While chatting with my friend Jason this week he said “…by the way I’m launching a Twitter Game Show site tomorrow called “Find That Tweet“. I think you’ll like it.” Just wish I thought of it! How clever. We were talking about how he used to hide cash for twitter users, like Tony Hawk ended up doing with skate decks. The official launch day was yesterday and I was hooked!!! All I needed to do was find a tweet after watching video clues and I win money. The coolest part is he set it up so when I tweet it out a link is created in my tweet via his system and if someone clicks and starts playing and they win I get some money from them winning too! Crazy sick and so super smart plus a ton of fun.
[caption id="attachment_1110" align="alignnone" width="504" caption="Find a Tweet, Win Money"][/caption]
My new friend @Ribeezie direct messaged me, (also known as “DM”), on Twitter this morning and told me to “Now bring back some of that good stuff and share ” about Zappos Insights inaugural conference. Zappos, a billion dollar online commerce destination, is known for their leadership in customer service. Insights was created as an educational forum to guide entrepreneurs to successfully attain milestones. It was a privilege to be a part of their LIVE event, a revolution in leadership and corporate happiness. One of the speakers at the event, social media maven Brian Solis, said it perfectly, “In the end we’re measured by our actions, not our words.”
Three huge takes aways from the event that will transform the productivity and efficiency in our organizations.
Share….Stop self promoting and start listening. Share information that you know delivers value because you have been listening. Whether it be employees, personal relationships, twitter followers or facebook friends. The way to effectively intrigue people to take action is fueled by being inspired.
Discover your foundation before you start building.… The most crucial component in determining success in a company and in your personal development is first discovering what matters to you most.; Your core values. It starts with you, outside of your professional life. The business owner behind closed doors. When you look in the mirror what do you see? Integrity, Transparency, Adventure… Deceit…? In order to grow we must be honest with ourselves. It is so clear to me now that if I had taken the time to discover, write down, and share my core values with my team it would have reduced management, increased productivity and complimented my company vision. But instead I found ego was something in my company that created road blocks for our success. What’s interesting is ego is so far from my personal values. If I had taken the time to write down what’s important to me, I would have quickly discovered my team mate strayed from our core values and that situation could have been remedied with eloquence and efficiency.
3. Half of the world is searching for the other half of the world, but don’t know how to find them. Brian Solis emphasizes that before even planning an online marketing strategy establish your identity. Most brands don’t even strategize, they just jump on a band wagon. But lets say you are developing a strategy, before that DISCOVER your identity that you plan to communicate in this strategy. I LOVE that Brian reinforced this. I hadn’t even thought of charting out my brand identity before planning. I figured my identity is obvious. Surf brand means you’re a surfer right? No, not necessarily. You must establish your brand to stand for something. A Cause. Something bigger and selflLESS than selling a pair of board shorts.
[caption id="attachment_703" align="alignnone" width="267" caption="Establish your brand identity"][/caption]
My Mom always says half of the world is looking for the other half of the world, but don’t know where to find them. I guess that is the “interwebs” definition of finding one another – SEO. I just installed this simple wordtracker plug in I found via Jeremy Morgan from Hash Marketing who has made in his goal to find the most quality SEO tweets.
Here’s an article written by Chris Garret, a professional blogger (whom I don’t know) demonstrating how to best utilize the plug in tool. He wrote the popular book “Pro Blogger” which was recommended to me by my someone I do know and adore, Blog World founder Rick Calvert.
I have stumbled upon Wordpress heaven. Blog oh Blog and Best Word Press Themes . I recently switched from wordpress.COM to wordpress.ORG… A lot of you don’t get what the difference is. Basically Wordpress.ORG allows way more customization and flexibility.
You do need to know a wee little bit of coding, so for that I found this free 7 day blogging course done by an amazing 20 year old entrepreneur from England. I’ve been raving about this guys blog like crazy called Income Diary. In the first day of the course it shows you step by step how to easily set up a wordpress.ORG blog.
And its absolutley crazy how far we have come on this foreign powerhouse called the internet where a website for your business is the same must as having a business card. So for business presence check out the top 20 wordpress theme for small businesses. So cool! I just can’t believe all these tools and designs are absolutley free. But its all about knowing they exist right. Right now I am on the hunt for a more social theme myself. Keep on the look out for my soon to be blog make over.
A lot of you ask me to quickly teach you social media. It’s not as quick as its perceived to be. Gary Vaynerchuk himself says if you dedicate an hour then you get an hour’s worth of results. If you dedicate 11 hours then you receive 11 hours worth of results. But its not just being on these social networks. It’s knowing how to use them so that fans, members, consumers, engage with you in order to in end create stronger ROI than your current marketing and advertising efforts. Which social platforms are right for you and your brand. Do you jump on Twitter because everyone seems to be on it… Not necessarily.
It's time to believe. I'm sick and tired of people making excuses for not going after their dreams. I'm going after mine and doing just fine. Crazy, sure. Manic, of course. Exhilarated, all the time. If you don't try then well... I am just sorry you missed out.
Zappos, a billion dollar online commerce destination, is known for their leadership in customer service. Insights was created as an educational forum to guide entrepreneurs to successfully attain milestones. It was a privilege to be a part of their LIVE event, a revolution in leadership and corporate happiness. One of the speakers at the event, social media maven Brian Solis, said it perfectly, “In the end we’re measured by our actions, not our words.”
I am absolutely exhilarated to to be visiting the Zappos headquarters tomorrow in Vegas. My company team has been vigorously studying the phenomenal Zappos culture which we do our best to emulate each day. I have personally been a fan of Zappos since about 2002 after discovering the site was the fastest loading site on the web. Being the geek that I am I was fascinated and had to know how they did it. I think their upload time was under 3 seconds and with a homepage full of graphics. Completely impressive.
Okay so this week at South by Southwest I went to “Getting Things Done the Simple Way” taught by John Zeratsky. I was not going to miss it. I rolled out of bed forgoed brushing my teeth or an awesome Austin shower to rush to the panel in order to achieve the treasure hunt of eliminating my email count and all my “contacters” feeling victory in receiving attention to their email. I mean if Tony Hsieh, CEO of the greatest customer service company ever Zappos.com and one of the most attentive entrepreneurs I’ve meet Gary Vaynerchuk can resend to 1000 plus emails a day, well then so can I! So I will keep you posted on what system I figure out works for me so I can “put a little Zappos in my day,” BUT in the meanwhile watch this. A little treat from Gary Vee and my tech crush Kevin Rose. (Who doesn’t crush on Kevin Rose?)
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