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Hi Social Media ReInvention Community Members,
We've migrated Social Media ReInvention's website to a new WordPress site!
I made this move to improve my services to my readers. Please continue following, reading, and subscribing to my blog at our new location.
Many thanks,
Tony Faustino
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Hi Social Media ReInvention Community. Sorry for not publishing and keeping in touch over the last few months. Some personal hiccups derailed and distracted me. Writing about these share-worthy links and giving my take on why I believe you’ll find them value is part of the process to get myself on track.
Thanks for your patience and support. Enjoy these links during your Sunday Brunch:
1. The New York Times: Farhad Manjoo’s Apple Watch Reviews: Apple Watch Review — Bliss, but Only after a Steep Learning Curve and Dear Diary: My Week Wearing an Apple Watch: It’s no surprise Apple asked Farhad Manjoo asked to test drive the Apple Watch as part of its product launch strategy. Farhad and his New York Times articles are HUGE influencers in the technology community. 96,500 Twitter followers can’t be wrong.
Read both articles. His Apple Watch Review serves as the Executive Summary. The “Dear Diary” Account delivers his comprehensive report. If you’re a tech geek (like me), read Farhad's seven-day recollections. Pure Gold.
And, I’m not saying this because there’s a $17,000 Apple Watch available for purchase.
He shares his Day 1 - Day 3 frustrations to learn and slog through the Apple Watch’s complexity (rather un-Apple-like) to the Day 5 Eureka Moment. He also touches upon the new Apple technologies: Force Touch, Taptic, and Glances are also explained. All of the above break new ground for this category.
My favorite parts of Farhad’s review focus on his thoughts around why the Apple Watch may achieve what Google Glass could not: social acceptability. Some of these key phrases from Farhad’s review explain why the Apple Watch’s design for subtlety may not experience the Google Glass Stigma or Glass-Hole Backlash:
“handsomely elegant without being flashy"
“you’ll forget its there until you notice it"
“only a handful of people asked what it was"
This understated elegance without the conspicuous consumption guilt contains the luxury goods marketing fingerprints and influence of Angela Ahrendts’ from her time as Burberry CEO.
After re-reading these articles, I believe the Apple Watch represents a major bet by the company to convince both Apple believers and non-believers on the long term benefits inherent in The Apple’s Ecosystem. Why?
2. recode.net: The Social Media Megaphone Every Brand Forgets. Cory Edwards (Adobe’s Head of Adobe’s Social Business Center of Excellence) wrote this article about brand management's lost opportunity: Employee Advocacy. Brands and companies frequently overlook and underrate this marketing tactic. Cory quotes statistics from an Altimeter Group study stating only 41% of brands have an employee advocacy strategy.
He describes how employee advocates can amplify a brand’s reach via employees’ participation in personal, social media channels. Employee advocacy scales marketing for companies of all sizes (from early stage startup to Fortune 500).
Check out Cory’s article (with its many helpful links):
3. The Wall Street Journal: Google Gives Boost to Mobile Friendly Sites and recode.net: After Prepping Publishers, ‘Mobilegeddon’ Search Tweak. I love how Rolfe Winkler (WSJ) and Mark Bergen (recode) simply explain the business implications and drivers behind Google’s latest search algorithm update:
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Ideas that spread win. You can subscribe to my blog via email (and can unsubscribe any time you like). Please share my work with your friends. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Photo Credit: Cubosh
These posts in the blogosphere and LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform showcase employment trends describing why a personal blog or website is a vital 2015 professional development goal:
Facebook changed its policy for business and fan pages to a pay-for-play model. Small business owners who built their livelihoods around that platform are struggling to adapt. Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited Program continues eating away the monthly incomes of entrepreneurial authors / writers.
Adam Singer published this warning five+ years ago in his classic post, 19 Reasons You Should Blog And Not Just Tweet. Here are key snippets of Adam’s foresight from 2009:
3. Remember, you’re essentially contributing to someone else’s network on Twitter – certainly there are returns, but make no mistake they profit from your attention. I know you might not have a problem with that because you gain something too, but it’s good to be conscious of that fact.6. You own your work in a self-hosted blog and are in total control over how it is presented.
I know it’s not as “sexy” anymore (in reference to blogging) but it is still far more valuable and should not be discounted merely because the early adopters have shiny new object syndrome.
Long form content and blogging is coming back. Potential employers cite critical thinking and writing as key skills. Let's take advantage of our personal blogs / websites to show our thinking, analysis, and stories.
Transforming a complex or technical insight into a simple story is rare and sought after:
Hugh Macleod's home-spun wisdom from page 38 of his remarkable book, Freedom Is Blogging in Your Underwear speaks volumes:
My grandfather was a Scottish Highlands “crofter” — i.e., a small-time, mostly self-sufficient tenant farmer with his own little patch of land, who raised sheep and grew potatoes, turnips, and other stuff. And as I wrote in my second book, Evil Plans: hey, guess what — we’re all crofters now. Even people with secure day jobs in big corporations.Thanks to the Internet, we all have a little electronic “croft” — an electronic smallholding — to call our own what is commonly referred to as our own digital identity, which we can cultivate, like a small farm, however we see fit.
The good news is that, unlike my grandfather, we don’t have to spend our whole lives growing potatoes and shearing sheep for a mere pittance. We can sell things people find valuable — art and cartoons in my case, maybe consulting gigs or whatever in your case….
The Internet makes all this possible.
Go.
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. If you disagree, I would love to hear from you. I want to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Share my work with your friends. Ideas that spread win. You can subscribe to my blog via email (and can unsubscribe any time you like).
Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Share-worthy links Social Media ReInvention Community Members can enjoy during Sunday brunch:
1) eMarketer: Second Screening During TV Time—It's Not What You Think. The television industry (and myself) thought associating Twitter #hashags with its programming increased higher audience engagement and participation. Wrong.
Check out this Facebook post detailing the Millward Brown Digital Study, From One Screen to Five: The New Way We Watch TV. Facebook collaborated with Millward Brown on the study.
This stat caught me by surprise (maybe it shouldn't). The number one ranked "second screen" competing for our time and attention isn't Facebook, Twitter, another social network, etc.
It's email.
eMarketer is publishing a detailed report on our television and social media viewing habits called, “Simultaneous Media Use: Screen Fragmentation Complements Traditional Channels.” Here's a direct quote from the eMarketer article:
The takeaway is that a major portion of digital activity during TV shows has nothing to do with the show or the commercials. People simply drift away from the program and do other activities on their devices. This represents a transformation in the role of television from being a focal point to being just one of many screens competing for attention.
We're an iTV and Roku family (dumped cable months ago). Maybe, that's why I don't tweet, like, or post while watching tv. I'm focusing on the show (a rare treat).
2) McKinsey Quarterly: Tom Peters on Leading The 21st Century Organization. I'm a huge Tom Peters fan. At 71, he's still a rebel with a cause. I love and respect his candid and forthright views about developing and understanding an awareness of power, influence, and politics in organizations.
That's how change takes place in The Fortune 500. Change takes place by influencing and developing political allies (one person at a time).
Here are direct quotes from the article:
Change is about recruiting allies and working each other up to have the nerve to try the next experiment. You find allies. You encircle the buggers.
You don’t bring about change in real big meetings or virtual meetings. You bring it about one person at a time, face to face—when we discover we have some common interests and we’re both pissed off, say, at too many CEOs who talk about charts and boxes. And so we create a conspiracy.
Bonus 1: Mitch Joel's recent podcast with Tom Peters.
Bonus 2: My post, Tom Peters Personal Branding Lessons, Part 1: Why YOUR Blog Matters. Mr. Peters linked to this post and cites it on his Media Sightings Page.
3) Brynne Tillman and The LinkedIn Challenge #thelinkedinchallenge. Brynne's LinkedIn Posts on Social Selling and maximizing LinkedIn's utility and power in our professional lives never cease to amaze me. She's a bona fide subject matter expert in her field.
Her creativity to create and initiate #thelinkedinchallenge is genius. It's a clever take on the #ALSChallenge. The purpose: connect and introduce two (2) Linked connections who can benefit from each other.
I participated right off the bat. Here's my Twitter conversation with Brynne:
4) John Mack and The Pharma Marketing Blog: #mHealtMobile Chat Takeaway: Pharma Must Involve Patients Early on When Developing Mobile Health Apps. Last week, I participated in the #mHealthPharma Tweetchat. John lead and moderated 45 global participants!
And, he performed brilliantly.
I first discovered the initial discussion thread in this LinkedIn Group: Mobile Health Global. The topic centered on this question: "What stands in the way of pharma developing high quality mobile health apps?" This is the headline of our first debate.Participate in it here since the 25th of September. John Mack will moderate it!
I love discovering LinkedIn Discussion Groups like this one! I virtually met and conversed with smart, passionate, and thought-provoking people in the LinkedIn Group and the #mHealthPharma Tweetchat.
Here are links to their Twitter Profiles:
Check out Teresa Bau's Storify presentation. I have to learn how to do this because it's pretty cool:
If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
"Sooner or later the world will be interested in your area of expertise." -- David Meerman Scott from The New Rules of Sales and Service: How to Use Agile Selling, Real-Time Customer Engagement, Big Data, Content, and Storytelling to Grow Your Business.
But, will YOU (companies or individuals) be able to deliver YOUR expertise at PRECISELY the RIGHT time when the customer needs it?
That's just one of several game-changing concepts David Meerman Scott describes in hs latest book.
BOTTOM LINE: Buy and study it. The New Rules of Sales and Service (NRSS) ROCKS!! It's destined to become another Meerman Scott classic.
Social Media ReInvention Community Members know I'm a huge fan and student of David's teachings.
I own and constantly refer to these classic books:
As soon as I learned about this book, I pre-ordered the NRSS hardcover and Kindle versions. My review is based on an advance, draft copy of The New Rules of Sales and Service on which I'm basing this review.
The New Rules of Sales and Service is written in David's trademark style: challenging marketing strategy's status quo (with a rebel's heart). His thoughtful, entertaining, and case study-rich content applies to Fortune 100, small businesses, and individuals who genuinely desire to competitively differentiate themselves.
David Meerman Scott - Real-Time Sales and Marketing Speaker from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.
Among the game changing arguments David makes in numerous case studies (~10 per chapter) is how marketing, sales, and service can no longer exist in functional silos. Every employee is (and should be) accountable for marketing, selling, and servicing new and existing customers because the social tools are available online to everyone.
The New Rules of Sales and Service extend beyond it's a "cross-functional" thing. It's now an "all-hands-on-deck" thing.
Executing and sustaining an NRSS-driven culture requires top-down, CEO-driven leadership. Successful New Rules of Sales and Service practitioners instill a participative and trusting company culture. These leaders enable all employees to capitalize in social, one-to-one, real-time, customer communications throughout the entire buying process. David interviewed company leaders who trust and expect their team members (regardless of departmental function) to:
1. Acquire NEW customers and MAINTAIN existing customer relationships using social tools in real-time interactions (e.g., concepts of AGILE selling and real-time speed & engagement; Case Study: Avaya)
2. Contribute and share valuable content to educate and inform customers in the pre- and post-sale process AT THE PRECISE TIME THE CUSTOMER NEEDS IT (e.g., CONTEXTUAL & consultative selling vs. hard-selling tactics; Case Study: Kendall PRess)
3. Collect and analyze real-time customer data to support real-time content delivery, service actions, and sales interactions (e.g., salesperson comes in later in buying process OR no salesperson; Case Study:GadCAD)
4. Convey stories about the company's products / services aligning with the customer's view of themselves (e.g., buyer persona research, newsjacking; Case Study: MultiCare Health Systems)
That opportunistic mindset drives competitive differentiation at both a tactical and strategic level.
By the way, David's research confirms blogging is far from dead. Long form content may be the best social tool in authentically demonstrating one company's "truth" to a competitor's public relations "spin."
Will more and future leaders trust their teams and David's rich teachings in NRSS? Time will tell. But, why wait? Gain the upper hand by buying and studying David's work. The hardcover book officially ships today, September 2nd.
Bonus #1: David published this free eBook on SlideShare, The New Rules of Selling: How Agile and Real-Time Sales Grow Your Business Now. It's 158 pages of New Rules Classic Goodness!
Bonus #2: David's Agile Marketing Presentation At the MCT 14th Marketing Summit in Istanbul, Turkey
Agile Marketing by David Meerman Scott from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.
Bonus #3: (STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS) Mind Maps of Chapters 1-7. The goal is to have the remaining Chapters 8-10 completed by the end of next weekend. I'm still experimenting w/ the XMind Mind Mapping Software to make the maps easier to read in slide show mode.
Please be patient, and I'll update this post as quickly as I can. Here's what they look like so far (I know I can't read'em either):
If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This case study series is a self-initiated interpretation and analysis by me, the blog author. I want to make it clear that neither Dorie Clark nor Michael Ovitz were consulted or personally endorsed this case study and how I've applied the analysis to the valuable teachings in Reinventing You.
No! You still have time. The real question you should is: How Much Are You Going to Focus, Your Unique Assets, Time, and Energy into Your Post-50 Career Reinvention?
If these thoughts run through your mind or resemble one (or more) of the following, I encourage you to keep reading:
This post is third in a series of six (6) about successful career reinvention after age 50.
In this post (and the other five), I talk about linkages I see from Michael Ovitz's career reinvention after age 50 to six (6) of Dorie Clark's Reinventing You principles from Chapter 9: Reintroduce Yourself and Chapter 10: Prove Your Worth.
The bullet point highlighted in blue is the Reinventing You principle analyzed in this post:
Note: The following analysis references examples from the October 2013 Fortune Magazine article: Ovitz Does Silicon Valley by David A. Kaplan to describe Michael Ovitz's latest career reinvention in the context of Reinventing You's valuable teachings.
Dorie Clark emphasizes the importance of "having other people talk us up." Here are key quotes from Reinventing You's Chapter 9: Reintroduce Yourself -- Develop Validators:
Another important way we can convey our new identities is through external validators, that is, other people talking us up. As a powerhouse group of researchers led by both Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Cialdini discovered, the secret is to have someone else bragging for you.(Jeffrey Pfeffer) "People don't like people who self-promote. But ironically, even if you self-promote through the mouths of other people, somehow that stigma doesn't get associated with you. It's much better to have someone else toot your horn."
Powerful and Influential Third-Party Validators Address Key Objectives for Michael Ovitz: (1) Promoting Him as a Trusted Silicon Valley Advisor and (2) Defending Him Against Critics. Since 1999, Mr. Ovitz developed and nurtured business relationships with Sillcon Valley's movers and shakers. These people provide and support him with significant third-party validation:
These direct quotes from the aforementioned October 2013 Kaplan-Fortune article highlight how Mr. Ovitz's third-party validators defend and talk him up:
1. Marc Andreesen on Mr. Ovitz role as a trusted advisor to Andreesen Horowitz (Andreesen's venture capital firm):
There are similar tales of Ovitzian assistance around the Valley as he rises again, this time far removed from the lights of show business. At Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm, Ovitz is an in-house mentor on how to build a full-service operation in the mold of Creative Artists Agency, the Hollywood talent monolith he built and ran from 1975 to 1995."Michael is the classic kind of entrepreneur that we like up here -- he's highly aggressive, he's highly disruptive," says Marc Andreessen, with whom Ovitz has cultivated a relationship since 1999. "Michael's a very close friend of the firm. He's a great friend to have." He's also an investor in the firm, though AH won't say for how much.
2. Peter Thiel on the C-Level, cross-industry breadth and depth of Mr. Ovitz's business connections:
"Michael can get us in to see any CEO in the U.S.," Thiel says. "The Valley has this excessive insularity. But he has cross-sector relationships in New York, L.A., and other places." Thiel says Ovitz has a preternatural ability to 'learn things quickly and then communicate them to the outside world."Since the dotcom implosion of the late 1990s, he (Thiel) says, too many new companies in the Valley have 'retrenched,' de-emphasizing relationships with other businesses and institutions. Consulting Ovitz, whose network Thiel calls 'second to none,' has been a way to overcome that inclination.
3. Peter Thiel, Marc Andreesen, Peter Szulczewski, Joe Lonsdale, and Boris Sofman discuss Mr. Ovitz's critics and detractors:
Says Thiel (Peter): "I've learned to discount bad things said about people by rivals, and I'm not aware of a single bad thing about Ovitz that wasn't said by a rival."Although Andreessen and others in Ovitz's new circle acknowledge the skepticism, they have different takes on it. Andreessen is the most dismissive of Ovitz doubters and ascribes Ovitz's repute more to the peculiarities of Hollywood than to any of his own faults. "We're used to guys like that here -- I mean, Steve Jobs, for God's sake! Or my career, right?" Andreessen says. "That's the cultural difference between Silicon Valley and L.A." Had Intel's Andy Grove or Netscape's Jim Clark made his mark in Hollywood, according to Andreessen, he'd have the same kind of bad-boy name as Ovitz.
Peter Szulczewski of Wish says, "I haven't seen the type of things that people warned me about."
Formation 8's Joe Lonsdale agrees. "People are naturally more cautious because of his history," he says. "But he's (Ovitz) demonstrated awesome value in so many tangible ways to different people that they overlook it. And it's hard to map out what's true and what isn't." Ovitz is a limited partner in Formation 8, with a "small" investment of "under $5 million," as the firm describes it.
"There's a disconnect between a lot of the things written about him and kind of the person we've gotten to know," says Boris Sofman, the CEO and co-founder of Anki, who talks almost daily with Ovitz. Sofman says Ovitz has alluded to his own past by counseling Sofman on what happens when you're successful. "When you lead in your industry," Ovitz told him, "it's easy to start getting vilified, and the tide can turn on you quickly and unexpectedly."
Sofman says Ovitz has no stake in Anki, not even advisory fees. That may merely mean Ovitz hasn't asked yet. Or, as Sofman suggests, it could be that Ovitz really is in it for more than the money. "One of the things he shared with me is he truly loves working with young people," says Sofman, who just turned 30.
Your Turn. Okay, you may still be thinking:
YOU HOLD Multiple Assets and Connections In The Palm of Your Hand. They're in your laptop hard drive. They're accessible via the keyboards on your laptop, smartphone, or tablet.
YOU CAN mobilize these connections on your behalf with a few keystrokes or finger swipes.
YOU HAVE Michael Ovitz-Like Third-Party Validators. It's all relative. You already know and are connected to influential third-party validators through these online assets and communities:
Build Your Relationships with Your Validators by Blogging, Commenting, Connecting, Tweeting, and +K'ing. I connect with my third party validators on a weekly basis via these online assets and communities. Several of these kind and generous people are highly influential and powerful in their respective professions. These wonderful people generously support me as career mentors and allies in my personal branding and online reputation work.
Focusing on building these types of assets and participating in these communities enables you to do two important things:
1. Connect with like-minded people who share your values
2. Build what Dorie Clark refers to as an intellectual property (IP) portfolio
Let me be candid:
I'm just a regular dude who enjoys:
If I Can Do It, You Can Too. I'll describe my own experiences on developing and cultivating relationships with my third-party validators in the next post in this series on Reinventing You After Age 50.
Lesson 3B: Developing Validators with Your Personal Branding Online Assets is scheduled for a February 2, 2014 publication.
If you enjoyed this post, here are links to the series' first two posts:
If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Photo Credit via flickr by World of Good
Photo Credit via flickr by xfile001
Photo Credit via flickr by Joriel "Joz" Jimenez
Photo Credit via flickr by spieri_sf
If Yes, Grab Some Coffee (Because This is a Long Post). Social Media ReInvention Community Members know of the tremendous respect I hold for Mitch Joel. His books and art have tremendous influence on my marketing strategy and creative perspective.
CTRL ALT Delete Is a Gift on 21st Century Career Leadership and Opportunity Management. Mitch frames and delivers his compelling arguments in two (2) sections:
1. Reboot: Business - The 5 Massive Movements
2. Reboot: You - The 7 Triggers
Yes, his book describes corporate and marketing strategy opportunities impacting organizations (big or small). Yes, his book contains important personal branding / personal reputation implications.
But, all twelve (12) principles focus on individually identifying and framing opportunity (and having the collective or individual courage to pursue it).
We All Have the Opportunity to Differentiate Ourselves and Lead. CTRL ALT Delete's resounding themes are to:
That's why our futures depend upon studying and practicing CTRL ALT Delete's teachings. Others with vaster audiences and authority than mine share that opinion.
Invest in Yourself and Buy CTRL ALT Delete. Here are four (4) important questions Mitch Joel asks about building competitive advantages to reboot our organizations and individual careers:
Creating a Unique Competitive Advantage. Direct relationships as a competitive advantage (versus price) is best described by these CTRL ALT Delete quotes (page 11) on how Apple executes its retail strategy:
The solution for Apple was to create a "cradle to the grave" business model where the customer is--at every touch point--directly speaking with Apple's brand. A true, direct relationship--in every sense of the word. Apple could not win on price (their computers and other devices are usually much more expensive than their competition's), so they had to win by being there for the consumer and by making these consumers a part of a more complete brand ecosystem.At the time that Apple first launched retail stores in 2001, the common practices among retailers was to cram each nook and cranny of space with merchandise to maximize the sales per square foot. Sadly most retailers (and businesses) still hold on to the traditional thinking. For Apple, it was less about every square foot of retail space and much more about evey square inch of the direct relationship. Apple didn't start in the retail business to compete with other consumer electronics stores; they went into retail for the direct relationship with their customers. Apple's attitude was: "Why give that power to Best Buy or anyone else?"
Apple Hired Angela Ahrendts Because of Her Ability to Build and Nurture Direct Consumer Relationships. Angela Ahrendts hiring as Senior Vice President of Retail is Apple's signal to re-engage its devoted following. Her retail philosophy is grounded on the ability to feel, empathize, and become a brilliant brand ambassador. That's the foundation for direct and strong consumer relationships (from Austin Carr's October 15, 2013 Fast Company article):
"My dad used to always to say that he could teach anything but he couldn't teach how to feel. That's the hardest part when you have 11,000 people: How do you teach them how we feel?""The thing is, I don't want to be sold when I walk into a store to be welcomed. The job is to be a brilliant brand ambasador. Everyone is welcome. Don't be judgmental whatsoever."
"Don't sell! NO! Because that is a turnoff."
Converse Directly With Your Connections and Followers. Don't just tweet out links and "like" stuff. Mitch's observations about building direct relationships highly applies to our personal social network connections. For example, participating in Twitter by sharing links your followers find helpful is a starting point for establishing authority and reputation.
But, if you want to "own and nurture" a long-term direct relationship, you have to directly converse with your followers. Mitch talks in depth about this concept throughout the book. These types of direct conversations are powerful and solidify lifelong loyalty and relationships:
Check Out Mitch's Video Sharing Several Factoids on Mobile Trends:
Real-World Case Example: Apple Acquires Topsy. The rationale for the Apple-Topsy acquisition comes straight from this section in CTRL ALT Delete: The One Screen World - The Shift From Four Screens Down to One (pages 90 -109).
The entire chapter describes how consumers operate in a mobile, one-screen world. The only screen consumers care about is "the one currently staring them in the face."
Mitch further makes a compelling argument: The most important consumer screen resides on our smartphones.
Twitter Is Mobile, Untethered, and One-Screen Savvy. It's a social media platform focused on telling Apple WHAT We're Thinking WHEN We're Thinking AND WHERE We're Thinking It. This November 2013 Bloomberg-Businessweek article describes how the Twitter API, its meta data, and tweets provide rich consumer data.
Here are Mitch's thoughts on Twitter and the one-screen world (from page 99 of CTRL ALT Delete):
"Twitter's metoric rise and continued success have less to do with how many followers Lady Gaga has and much more to do with the fact that it was the first-ever online social network that worked better on mobile than it does on the Web. The sheer simplicity of those 140 characters of tweets makes it that much more workable and easy for consumers. Twitter's focus (from day one) was on connecting people as they were on the go. To this day, everything that Twitter does --- from acquisitions to business strategy --- is driven by a one-screen-world philosophy."
Consumers, Followers, and Connections Expect and Demand Immediate, Real-Time Responsiveness. Communicating and responding with our respective audiences with real-time immediacy is now a competitive differentiator (in both our professional and private lives). According to the eMarketer article: Key Trends for 2014: Always On Means Always Social, mobile, social networking via our smartphones and tablets will continue driving our "real-time" communications:
Whether we like it or not, consumers (and personal connections) expect us to be there in real-time with the right message, at the right time, in the right place.
A Personal Blog = Personal Competitive Advantage. The Internet affords anyone with a laptop and broadband access an opportunity to stand out. But, we often allow ourselves to be defined by our current job titles and bullet points on our resumes. That's a mistake.
Mitch thinks strategically and critically. In a social media age, when most tweets or Facebook status updates provide diminishing returns on our attention, the opportunity to differentiate ourselves as entrepreneurial, credible, forward-looking strategic, critical thinkers has never been higher.
Writing a personal blog allows you to maintain an identity separate from your employer (i.e., it's a portable asset). Dorie Clark, in her great book, Reinventing You, defines a personal blog as valuable, intellectual property showcasing individual expertise by:
1. Showing how you think
2. Demonstrating your individual creativity
3. Making it easy for a potential employer / great connection to find you (e.g., SEO benefits)
4. Giving you practice in an important and portable business skill set -- writing
5. Proving you're technology and Internet savvy
6. Informing people first-hand how you're driven to learn new skills
Isn't Blogging Supposed to be Dead? Hardly. As Mitch points out in the section, "Your Life in Startup Mode," a personal blog describes important aspects about ourselves that a resume fails to represent:
(page 227) "You're writing to exercise your critical thinking skills."(page 225) "But for the purpose of this book, I'll define a blog as an online journal of your work. The spirit of the blog is to create a living and breathing resume and portfolio of how you think and work."
(page 224) "I still believe that a blog is a canvas that allows you to think, share, and connect with an audience."
(page 228) "Because if you care enough to blog, it means that you have something to say. If you have something to say and you're blogging it, it means that you want to share and connect. Ultimately, the world needs more people like that."
Seth Godin and Tom Peters on Why We Should Blog. This classic video from two great marketing teachers on why blogging matters deserves viewing:
Pages 190 and 193 from The Marketing of You explain the ultimate goal for connecting (online or face-to-face):
(page 190) "There's nothing wrong with asking for help, but you will always see a more positive result if you start by delivering value first---by being valuable to others before asking them for favors. Give abundantly and be helpful."
(page 193) "True influence comes from connecting to individuals, nurturing those relationships, adding real value to other people's lives, and doing anything and everything to serve them, so that when the time comes for you to make a request, there is someone there to lend a hand. Worry less about how many people you are connected to, and worry a whole lot more about who you are connected to---who they are and what you are doing to value and honor them (in their spaces)."
That sounds like a great philosophy towards achieving professional and personal fulfillment.
If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Please Let Me Enjoy My Fleeting 15 Minutes. This post is purely self-promotional. But, I don't know if another similar event will happen again (or how long it will last).
Social MediaReInvention Community Members know I am a huge fan of the book, The Start-Up of YOU and The Start-Up of YOU: A Career Strategy LinkedIn Discussion Group.
A month ago, I posted a discussion topic and poll titled: Parents: Is your son/daughter graduating from college in Spring 2014/2015? Please describe your confidence level for your child to land a full-time job after graduation.
I monitor this discussion forum daily to see if other Start-Up of YOU group members submitted new comments or votes. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I read this:
I know this isn't a big deal to a lot of people. But, it is to me. I always wonder if the discussions I participate in and the content I contribute makes an impact.
I must be doing something right. And, the clock keeps ticking ...
Update 1: When I recently visited the discussion group site, the website described my "Top Contributor" status. I captured the screenshot on December 6th.
Update 2: I visited the discussion group site on the morning of December 27th. I also received a "Top Contributor" status for this question / discussion. Here are the screen shots from that day:
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Photo Credit by Lynn Friedman via flickr
Inbound Marketing Certified Professional and Author, Social Media ReInvention Blog
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