"I've Got a Golden Ticket!"

I get A LOT of emails, tweets, Facebook messages, LinkedIn requests and phone calls looking to connect with me for my resources and/or partnerships. I’m excited to share the wealth and see those around me succeed.  If I believe in you, not just your product, I typically find a mutually beneficial opportunity to connect someone to.  As the years go on the requests are multiplying in order to run my company effectively of course I need to be careful with my time managment.  Jason Fried of 37 Signals blocks out specific weekly phone hours to connect with customers, business education seekers and fans.  So as of late after receiving a request I respond with the questions, “What goal are you looking to achieve….how can I help?” And people seem to not know how to react.  I am not looking or expecting anything in return and that just seems confusing to most.  This is probably why the basic utility of social media seems  so complicated.  It is indeed basic.  You listen to your audience and what their interests are and then you offer resource or insights based on their interest. That’s it.  Pretty simple right? Or am I the one missing something….   I welcome your feedback.

This week I am reading “Getting Real” by 37 Signals AMAZING insights and perspective on how to manage time and build an effective organization. It’s been sitting on my desk for about a year to read. I wish I picked it up sooner. It’s that good.

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.

Zappos Core Values: Direct Link

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

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.

Establish your brand identity

I am so excited! Tonight my company is hosting a panel on ROI Based Online Brand Engagement for the action sports industry.  A bunch of you were bummed that you lived out of town so my friends at Tech Zulu are sponsoring a live stream!  Woo hoo.  At 7pm PST tonight go here: http://techzulu.com/live.html You’ll be able to ask questions online. I am honored viral video genius Dave Lehre who created “MySpace: The Movie” and “Facebook: The Movie” will be moderating.  He’s been on 20/20, in GQ, Esquire, Rolling Stone. So cool! The panelists are the founders of bigMethod and possibly a guest panelist if I can get him to break away from training for an upcoming competition 

David Lehre on 20/20!!

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.

Tonight I am teaching a 3 hour course on behalf of Media Bistro in Hollywood, CA. “Social Media Essentials – How to choose the best platform to enhance your exposure” .

5405 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90036 - (323) 330-9505

I look forward to answering all your questions and spending time with you to help you explore this crazy online world that has hit us by storm.

Here’s Gary’s video… so much good info.

No client wants to see art work they want to see ROI. Everyone these days is a social media expert. Bah Humbug. All I want to see – All investors want to see – All clients want to see = ROI, Metrics and Analytics. Thats’ it. Everything else is the cherry on top. So next time you present the pretty website you want to build and how amazing you are at sending tweets, remember to start with exactly how much money all that fun activity is going to make.

"Show me the money"

Gary Vaynerchuk @ Big Omaha 2009 from Big Omaha on Vimeo.

This May 2009 will be just about the coolest conference yet – Big Omaha. The best of the best in social media, online content and business tech will be in attendance. Gary Vaynerchuk who I can’t stop writing about has mastered the momentum of online content. Adriana Gascoigne banded together Girls in Tech throughout the US and overseas being featured in periodicals like Fast Company for her leadership and social media expertise at powerhouse Hi5. Business modeling extraordinaire Jason Fried from 37 Signals. If you have yet to read how 37 Signals maintains laser focus on business development go there now to enhance your skills. Threadless founder Jeffrey Kalmikoff made selling retail online viral and community based. Matt Mullenweg who is behind the development of WordPress – just about the most unbelievable blogging platform ever. And no established business and technology event would be complete without the talented Shira Lazar hosting the extravaganza. This star studded cast are all flying to Omaha this May and so should we. I know I am. If you missed South by Southwest don’t make the same mistake twice.This May 2009 will be just about the coolest conference yet – Big Omaha. The best of the best in social media, online content and business tech will be in attendance. Gary Vaynerchuk who I can’t stop writing about has mastered the momentum of online content. Adriana Gascoigne banded together Girls in Tech throughout the US and overseas being featured in periodicals like Fast Company for her leadership and social media expertise at powerhouse Hi5. Business modeling extraordinaire Jason Fried from 37 Signals. If you have yet to read how 37 Signals maintains laser focus on business development go there now to enhance your skills. Threadless founder Jeffrey Kalmikoff made selling retail online viral and community based. Matt Mullenweg who is behind the development of WordPress – just about the most unbelievable blogging platform ever. And no established business and technology event would be complete without the talented Shira Lazar hosting the extravaganza. This star studded cast are all flying to Omaha this May and so should we. I know I am. If you missed South by Southwest don’t make the same mistake twice.

Don't risk feeling left out again like you did not attending SXSW in Austin last week

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w]

Compliments of @chrisbennett from www.97thfloor.com I bring to you the best overview of Twitter…

Twitter, the Most Important Website Since Google?

I will be the first to admit while it didn’t take me a long time to sign up and start networking with friends on Twitter, it has taken me a long time to understand the true power of the website. When I first started using it I saw it as a networking and communication tool. The more I come to use it and the more I watch people from all walks of life using it I am starting to see why Twitter may possibly be the most important website since Google. To help you understand my logic I want to start with some thoughts on Google.

I think it is safe to say most everyone believes Google is currently the most important website on the internet. When I say important I mean the one that has effected how we use the internet the most thus far. Before it came out we were all satisfied with Yahoo, DogPile and other engines and then Google came a long and it got some grass roots buzz, it was the cool new minimalistic search engine that had surprisingly good results with a clean interface. Soon everyone that was savvy enough to know they could choose the search engine they retrieved info from, chose Google. Google didn’t enhance search, Google popularized search. Yes search was around before Google but people didn’t stop using the Yellow Pages and the Phone book and every other method of finding information until Google.

Enter Twitter -
Even among Google, Google Blog Search, RSS Readers, Blogs, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, FaceBook etc. there is still room in our already thin attention span for a site like Twitter. Like Google, Twitter is simple, straight forward and extremely easy to use. I don’t look at Twitter as a micro-blogging service I look at as a literal representation (both through information and networking) as to how small this planet really is. Short 140 character messages isn’t what Twitter is but how it is carried out. Twitter is becoming a behemoth of instant information with the ability to follow up with and talk to the person providing that information. Sure you could say that is the same thing as blogs, but most of what is said in blogs can and is starting to be said through 140 characters and you can digest more info from more people that way. I replaced my RSS reader with Twitter in fall of last year, I have seriously logged in to my Reader less then 10 times since September to read blogs when it used to be a daily occurrence. If someone asked, “what is Google not doing well on the web?” Twitter would be at the top of my list. Twitter is a Real Time engine with personal and live feedback.

#Twitter #Search -
Part of the long term stability I see with Twitter is from search.twitter.com. Anything I need to know about something that is happening right now or has happened in the last 12 hours I use Twitter search for. I used to search through Google Blogsearch, Digg, Delicious, Youtube to get breaking news but now I am alerted to it so quick through someones update, and I can go to Twitter search and get hundreds if not thousands of snippets of info and links seconds/minutes after it is happening. Everyone knows about Twitter and the Hudson River, Mumbai attacks etc. You can’t get that from Google. What takes Google minutes or hours to show you takes Twitter seconds. Google Organizes others content, Twitter creates and organizes its own content. When Jon Stewart ripped Jim Cramer a “new one” I found out about it live from people watching in Eastern time and I was able to go set my TIVO for MST and watch it that night. Before Twitter it would of been a Youtube clip submitted to Digg, Reddit or SU the next day. Danny Sullivan mentioned a similar experience during his keynotes at Omniture Summit and SMX West 09 about an earth quake that hit SoCal, he had tweeted about it and started to get replies and see results with information within minutes. There is no other site on the web that has this capability, and I don’t mean as in software but in software powered by a large and growing organic user base.

Sandwich Tweets -
Tweeting about the homemade panini you made or about the Audi test drive you just took is just as vital to Twitter as live excerpts from members of Congress during the State of the Union. If I wanted a new recipe to make for my wife I would use Twitter in that quest. I am in the market right now for a new car and I have used Twitter to find and reach out to those driving what I am interested in to get real live feedback. You can go to CitySearch or Amazon to see reviews on a product or company, but you can go to Twitter to see less biased reviews and you can talk to the person making those reviews and ask specific questions.

No More Red tape –
Twitter will replace a lot of media outlets or at least steal a lot of share from them. The way companies can communicate and react to customers via Twitter is Gods great gift to customer communication and loyalty. Before Twitter and partly due to sites like Digg Comcast was the Cable provider ran by Lucifer himself, now because of the outreach that Comcast has utilized via Twitter it is on its way to Saint Hood. Dell has similar experiences. Twitter is finally helping companies be agile who without it were stiff and slow. Social media and blogging in the large corporate space has always been hindered by Red Tape, Twitter forces companies to break that Red Tape. Large companies put review and approval processes before publishing blogs, can you imagine if tweets had to go through legal first? Not going to happen, Twitter forces companies to put someone capable and trusted at the helm as it cannot be regulated it like other mediums.

Twitter Tipping point –
Twitter is mainstream, the nature of Twitter allows every user to utilize its power in their own way, if you are a stay at home mom, CNN, Ashton Kutcher, Jimmy Fallon, small business owner, or the President of the United States you can use Twitter to better your objectives no matter what they may be. This is why it is Mainstream and why it isn’t going to stop, and you think there are a lot of people on there now? I guarantee you that in less than 6 months the user base will nearly double, and instead of people with 400k followers we will have people with over 1M followers. Before Twitter where else would you be able to talk to Shaq or get a late night link to a live streamed jam session by Shawn Ptwitty Combs. People that have influence on Twitter will have influence on the world especially in media. If I was hiring in any kind of business that needed media/marketing presence and I had two nearly identical resumes on my desk and one applicant had no twitter account and the other had 15,000 followers who do you think I am going to hire?

Embrace or be Replaced –
Every company needs to embrace and leverage Twitter before Twitter replaces them. Twitter is already been said to take a chunk out of Job sitesit could do the same to Social Sites, classifieds, dating sites, search engines, aggregators, and so on. FaceBook knows that Twitter is their biggest threat, and it is carving out a strong hold as the most powerful Real Time Search Engine that Google cannot Duplicate.

Conclusion –
There will be a new media darling in a year just as Digg was before Twitter, but Twitter will take on its own role and it isn’t going anywhere. Soon pretty much anyone with an internet connection will be using Twitter if not to tweet but to find Real Time information. In my opinion it is the most influential and important site since Google.

@chrisbennett