because if you could do events around what you're sharing, it's really it's really good. So I was thinking about you know, you were talking about health and fitness. You know how they have all these crazy days like It's cup National Cupcake Day. It's National Cucumber Day. It's, you know, catch up day. There's a There's a day for everything these air fun things to do because it allows whatever is being talked about are ready to come down onto your content. So we do many campaigns for a lot of clients. Like, if it's Veterans Day week, we we call our clients and say, Okay, is there someone in your family who's event to support troops? Is there something of a story? You have an uncle, you have a grandfather? Did you write a song about it? And it turns out that that's a theme that we can use an around veteran, say, Fourth of July patriotism. We we highlight those clients. Mother's Day, Father's Day email out to all my clients who is a mom, you know. And what did your mom teach you in accordance about what it is you do in your living? I mean, there's so many, easily, easily things that you can manipulate into being the thing. So editorial calendar is a fabulous idea, and then you can even do do things like throwback Thursdays do historical things. Or you can do follow Friday's. Obviously, I'm sure that will be talked about on Twitter. It's where you shine and polish a light on others by following them on Twitter. Um, in the cat world in the rescue rescue world. There's tuna Tuesday on on Twitter, and I like it because it's fun and my cat actually has a Twitter, which is now making me a big nerd living on, um, number five. Answer. Everyone who engages you. I know what you're probably thinking. I want to live my life. I don't have time for that, and I actually a lot of the artists we work with say I don't care about what everyone is doing. If you don't care about your audience, they won't care about you. Think of that now. If someone says thank you in order to say you're welcome, thank you back, You know, to be crazy about it. But if someone comments or likes or says something thoughtful, you must take time to answer them. Here's another reason why this is so important, and I'm going to go to someone who's not only my best friend but a massive thought leader. It's Derek Sievers, he says. A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders seem more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers because new followers emulate followers, not the leader. This is profound in your thought, leadership, building, thinking. Remember, ladies, when like a new trend, comes out like a tube top or like some crazy asymmetrical thing, and you think the first time you see it. I am not wearing that. And then within six months you're standing in Bloomingdale's going. This looks really cute. This is This is how it iss, right? So I you know, I don't think that to be a thought leader, you need to be cutting bleeding edge you can totally jump on board something that's already got massive momentum. You don't have to have invented celiac disease to talk about your experience with gluten free cooking. You know you can totally go on your own journey and you can go on your own journey in your own paradigm. And that's why everyone that's a mommy blogger is successful. Some people are Christian Mommy, bloggers. Some people are gay. Mommy bloggers. Some people are mommy blogging about very, very specific Onley food. I mean, there's a 1,000,000 different flavors of everything. So I love this quote that Derek Derek talked about on this was a Ted talk. That he did was incredible, where he showed a video that he found on YouTube off this one guy who's dancing. He's like a crazy dancing guy at a festival, and it was a commentary on leadership. And he's like, Look, there's this one guy and it was like a hot day somewhere festival in the guys, like, half naked, and he's like going crazy and no one else is dancing. And then what Derek documents through his talk is. Then the next guy comes up and that guy's really important because he's the first follower and then more people and more people and more people. And that's how you build a platform. Someone that follows the person that follows you is probably how you're gonna get a massive audience. Okay, Next tactic number six. Yeah. Yeah. Responding to comments that you get until she media, what's the appropriate amount of time to spend on some comments and back and forth becomes like, Okay, we're not dating, right, you know. I mean, I think about about my friend James in Denver who I've never met. He's my chef friend, Michael ST James. You can look at it. Look him up. You'll see every time I cook something he's like, Oh, yeah. Then he'll cook something similar and tweeted it may. And this has been going on for years. It's fantastic. I don't know him never met him. He's also the music business, but he's like my cooking friend. So you can actually start these really amazing relationships with people. Um, I spoke at ah, dub spot event. That's Ah, that's ah deejay academy in New York City a couple months ago, and the woman that book me walked up to me and said, Four years ago, when I was No. One when I was nothing, I tweeted at you and you tweeted back at me. And that's why you're here today because you were so nice to me. You don't know where those people will end up. So what's the right amount of time? I don't know. What's the right amount of time for you to grow your career? You know, people always ask, Well, can I do social media in 10 minutes a day or less? Yeah, maybe. But if 300 people commented on something and you're really starting a conversation like I did with my Oprah thing, it really behoove me to consider what everyone was saying and talk back at them. If it's a little thing, that's maybe something pithy and fun and light. Maybe maybe don't need a whole conversation started around it. But the whole point of good social strategy is getting engagement, and that's the big E word that everyone talks about. It's all about engagement. Okay? Yeah, it is about talking to people that talk to you. So terms of sharing self because Jester Jaster had a question when sharing other people's work that you might admire. Maybe it's not in your niche or on your thought path. How does that work in terms of it doesn't conflict with your area of expertise. Know because sometimes something makes us smile or laugh. Um, Quest. Love this week wrote an amazing piece on Trevan, and he wrote about what it's like to be a black man, and it's He has just revealed something so personal and painful about his life. And he's Questlove. He's like the great dude on Kimmel every night, and he's a great drummer and he's got the fried chicken place, and we all love questo. But this piece is a complete game changer for him as a man, and I think we'll put him on a political stage if he chooses to do that. That's one of those moments where you have that moment where you go. So, um, sometimes it's about being a little bit bold and pushing yourself around this. You know, these palpable moments where you have a chance to say something again. If you're worried about polarizing, that's okay. You don't have to. You don't always have to be pushing the envelope, but when I think about when I think about a moment. Questlove just had a moment, and this is a man who's been on social. I mean, he was like the first music was like him and me on Twitter, and that was it on dso Leeds. It's amazing when when someone has a moment like that, he did not need to share these thoughts. And it's huge and amazing. It's on my Facebook page if you guys want to see it. Okay, fitting in will kill thought leadership. Be bold. Stand out, Stay your course. Nobody wants another neutral vanilla blogged about photography. Nobody cares. They don't. There's plenty of those already, and there's plenty that aren't those. So this is the part where your strategy can begin to feel really strange. And this is why the three C's You've got to stay consistent with it. I had ah, hot Oh, I remember this. A couple years ago, I spoke at a big convention and I got this Kyle into Twitter and he wrote me this hateful email. A few months later, I tried Twitter and it doesn't work, and then he gave me all the reasons why it didn't work, and I was like, Dude, been on it for, like, four weeks when you talk about, you know, like and he was. So I wish I'd saved it. I would block about that today. Like, you know, I tried going on a diet and it didn't work in four weeks either. You know, you got unfortunately, So this is this is tough. Um, and this is the part that again, it's up to you to be in an in and out of your comfort zone and pushing it. But look at Questlove years and years and years and years and years of sharing Ah, lot of things. And he just shared something so profound and personal this week. It's a It's a really It's a bold moment. Seven. Invite participation. Have anybody who you consider clever, funny and a contribution to your community become part of your contribution team. Got a great fan. Got someone who you love that does something that complements your business. Have them guest post. Have them getting a conversation with you. I did that with Sisi this week. We were both coming here. He's an old friend of mine. We've been dying to catch up with each other. We're both so busy running around the world doing this, that we never have time. And I shot him an email and said, Hey, dude, perfect opportunity to talk together. He became a massive contribution to my community that I'm building now around thought leadership. You don't have to know someone huge and famous and big. You can start with, like your best friend or your mom or your baby sitter, where it doesn't have to be. You know, I don't know anyone famous. Therefore, I can't do this. Not true. Not true at all. I think another thing we tend to do when building a social strategy is like I will get the most famous person. The most famous person in your category probably doesn't want to be on your block because you don't have any followers like so it has to kind of have to be a little bit of a stepping stone. I mean, you know, often people will email and be like we should do a link trade. I'm like, No, we shouldn't. Your site's been live for five minutes. No offense, but let's see what else we can do together that's appropriate, right? Eight speaking public going TV, kicked butt in social media and publish a book that's actually many, many tactics putting together. But the point is, if you were going to have a thought leadership platform, you have to somehow be public other than online. The cool thing about TV is there's now something called You Tube. You can make your own TV. The thing about speaking in public is there's now YouTube. You can now go speaking public, started your chamber of commerce. There's plenty of community events, meet up events, plenty of places where you can speak Teoh. I think you know, one of the first times I ever spoken public, it was in front of like, 10 people on. Now that's not the case anymore kick, but its social. That's why you're here. I would say that when I think about all the best things I've done for my career, publishing a book was among the top smartest things I've ever done. And again like I may be sold 10,000 books. I haven't sold an incredible amount of books I've been I've been writing since 2008 but a book is a amazing calling card, absolutely amazing When you have a book, people will ask you to speak. Promise you. Two weeks after I published my book, I got a call from Reykjavik and this lovely woman was like, We want you to come to take effect that they sing when they think Andi, I was like, Is this a scan on, like, how much do you want to pay for this? She's like, No, I read your book and I want you to come. I was like, That's great. So do it Publish a book, if you can. Yeah, I'm just want to configure dive a little bit deeper into this tactic because I've seen this before in terms of of trying to motivate people to get out there and start speaking. Yeah. Um, and I'm wondering if anybody here has any examples of getting out there and doing that. Or maybe what's holding you back or within your your niche? Maybe we can share some ideas are examples. I think people get really hung up. On what? What public lying. What's have terrifying thing next to death or some? Yes. Yeah. So this is not for everyone, right? Not everybody wants to do public speaking But I am pretty much of the of the thinking that if you do have something to share, you're gonna have to get up and talk about it. I mean, even if even if it there's a lot of very famous actors and actresses and you can Google this Carly Simon terrified of this stage, you know, she gets up and does it anyway, She's, you know, So, um, Derek back to Derek. He is an introvert, complete introvert. He talks to like me and three other people, and that's it. And he likes it that way. And he had to. He did this thing, which was which fake it till you make it. He would take himself to a conference and he would go, Okay, I'm gonna act as if I am the most public visible person in the world and he would get out on the floor and south by southwest on Lee. I knew that he hated everyone he didn't hit. It's not that kind of guy. He inspired and touched and moved 250, musicians to sign up to see the baby and then sold this company for $22 million his preference was to be locked in the hotel room programming, not out talking to people. But he knew that in order to get where he wanted to go, they we had he would have to overcome that. So, you know, one of my interns is very shy and quiet and she said to me, in order to succeed, Do I have to be really dynamic like you? I said, No, not at all. Everybody can have their place. You don't have to do solo presentations for eight hours and be crazy like me. You can go on panels or you can do a conversation with someone. Do something that's comfortable for you. We have some more thoughts coming in online about this topic. Yeah, Professor X, one of our regulars, I could say at least today is asking, What if it's not high end wickets? Public access TV, page six. Fantastic. Yes. Take where you can get it. What? Rachel Ray started on public access TV in upstate new work. She had this little show and she just, like, wanted to be a television host on. Look at her now. So never discount. I mean, this is part of my work. It's cyber PR is we? If if someone wants to interview one of our clients on a tiny blawg, we go for it like great. Let's make this the best. This pretend we're being interviewed by The New York Times and and that's content that lives forever. So absolutely public access am radio blogged talk radio, someone's tiny little thing with five viewers. The client I hate the most is the client that tells me, well, that that platforms not big enough. I don't have time for that. Okay, great. I don't have time for you. Sorry on Lee. The really, really, really, really famous people get to choose that kind of editing everyone else. This is where you start. And it's also great training ground because if I make a mistake on a small platform where there's not Aton of people and I cut my teeth and how do I get interviewed? What do I look like? I mean, the first time I went on camera, it was a disaster. And then I realized, OK, this is a process doesn't just happen. Just you don't think it would diminish the brand, whether it's absolutely not, I think if you're sharing great information. The cool thing about that is you can take all that content and make transcripts. Then you can use the transcripts and make blogged posts. And you can take the block post and make a newsletter. Then you can take the newsletter and take the best quotes and make tweets. So anything that you do is a content strategy that funnels. I just saw one person in the audience go. Ah, but the point is like like all of that stuff is really, really important. Did you guys know that when you post a YouTube video, the entire transcript of White of what is said in the video comes up fantastic post stuff on YouTube and get that transcript and break it up and, you know, make your thoughts. How do you do that posted on YouTube? And I mean, how do you get the transcript just comes up? It does. Yeah. Hello. I know today, seriously, or a Siri. If you have Siri or get Dragon naturally speaking and talk your way through your 33 plan, I don't type Well, I'm like a hunter pecker. Nightmare. I talked my entire book through. They use the service, called Copy Talk, cost me 80 bucks a month. I called this phone number and I was like, OK, here's my idea. Walking down the street, New York That's how my entire book got written got emailed to me by proficient type er's. So if that's another stumbling block for you, Um, that's it. That's a way to go. And just another comment that came in from from Jacqueline, who said, I started giving workshops and talks last year, and it's actually easy because it's a topic that I do know and I love. And so I felt comfortable just speaking to it. And so it wasn't as challenging. And she may have thought, Yeah, of course. I mean, we're all talking about building our businesses and sharing something that we love, so this shouldn't be that hard. I mean, it's hard to kind of put it in the paradigm of like presenting it on paper, but it's what you're already doing, right? Just figure out the best flavor. Are we ready for the final tactic? Yeah. Number nine. Create a personal board of directors. These are people who can tell you the truth. Help you think through things and support you. No negative non believers should be invited. So Derek Sievers is on my personal board of directors. But he wasn't Derek Sievers when he got there. He was just my friend that had a little business. He was my friend, that I could call in the middle of the night and be like, I have an idea. Maybe, like, let me hear it and I would say something insane and he would go. That's a great idea. Or let's talk through that were not really such a great idea. I'm not quite sure. You know, that's my dude for that. Your personal board of directors might not be the person you're married to or your kids. There's gonna be a lot of people as you begin to do this. I was on the beach the other day with a couple of really good friends, and someone started talking about branding and how much they hate it. And they're like, Everyone's an idiot that thinks that they have a brand, and I was like, Wow, here we go. Um, and I listen to him Go on this whole tirade, like that kind of thinking, even though that's a good friend of mine that he's not the right guy for me to ask about any of this. Your personal board of directors should be your go to people. They should be. The people that are there is you're sounding boards. When I went to do my crowdfunding campaign, my own mother didn't think that I could raise the money. I didn't listen to her. I raised $61,000. It was like the best thing I ever did for my business because it finally gave me money and freedom to create my next book. I never had that. I had to bootstrap everything until I did that and even my own boyfriend. The love of my life was like, I don't think you should have done this crowdfunding campaign during Christmas, Sweetie, he didn't believe so for that category. Not on my board of directors for every other category. Yes, so you really have to be careful and don't make people wrong. This is not a make wrong conversation. Not everybody is programmed to lift you up and support you, so be careful when you select these people and also make accountability partners. It's really, really great to do that. Just have someone my CEO read an article. I'll find it. And I'll post it on Twitter tonight about really, really successful people. And they asked them, like, How did they do it? And this one guy said Any time I wanted to do something, I would find an accountability partner. So if I wanted to lose £10 would have a phone call, every dango What'd you do today? And I'd have to have to account to that person what my mission was to keep me on point. That's your personal board of directors. Actually, have one question. The check about that. Can you have too many board of directors in there? No, no, I think you know, I have one that helps me design my house because she's an interior decorator and has great sense. And I'm like, Should I put that thing there because I don't know. You know, you can have good people for all different types of things. Absolutely just your social media. So you're for life. Why not again? People in eight, we want to help, and that's why social media is so cool. And if you allow people to help where their strengths are incredible, things will happen. So that's kind of the thinking you need to do around your board of directors. You don't want to have too many voices influencing. If you've got one idea, I would choose, you know, five people at the most. But if this is a super, this was like one of the most powerful things I did was like Oh, and I have a real policy. I don't like negative people I don't like. It's really hard to run a business. It's really hard to be an entrepreneur. It's We're not like other people, so negativity doesn't work for me. Um, I don't like when you get like toe a party and there's like a complaining fest going on. I'm not attracted to that energy. So I think that's another thing in this tactic of choose the most positive person you know, Derek's ever is definitely the most positive person I know. The man was like broke and he's like, I'm gonna be a millionaire and I was like, Okay, and he did it. He did it. So someone like that I'd recommend it's smart. Oh, go ahead. Oh, we have some more questions on on the board of directors and idea that people are are liking. Um, SP Hair says, What? What are your personal qualifications for your board? My personal qualifications would be Are they positive? Have they done something that I greatly admire? I earlier spoke about my business. Coach has a fabulous relationship with her husband and a great kid. I admire that. I admire her for many other things. My financial manager make made millions of dollars in financial portfolio management, and I like that he is managing don't have millions of dollars. But I like that. That is the person in charge of that. So you want to go to the person That is very good at the thing that they're helping you with, Right? Um, so that would be one indicator. I think another indicator is someone who can tell you the truth. My CEO will get me on the phone and be like, You know what? You're being really negative today, and I'd like you to remove yourself from the office and take a walk and let's chat this out. So I'm not acting up in front of my staff. You know you need someone to tell you the truth, and that's a hard thing for her to do because she's on my payroll. But you know, a lot of times, especially if you're an entrepreneur and a lot of people under U R P freelancers Ah, lot of they won't be telling you the truth because you're the boss.