Lessons

Lesson Info

Developing a Formidable Social Platform

next thing we're gonna talk about is actually building our social platform, which is sort of the Negredo your own. How do you actually grow an audience in a presence online? Um, and again, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but I can speak to this mostly because I've tried this lots of other ways, and this is pretty much the method that I used to build my social platform over the last years. And I'm not usually one of those people that says, You know, here's all my awesome accomplishments, but in terms of credibility, I just want you guys to know that I got my book deal because of my social media platform I met. You know Jay, my co author on Twitter. I met my business partner on Twitter, So there's value in building a social platform beyond just having it be a marketing tool for you. It really is a professional presence that extends beyond the edges of your business and into the rest of the world. So it's something that's worth investing in. And these days, being present online...

isn't really just about marketing anymore. It's kind of about how we show ourselves professionally in a world that's becoming increasingly digitized. So having a platform When I'm talking about this, I want you to think both in terms of your business, but also yourself personally and what you can draw from this. This is gonna be a familiar theme, purpose, purpose, vision, purpose, vision. All of these The reason I keep harping on these things is because they are so critically important to coming back to your plan all the time. Having a purpose for your platform is really important. So we've talked about having a vision for your business. You talked about the importance of having a vision that guides your overall strategy. But when it comes to having a purpose for a platform, this is why do you want to build a social presence and why do you want to be online? What do you think it's gonna bring to you, and how do you think you're gonna be able to contribute back to the community? I think that's kind of an important point to emphasize, because giving back is actually one of the ways that we invest in building that platform. It's very much a symbiotic relationship. And so the second piece of this is nurturing that community. So having knowing why were there and then socializing that purpose to other people and investing back into the people that we want to invest in us, one of the tricky things about launching a business is the first thing we think about is how do we get people to buy our stuff or hire us to do things? Because the first thing we think about is, how do we make money? Obviously we need to be. If we want to be in business tomorrow, we need to do that. But in an interesting twist of fate, the social world has brought about this sort of see chains where businesses air, really driven by companies that put out a purpose, develop a community. And then we talked about creating gravity. This is the idea of building something that people are drawn to and want to be part of, so that when you act, revenue comes with building a business that has all of these things in mind. And I know that sounds a little bit, you know, airy fairy. But it's really true if you build a company that has purpose in direction. And if you spend time and money investing in in nurturing a community, the revenue happens. It really does on dime, not I'm not all come by. Ah, because I own a business and I know what it's like to look at the bills and no, you have to pay them. But the most important thing that we can do is business owners and as members of the community is actually show people that we care about participating in their world and that we value their attention. I think something that gets missed in social a lot and the people who do it really well have built a platform where they're constantly appreciative of other people's involvement in their world. So you realize that you can't take for granted the fact that people's attention will always be there or that they'll always have the time, money and interest in spending it with you because we have so many choices for how we spend our time and where we choose to go in the businesses that we choose to work with that having somebody's presence in your community really is an honor and treating people as though you value them at that level really is a way to distinguish yourself from other businesses who simply look at people is a transactional consumer business relationship. If you look at people as a community that's actually nurturing your business and return, it becomes something that's even much that much more powerful. Every single person in this room, all you all out there on the Web. Everybody's got something that they know that is valuable to somebody else. Sometimes we build businesses around those things and the idea, If you're gonna build a really strong platform, you have to have expertise to share with other people. That's the currency of the Web is information and knowledge. It's not traffic, It's not subscribers. It's not any of those things. It's information and knowledge because we can choose to get our information from any place we want. But we're going to choose to get that information and expertise from someone we know like and trust. So if you can develop an expertise platform that says I value you as part of my community, and now I want to give something to you that's of value to you first, by sharing my expertise with you, that's something that's incredibly valuable now. One question I get asked all the time. Isn't that giving away everything? Like if I give away what I know, doesn't that completely devalue my business? And here's the answer to that question. I'm a consultant, so my entire worth in my business is in my head. My expertise is all about what I know and how I know to apply this information. So why would I be out there blogging about it and writing e books and sharing all that information? Because I can tell you what to do all day long. But if you need the how is really where the value is, so I tend to look at that line of demonstrating expertise, and I will tell you everything I know. I'll give you all my exercises. I'll give you all of my tools and tricks and tips, but really, what you're hiring me for is my unique take on how that gets done. So if you're a videographer, people aren't just hiring you because they can't. I mean, I can run a video camera, right, but I can't do it the way you can do it, and I don't understand health and wellness the same way that you dio. So my whole point is that you can give me all the information, but I might want a coach to help me make something with that information. So demonstrating expertise is really a self nurturing philosophy. You get out there, you share, and it is amazing what comes back to you. We talked about being helpful and creating useful content. This is this is where it all lives is demonstrating what you know. And the dichotomy of all of this is, the more you share, the more valuable people find you. And no matter what happens in the world, you could share every secret sauce on the planet, and nobody is going to be able to do it quite like you. So you'll always have a unique value to offer because you individually deliver it differently. There's a 1,000,000 blog's out there about social media. Mine was always different because I had a particular voice or a particular point of view that made it interesting. So I'm sharing my expertise in a way that nobody else could, and that's why people chose to come to my block versus somebody else's. How many books about social media. You think you're out there, Agillion, but mine has certain characteristics that make it uniquely mine. So don't be afraid to share what you know, because that really is the kind of thing that drives social activity. We gather around common interests and common purpose, and we love to learn from each other. Humans are really great students, and the best thing that we can do is share information that other people can pick up on, and they'll end up giving it back. Good question. It just a comment. I mean, I think that, um I see a lot, and I felt it myself, that fear of feeling like you're just going to be saying the same thing and who is really going to care who's really gonna listen to me. And so I really appreciate what you just said and really keeping that in mind. I do it to myself. I've struggled with it myself. Honestly, who's gonna want to read another book about social media? Why should I write a book about social media? But you bring a unique perspective and your experience is probably unlike anybody else's. So the expertise that you have to deliver is also contextual, so nobody else has had your experiences with your company or nobody else has had your path toe learning what you learned. So those stories and that information is really unique, and I find that the content and the platforms that are the most powerful online have the most sort of stand out characteristics. It might be the same information, but it's delivered in such a compelling, an interesting way that you can't help. But listen, um, there's so many great content producers out there that the ones that rise above and develop really formidable social platforms are the ones that are added consistently but are so liberal with what they share, like they're willing to just give away the farm because they know that that is what constitutes really great conversation and community, and that nobody can do it quite like they dio So yep, there's only about five unique ideas in the world. There's only about six unique problems in the world, so we're all going to step all over ourselves at a certain point and say the same things and right on the same topics. But nobody can do it quite like you dio so always remember that your content needs to reflect your personality and the unique nature of your business. Another recurring theme. When you build a platform, please do not try to build a platform that is the United Nations of social media. Because if you try to be everywhere and have a taste of everything, you will succeed at nothing. Delusion is sort of the death. Now on social media. You're much better off being amazing at two platforms. Ah, blawg and Twitter. Then you are being mediocre and half enthusiastic about nine because at that point you're not really going deep anywhere. You're going a shallow across the board, and nobody can hook into that. You gotta put some meat on the bone. And staying focused is the way that you do that. When I first started out eons ago, um, blogging was my thing. I like to write. So that was my anchor point. And I've tried just about every social network that exists because that's part of my job is to know all this stuff is out there. People think I'm crazy that I tell them that I don't have an INSTAGRAM account or that I'm not on Pinterest or something, and they just don't excite me. And they're not particularly relative to irrelevant to my business. So I used Twitter. That's my baby. I love Twitter, and I built a lot of my platform because of my blawg and Twitter. Two things, and you talk to somebody like Brian Clark and he'll tell you that he's not even on that many things like his Blawg is the only thing he cares about and the content he creates. Their Twitter and Facebook are sort of ancillary to their business. They know what they're going to dio. They build products, they build great content, and they just they focus hard core on what they know their customers want. So for me, my community was in a certain place, and that's where I focused. I'm not bothered building a big old new community out on Pinterest somewhere, because what I'll tell you is that starts you splinter your community out across the web, and then you've got nothing of substance to come back. Teoh. So focus on going deep somewhere, so you have enough substance in the community to really get people to hold on to what you're doing. Recognize your face. See your content. Know that you're there So that you kind of I'm sitting here. I'm gonna hang out. I'm going to stay a while because, dude, I don't need to see you in 19 places. And for the most part, none of us are on all of those platforms. So I don't love Google. Plus, I've tried toe love Google. Plus, everybody tells me I'm supposed to love Google. Plus, I understand how important it is for things like search, and yet I can't get into it. So I'm not. And that's okay. Like stay focused on the things that you enjoy and that you can actually devote enough time to develop some routes because a long term, those are the things that are gonna matter. Personality is everything with the speed of the web and the absolute volume of information that is coming at our brains all the time. Every day you have to be who you are Now. That's not to say that I don't edit or filter because I do often, Um and I need Teoh, which is it is good practice for me, but having a personality is really key online in a sea of everything that feels and looks the same, We are attracted to the people that are willing to stand out. My friend Erica Napolitano wrote a book called The Power of Unpopular and Eric Is Not for Everybody. Erica is strong willed, super personable, foul mouthed, opinionated, fiery redhead with all kinds of attitude, and she owns that with everything that she's got. So you either a door Erica or she's so not your cup of tea. But she's cool with that because that is, she's not afraid to let her personality just flow out of everything that she does. And as a result, the people that are passionate about her are deeply passionate about her, and they would defend her and come to her aid. And, like if somebody lashes out at her on her Facebook page, guess who defends her? It's not her. It's her community because she's not afraid to let her personality shine. And the people that have fallen in love with you, Erica is are willing to come up and stand behind her. So having personality can be any number of things. If your personality isn't in your face and and swearing every third word. That's totally cool, but you have something that's uniquely you. So maybe you're a calm, gentle, Zen like personality, and that's really great. There's a woman named Shama Kobani. I don't know if any of you know Chama, but she has a company called Marketing Zen, and she is the most chill, relaxed, warm, lovely personality and everybody that I talked to says OSHA My Love Shama. She's so amazing because she's let her personality be infused in every ounce of work that she did. And she's, I don't think Shamas yet 30. And she owns her own super successful, multimillion dollar now marketing firm. And she started is just herself. The little blogger and her personality is so much of what she did, and she built an entire company around it. Now think of the companies that you've seen online or the businesses that you admire, and I bet you that you could describe their personalities for May. Do you guys know think EQ If you're a geek, it all you've heard of thinking, Um, there are company that basically there a consumer products company, they make all kinds of they don't make them all, but they have a whole bunch of everything from Han Solo in carbonite. Ice Cube trays. Teoh Doctor who bathrobes to like. If it's geek related, they live it now. I think it is a great example of personality in branding because it's not Bob or Joe or Steve. It's thinkgeek as sort of this persona. Dave, this little monkey, that's their avatar. And I swear the thing comes to life. He's just like this. Their personality bleeds into everything that they dio. And there was one time where, um, one of their community members on Facebook got on their page and put a message to them in binary code 0110 win. Whatever all that stuff is, their personality is such that their community management team got back online and answered the comment in binary. So they're not. They are geeks, therefore, geeks, they embrace the fact that geek is what they are and do so that personality is just wrapped in their entire platform, and you can see it consistently across everything that they dio. So, you know, if you go in and interact with, think eq on Twitter that you're gonna get thinking their idea of doing sales on social media. By the way, they have an entire Twitter handle called ThinkGeek spam, and you opt into that, obviously, and it's all of their like deals of the day. And but they've made it very tongue in cheek, totally fitting their personality. And as a result, people adore that company and they'll buy anything they put out there, whether it's a Yoda placemat or, you know, who knows. But it's really great, and they're not afraid to have personality. The other thing, that's great. We talked about Moose Jaw earlier. They they do it a little bit differently in that they wanted to highlight the individual personalities of the people in their company. So their social platform is all about lots of different voices, all unified by kind of Moose Jaw's way of looking at the world. But you know, you're talking to a moose job person and in branding whether you're a one person company or a 10,000 person company, that kind of strength of personality and voice is so critical to building a platform that sticks because so many come and go. So many of them come and go. You get people who started blogging never do it again. They come on Twitter, they leave. They go on Facebook and post the same 12 links that somebody else has posted. So infuse some of you into what we do, because presumably people like you right out and about in the world, and they like you and what you're about and what you do. And for some reason we're so afraid to let that touch our professional lives. It's like, this is Amber when I'm at work and this is Amber. When I'm not at work, I'm you get me, like, all across the board and my clients get a little bit of the irreverent, crazy Amber and my personal contacts and people on the Web see a lot of my professional work because that's part of who I am. But I guarantee you, there's very few people who have met me that don't think I have a personality. Whether they like it or not is a whole different story. But don't be afraid to infuse you into your work, especially online, because it's the only thing that distinguishes you from somebody else. Yes, ma'am, read off a little bit of what the Internet is saying, first of all dreams thinking Thinkgeek, Where to buy your canned unicorn meat. Very true. And we may have just crashed at least momentarily. The THINKGEEK site would you like to do here? Creativelive? Sorry, everybody goes there at once, but yeah, exactly. We didn't. There was a question. It was a comment, but could also be a question from Tough tootle again. Who has been with us? The whole social media boot camp regular. My problem is finding my personality. My brand is very love centered, which gets mushy and fluffy after a while. So and then Jaclyn s, are you not mushy and fluffy yourself? And she says, Not that much. So what if the brand that you're putting out there isn't actually and a representative of who you are? That's interesting. I'd be curious to know if her brand is her, if that if her brand is her own business or if she's working for somebody else because that could be a little bit interesting. For instance, I worked at Radian six Radian six was a start up software company and but we had Fortune 500 clients. So, you know, full on Amber wasn't really gonna cut it every single day of the week. I had to rein it in a little bit when I was in a professional setting. However, Radian six was great in that they recognize that one of the reasons people loved our community was because they knew all of our community managers and they knew our team and they saw our faces and new our names. So it's not necessarily a matter of a persona that fits your brand. It's allowing yourself to actually have a, ah, genuine interest in talking to people. You guys hear the word authentic thrown around a lot in social media, and I have issues with that word, mostly because you can authentically be a jerk. Eso authentic. It's just a matter of really being truly whatever it is that you are. So I have issues with the idea that authentic is always good. But what we want is to know that the people that we're talking to and interacting with online are our human. We want to know that there's a person over there with thoughts and feelings and personality and interests in the they're a dimensional person versus just a logo over there somewhere, or or a brand. You know, Brandon can get a little overwrought sometimes because we think, Oh, it's all got to be on Brand. But you are the life blood of your company. We do business with people, not companies, not logos, not marketing brochures. So on the other end of those interactions, air humans. And I would say, if you're in conflict with that finding your personality, I would actually talk to the people who are closest to you. So when you're building your your social platform, go out and say to people When if you were going to describe me, what are the things that come to mind now? If you guys were gonna describe me, what would come to mind? First Lively, What else? Ambitious, engaging You guys are nice. So when I go to build my social profile and my platform online, I probably want to emphasize those aspects of my personality because that's what I know resonates with other people. That's what they pick up on. So I would say to her her him can't tell from that handle. Um, I would say that to go out there and actually talk to people about how they perceive you. Does that line up with how what it is that you're trying to put out into the world? Because that could be an interesting exercise. And it doesn't. It doesn't mean that you have to live and breathe the essence of a brand toe. Have a personality, if that makes any sense. Yes, ma'am, how can you go through, Ah, tone, a voice change like for her, if you know she may be, wants to move a little bit away from the lovey dovey stuff and more into something. It's authentically her. And then I have, ah, older business. It's kind of sitting around. That's not I lost passion for it because I was not being authentic and I wasn't really speaking my voice, and I was kind of hiding behind the brand, and I'd like to change it. But I have attracted some of these people cause they like that. And how do you kind of seamlessly merge what people are used to you? You don't seamlessly truth. You don't seamlessly and I mean a certain amount of it you can do gradually, but I also encourage you to try to do it as openly as possible. I've often written on my block about when I'm not feeling it. You know, I'm like, I'm really struggling with this aspect of my business. Are I'm really struggling to write posts that you guys want to read? What am I missing? So that kind of that's what we mean when we talk about transparency, by the way, is seeing what's really going on, like you don't always want to see how the sausage is made. But what you do want to see is that there's Ah, human back there with flaws and interests and that they're not perfect all the time. So I would actually encourage you to do that out loud to a certain degree and say to people, I'm really I'm finding my voice that it's changing. We don't We're not really good at letting people evolve, you know, and people are not static, were very dynamic creatures. And the voice that I had three years ago is not the same as what I what I have today, and I don't think we should expect that from people. So I would say kind of embrace the chains on your own and be willing to say, Look at my interests are changing. My voice is changing. I feel like I want to share new and different things and some people will take that as they're cute. Teoh, you know, exit stage left and then you'll a whole different group of people will make themselves known to you. So run with that and you don't have to do it like gracefully and gradually. Sometimes you just need to own it and say, I'm I'm evolving and I want you to come with me and see what happens. Any other questions? Sweet mating voiced that said, Thank God for Amber. Show your personality is confirmation that the unique business flog I'm starting is on the right track. Yea, I love hearing that C and so many people are afraid to be not corporate or not business, see, or whatever, and I call you know what On that I really I feel like so much of the success behind the scenes with people who have built formidable presence is whether it's online or in other sent in other ways. Have personality. Look at Oprah like that woman has built an empire on being sassy, opinionated out spoken, but also this big lovey dovey mush ball who you know, loves everything and everyone that is a personality right there. So if you're gonna do a video blogged Siri's heck, yeah, do it with everything that you've got because there's eight million other blog's out there. So why would somebody want to watch yours? Yeah, good interaction takes time, and I won't lie to you about this because this is the part of social that everybody wants to shortcut. And the problem is, you cannot. You cannot shortcut the time it takes to respond to people's questions to interact with them on online platforms, to answer comments on your blogged. Those things are really important. And when you say to me, I can't do that because it's just one more thing I have to do. And I've already done 97 of the things we found a way to work the phone into our daily routine. We found a way to check our email and check it again and check it again. You have any of you wake up and look your phone first thing, so don't tell me that you don't have time to answer a few block comments or get on Twitter and spend minutes chatting with people. You have the time. It is a choice that you're making for how to spend that time. So investing in the interaction online is what gets people to know that you were in it for the long haul and that you're in it for them as much as for you. The only signal that we can give each other as humans that we care about. The other person is toe look them in the eye and say, I'm here. I am present. I am paying attention to you and the truth of the matter is online. We don't have this. So my only way to show you that I'm there and that I care is to type it so responding on Twitter, answering comments, being present for people is not just a time waster. This is the new method of communication. It really is. And I cannot over emphasize that this is how business will get done in the future. And if you don't believe me, look at all the big companies now that are actually doing customer service on Twitter. Just the other day, my friend Simon was flying and he and his girlfriend were flying Teoh London from, I think, somewhere in Texas, so not a small flight. And his girlfriend had gotten operated and he was waiting like, Will I get the business class tickets? And he mentioned on Twitter is like G really help American comes through. They were paying attention. He didn't even mention them in his tweet. He just hoped they were paying attention or didn't expect them to pay attention. They wrote back and said, You know what? If you guys are willing to leave two hours later on the next flight, we've got room for your both. So he was like, Sure, we could do that And they said, All we need is for Michelle to tweet us, to let us know That's cool with her and we're good. So companies are now using social to conduct legitimate business. So if you tell me you can't invest time to respond to a few tweets or get on Facebook and participate for an hour a day, you are out of your mind because this is the way business is gonna get done. We don't leave each other voicemails anymore. We text. We don't hack. I don't get as many e mails as I used to you because I get a text arose. Snap chatter, a Twitter D M. Or who knows? This is changing. So you have to invest in that two way communication with people. That's how they know that your present. That's how they know you're paying attention. So it's really important. Can I emphasize on anymore? Good deal. We have talked about this one and nauseum today, but I'm gonna emphasize it one more time that we need to make sure that we're investing in our home base online, meaning having ah house built on rented land is a dangerous situation, because if somebody else decides that they don't want that house anymore, they could get rid of it. And all your stuff is gone. So in social, spend the time and money to have a home base. Whether it's a website, a blogger or a combination of the two, make sure it is something that you own. So you own the domain you hosted and have control there. Whether you shut it on or off, you have the content management system and then all of the content that you published online belongs to you because I got news for you. All the stuff that you post on Facebook is not yours. It belongs to Facebook. Facebook is a business. Facebook would like to make money so they sell advertising. If you are not paying for the product, you are the product, which means in their mind you are an audience for advertisers. Which means if you're building your entire social platform around Facebook and they pull the plug tomorrow, all that time, energy and effort that you just invested in that is gone now. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use these outposts because I think they're amazing for a purpose. We'll get to in a second, but you've got to have an anchor point that is years and years alone. Do us have blog's that you've belt insights and stuff like that? Never, ever lose them because I can't. People will write things like blogging is dead and blog's or old school and whatever. No, no, no, no, no. This stuff is the meat of the Social Web. It's just that is now normalizing. So we're starting to the hype around. It is dying, but we're starting to. It's just kind of there. It's like Air blog's air just there now, and they're part of the content on the Web. But that is your content. That is something that you own and always will have. You have to have that online. If you're gonna build a platform that's gonna be sustainable, because when all the other stuff blows up, that's your starting point. And that's where you want everybody to come back to you. I believe Kim talked about that yesterday. The whole point is to put signals out into the universe, but you want them all to come to your living room to hang out and have dinner. It's the equivalent of having dinner at the restaurant, not nearly as fun. Well, depends where you go. But this is the purpose that the social networks serve, which is amplifying what it is that you're doing and not raise enhancing what you're doing. So let's say I built a blawg and my world when I built my blogging was all about social media for business, and this is the kind of stuff I would write about. So Facebook and Twitter and all those other places become, um, I guess satellite locations for me to sit in hand conversations about those things. But my goal is to put my arm around somebody, shoulders and walk them back to my house and say, Come in and have a drink and set because what I really want is for them to spend time on my site with my content, learning about my business and what I dio, and I want them to feel welcome there. But I don't want them to feel like they have to stay out there now. An important distinction to make is that you have to go where your customers are. So if people are hanging out on Facebook, you absolutely need to be on Facebook. If your community is really into Pinterest, you better be on Pinterest. But again, the goal is to have that be an ecosystem where you have a home base and you have great outposts that can come and go as the times change. And as your interests and the community's interests change so that you have this solid place to go, you have all these other little satellite locations where you can go share content, find great content that can then serve your purpose of inspiring more content on your own. Blawg. So it becomes this nice, neat little, you know in and out kind of system, but never rely on external so social networks to bear the weight of your own business and company. I think that it's it's really something that I'm seeing a lot of smaller businesses bank a mistake with because they're putting so much time and energy into building a social platform that they forget that most of their assets really are on their own website and on their own blawg. And they're spending all this time and money to do all this kind of stuff. And I'm just waiting for somebody to like. Twitter goes bye bye, and suddenly they've spent all this money hiring a Twitter consultant. You know, like really think in term. That's why I emphasized tool agnostic. These amplifiers should be switched out in whatever way is necessary. Maybe today it's photos. Maybe tomorrow It's video, but these air the satellite offices for your social platform. Cool. There was a question about directing expectations in terms of saying, You know, I'll be chatting at this time versus just integrating it into your daily routine when things right men, Do you have any opinions on that? I do, and I think it sort of depends on the nature of business. So, for instance, the Xbox Live team has office hours very clearly posted on their profile. I think that works really well in a corporate environment where you have a team where you have multiple people coming in and out of an account that may or may not be able to be there 24 hours a day, and you do want to set some parameters and expectations for when you'll be available. But I do think that if you're an individual or if you're representing your own business and brand, I think it's fine to set office hours. But I also think it's important to recognize that the Web doesn't care if it's Saturday at two in the morning, and likely your customers don't care if they're talking to you on a Tuesday or a Sunday. If they haven't issue, we're a question. They have it now and the Web doesn't sleep. That doesn't mean we shouldn't sleep, but it does mean that we need to sort of adapt a little bit to the realities of working on the web. So I think if you're gonna have a consistent platform and presence, you need to be ready to not be there 24 7 But to be responsive in a way that makes sense to you. Um, well, being flexible around all that stuff.