Social Media Zoom Factor with Pam Moore | Social Media Marketing | Branding |Business | Entrepreneur | Small Business | Digital Marketing | Content Marketing | Marketing | Influencer

At the foundation of business and life is people. At the core of people are hearts and minds that want to connect with other people. It is in our DNA to want to connect with other human beings in a communal way. We want to rub elbows, clink glasses, laugh, cry and celebrate with people who have the same goals, objectives, beliefs, and interests as we do.

At the heart of social media is people. Social media is one big fat conversation that inspires, empowers, engages, delights, educates, and activates human beings when used for good.

So given that people want to connect with other human beings at the core of their being, and that social media is about connecting humans, why is it that marketers struggle with connecting humans together, using social media?

Do they struggle because....

they have self centered goals?
they don't know how to connect humans to other humans so they simply focus on what they do know, which is spam?
they are technology addicted shiny object chasers and put their geek desires before business?
they struggle with communication?
they don't know their audience?
Whatever the reason is, we all know there are far more brands and digital marketers building communities with self serving goals vs brands delivering real value for their communities.

We also know many brand leaders question the real value of social media. They struggle with connecting the dots from a social network to a human to a business goal or objective. They don't know how to prioritize where they spend their time or what social shiny object they should invest in.

Are you confused as to what social networks you should be leveraging in 2016 and beyond to build community? Should you continue to focus on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter? Or should you start integrating live streaming? If yes, then should you dig into Facebook mentions, Facebook live, Periscope, Meerkat or none of the above?

The truth is you should not start with the technology. You should start with the people. You should start with your goal for building community. Why do you want to connect with other human beings? WHY do you want to connect other human beings together? What is in it for them and you?

If these are some of the question you would like to answer as you finalize your social media and digital marketing strategies and plans then take a listen to the 194th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast. In this episode I provide 10 goals for building and nurturing community that you can leverage to help you select and prioritize the social networks and platforms you should invest in to build community for your business and brand.

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

Episode Highlights

10 goals for building community
How to leverage the 10 possible goals to help you select what social networks and platforms to focus on in developing your social media and digital marketing strategy and plan
Why building the size of your community should never be your only goal
The power of tapping into the OPC - other people's community and content
Leveraging community to increase brand awareness or improve public perception
Establishing thought leadership with community
Increasing reach of content with the power of community
Why you must be careful of chasing shiny objects
The importance of knowing the goals of your audience and ideal customer

Direct download: SZF_194_Community_Goals_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:00pm EDT

Is your marketing delivering promises that you can't keep? Are your websites, blogs, social profiles, Instagram photos, tweets and Facebook updates over promising?

As marketers we are paid to build excitement, increase brand awareness and drive results.

The social web is becoming more noisy by the day. It's difficult for even smart marketers to stand out from the crowd and rise above the noise. Many marketers fall into the frenzy of beautiful visual graphics, never ending sales pages, over exciting live video sessions and the list goes on. Before they know it they have made a long list of promises that are far outside the scope of what their websites, blog, content, or business can provide. Instead of helping their efforts, their over promising marketing messages and actions are hurting the brand. These broken promises lose trust, hurt relationships and decrease brand equity.

Today, authenticity and transparency rules the social web. Customer experience is your brand, period.

Customers, community and audience members demand that brands deliver on what they promise. Marketers must learn to stop over selling. They must stop over promising and under delivering. Smart and savvy digital marketers know they are better off under promising and over delivering. Why not surprise and delight vs oversell and then disappoint?

Check out the 193rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 7 ways social, digital and brand marketers can keep their promises. Included are strategies, tips and tactics to earn trust, create a conversion funnel that actually converts and ensure that marketing efforts are helping the brand, not hurting brand reputation.

Direct download: SZF_193_Keep_Promise_Website_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:42pm EDT

It is every marketer and business leaders dream to have crystal ball that can predict the future. Imagine having the knowledge to know exactly where to invest your time, resource and budget to bring the maximum return in all facets of product, service, digital, social and content marketing.

Unfortunately the chances of any of us finding that digital marketing nirvana crystal ball are slim to zero.

However, the fun part is we can predict what we believe can happen. We can base these predictions on data, experience and our gut feeling. Smart marketers know their audience and know how to selectively choose the right social and digital platforms, content channels, communication mediums to inspire their customers to connect with them. They know how to tap into the power of earned, owned and paid media to drive more than clicks, and to build community and grow brand awareness. They know how to invest in influencer marketing relationships, not just influencers who will tweet for them for a single one night show.

So what will happen in 2016 in the world of digital and social marketing? The good news is even though I can't deliver you a magical digital marketing crystal ball, I can offer you my predictions based on experience working with brands ranging from well funded startups and entrepreneurs to Fortune 10 brands.

Check out the 193rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 12 Digital Marketing and Social Media Predictions for 2016. I provide insight, strategic direction and recommendations on tactics for you to embrace the new year and business planning with the knowledge you need to succeed.

Check out the 190th episode of the Social Zoom Factor for 10 Top Content Marketing Mistakes that could be killing your marketing and business results.

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn:

Top 12 social media and digital marketing predictions for 2016.
Video will obviously be big. Okay, huge in 2016. How brands can be ready.
The importance of working with earned, paid and owned media.
Why many brands will take influencer marketing more serious in 2016.
Content marketing will get even noisier. Are you ready?
The winning brands who break through the noise will do so because of an integrated strategy, knowing their audience and selecting the right tactics and platform.
Embracing the pay to play media model on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and more.
Why Facebook will continue to rein.
Why I think the jury is still out for Snapchat in 2016.
Communities will continue to be more formalized. I also predicted this in 2014. Brands are still learning in this area.
Visual marketing will continue to be big but quality, inspiration and emotional branding will rein in 2016.
User experience is your brand. Brands must embrace designing the best user experience for their audience, readers, listeners, community and customers in 2016.
Mobile first has been a requirement for several years. Some brands are still learning this.
Why omnichannel marketing is a requirement, not an option for many retail and other brands.

Direct download: SZF_192_2016_Predictions_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:29pm EDT

Social media can be a powerful communication medium to enhance relationships, earn trust and build brand awareness.

Delivering a solid and quality product or service is only part of the equation for brand success and serving the needs of the always on, always connected customer of today.

What customer journey and experience are you designing for your customers and audience?

Your customers do not just land on your website and then buy from you within 5 seconds. They have likely been on a journey and your website, blog or social platform is simply one of the stops on their journey.

Communicating with your customers when, where and how they want you to communicate with them is critical. Today's mobile and connected customer requires you know not only the right time but the right place to communicate with them. If you don't, they will just go to someone else, to another brand who has taken the time to understand who they are and what they need.

Smart brand leaders know that social media can help them differentiate and rise above the sea of status quo and leap frog their competition if implemented correctly and with goals that help improve user and customer experience. Social media can easily be used to provide the most positive experience possible. Social media can be leveraged to nurture relationships with customers, prospects, partners and their broader community.

Every brand touch matters. From the first touch on your website, contact form to your Facebook page, Twitter communication, email marketing or phone conversation with your customer or sales support team, every brand touch requires thorough thought and planning.

Did you know that it takes on average 6-7 brand touches before someone will remember your brand? You have less than 10 seconds when a person lands on your website or blog for the online visitor to determine if they are going to stick around to learn more about you or bounce right out. The same goes for when they land on your Facebook page, LinkedIn company page or your own personal social profile on any of the social networks.

Your brand is not what you say it is or what you write for your corporate Twitter bio, Facebook profile or LinkedIn company page. Your brand is what people say about you. Your brand is what and how you make people feel.

Your brand is the experience you deliver to customers, prospective customers, partners, your community and your audience online and offline. Your brand is how quickly you reply and answer questions. Your brand is the tone you use when communicating with your peers, thought leaders in your industry and niche, your employees and even competitors online.

You brand is how you show gratitude. It's how you handle a public online, crisis. It's how you build and nurture community.

Customer experience is your brand, period.

What customer experience are you delivering your customers, audience, partners and community online? Is it positive? Is it human? Is it authentic? How transparent is it? Is it helping you build a lasting and meaningful impression? Is it inspiring people to connect with you, engage with you and buy from you today, tomorrow or next year? Or is it turning people off? Is it pushing them away or bringing them closer to you and your brand?

Take a listen to the 191st episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 easy ways you can start using social media today to provide an amazing customer experience for your audience, customers and broader online community! Learn how you can leverage social media to differentiate your brand and win in your specific industry and niche.

Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:

10 ways to improve customer experience using social media
How to design a customer journey that inspires and connects you with your ideal customer and audience
Why you must be proactive in creating a crisis preparedness plan vs being reactive and waiting until a major crisis happens and causes major problems for your brand and business
How to integrate social media into the overall customer journey and experience
How you can enhance the customer experience at every brand touch point
Why even answering simple questions quickly online using social media can improve customer satisfaction
How to solve problems by integrating social customer service processes into your overall business support procedures
How to leverage social media and social customer service to differentiate from your competition
How to gather feedback and customer insights to learn about your customer
The power of giving your employees and customers a voice
Embracing the power of brand humanization and ensuring that you are communicating with your customers in an authentic, transparent and human way

Direct download: SZF_191_Customer_Experience_Social_Media_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:07pm EDT

Do you ever feel like you are spinning your wheels when it comes to developing and integrating your content marketing strategy and plan into your business and overall marketing initiatives and programs to achieve your business and marketing goals?

Content marketing planned and executed properly can help you ignite not only online results but also true business results. You can increase sales, generate more leads, increase brand awareness, build and nurture communities, humanize your brand, and reach markets you simply couldn't reach with other mediums.

Unfortunately many brand leaders are their own worst enemies when it comes to defining and executing a well laid out content marketing plan with strategies and tactics that delivers real results. Often times they get lazy and impatient. They want immediate results and don't understand it takes time and ongoing investment.

Content marketing is not a "set it and forget it" type of initiative. You must constantly be feeding the content engine, inspiring and connecting with your audience to achieve desired objectives.

Bottom line, content marketing for business requires work. Real work. The kind of work that may even make your head hurt from time to time. It may even keep you up at night.

Could it be that you are making some basic content marketing mistakes that are holding you back from the success you deserve and expect?

Sometimes we get so focused and stuck in our ways that we need to have a fresh eye, a fresh perspective, a fresh voice to help us acknowledge it could be one, two or a few silly things we are doing that are sabotaging our efforts.

Check out the 190th episode of the Social Zoom Factor for 10 Top Content Marketing Mistakes that could be killing your marketing and business results.

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:

Top 10 content mistakes killing your success and business results
How to not sabotage your own content marketing success
Why you must have a foundation to build on that includes a plan, goals, objectives, KPIs, call to actions, knowing your audience
Why you can't ignore the data and why you must focus on data driven decisions
Why you must avoid too much selling and self promotion online
The danger of not sticking to a plan
Avoiding chasing shiny objects and your competition
Why you must write for your customer, not Google only
The importance of headlines
How to not get stuck in a rut and ensure you are always innovating
Why basics matter such as spelling, grammar, user experience and visual appeal
Why you must own your distribution and platform vs putting all of your social and content marketing eggs in a basket (social network you do not own)

Direct download: SZF_190_Content_Marketing_Mistakes_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:01pm EDT

How is your content marketing plan and strategy coming along for 2016? Are you ready to create and deliver valuable content that will inspire, connect and organically attack your ideal customer, audience, investors, stakeholders, and partners?

Do you know what content you will be delivering on what month, week and day to inspire, empower, engage and activate the members of your online social communities? Are you ready to leverage content marketing to achieve your business and marketing goals and objectives?

Are you ready to tap into the power of content marketing to generate more leads, earn trust with your ideal customer audience, establish thought leadership, connect with and foster relationships with influencers in your industry, and grow your business?

Did you know:

Only 30% of B2B marketers say their organizations are effective at content marketing. This is down from 38% last year. (Content Marketing Institute)
67% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make B2B purchasing decisions than they did a year ago. (DemandGen Report)
70% of marketers lack a consistent or integrated strategy. (Altimeter)
51% of B2B marketers indicate they will increase their content marketing spending in the next 12 months (Content Marketing Institute)
If you want to get a grip on your content marketing starting today, then you have come to the right place.

We are thrilled to announce the availability of our 2016 content marketing editorial calendar template.

The 189th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast provides a detailed tutorial to help you create your own content marketing editorial calendar for 2016.

Step 1: Download our calendar here-> Content Editorial Calendar.

Step 2: Listen to the 189th episode for step by step directions for how to use our content calendar template.

Step 3: Subscribe to the entire series, "Get Fit Social and Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

Benefits of using a content editorial calendar:

Helps you focus on the needs of your audience and ideal customer
Helps you inspire, connect, empower and activate your audience
Force you out of your box and to think further than today or tomorrow
Increase value of your content to your audience
Better integrate and leverage different communication mediums and platforms to keep things fresh
Create content once, use many = increased return on investment
Streamline all investment and resources for content creation and marketing related activities
Encourage teamwork internally and with external partners and stakeholders
Fuel innovation and idea generation, avoid getting stuck in a rut
Better set expectations with your audience and fans
Helps you create loyal brand evangelists
Editorial Calendar Highlights

Prioritization of audience via our audience analysis worksheet
Monthly conversation theme
Weekly conversation theme
Blog post title
Target audiences (primary, secondary and tertiary)
Author
Editor
Purchase cycle (awareness, consideration, preference, purchase, loyalty)
Draft due date
Primary keywords
Blog Categories
Supporting images
Other supporting media (image, video, podcast)
Embed in other resource kits or publications
Syndication
Possibly white paper (y/n)
Client testimonial / graphics
Call to action (link and description)
In this 20 minute podcast you will learn:

Content marketing definition in a nutshell
Why you need a content marketing calendar
How to use the 2016 content marketing editorial calendar provided by Marketing Nutz (download here-> Content Calendar Template)
Recent industry trends and statistics regarding content marketing for 2016
How to increase the ROI of all of your content marketing by planning ahead, documenting your strategy and knowing your audience
Why you must set goals, objectives, clear call to actions
How to create and prioritize monthly and weekly themes for content and social conversations
How to keep track of visuals integrated with your content marketing
Importance of quality over quantity in developing your content marketing assets

Direct download: SZF_189_2016_Content_Calendar_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:11pm EDT

Do you know what your ideal customer and audience wants from you? Do you know the perfect content that would help them solve their biggest problems and inspire them to connect with you and your brand immediately? That would be the perfect content marketing scenario wouldn't it? The scenario where your ideal customer visits your blog, website, or other social or digital platform and is provided with exactly what they want and need!

Content marketing is an amazing way to build your brand awareness, foster community, establish thought leadership, generate leads and grow your business.

Content can come in many forms such as text blogging, video blogging, audio and podcasts, visual marketing, infographics, live streaming mobile content and the list goes on.

While it may be tempting to start testing every social network and content medium available, it's better to crawl, walk run and ensure you have a plan before wasting a ton of time, resource and money on content that your audience may not even like, read, watch, listen to or engage with.

The first step in creating your content marketing, digital marketing and social marketing plan is to ensure that you know your audience.

You need to know what your audience needs and wants from you. How can you help them solve their real problems? How can you offer a unique perspective and solution that stands out from the crowd of noise in your industry?

A top goal for social and digital marketers should be to ensure their content is providing value for their ideal customer and audience. The better the content can inspire, connect with and engage the reader, viewer or listener, the higher the return on investment the content is going to provide.

Check out the 188th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 tips and strategies to help you write for your ideal audience.

Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social and Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 20 minute podcast you will learn:

10 ways to create content for your ideal customer and audience
How to increase ROI of all content created by writing for your ideal audience
How to research and know your customer using social media
Importance of selecting 3 specific problems your customer has and creating content that helps them solve the problems
How to select the right mediums for your ideal customer and target audience
Importance of understanding your competition
Why you must understand industry trends in your niche and larger ecosystem
Why you must select the right headline and make sure you make it clear what the value is for your audience
Importance of not throwing social spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks

Direct download: SZF_188_Write_For_Audience_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:33pm EDT

The new always on, always connected, digital and social world provide amazing opportunities for smart digital brand marketers and business leaders to develop, test, and launch marketing programs, campaigns, products and services to market in far less time than days past. Gone are the days of waiting weeks and months to see how a multi-touch direct mail campaign performs to receive feedback on how well the program and message was received and acted upon by the target audience.

Thanks to social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope and even native Twitter video, marketers can literally obtain real-time customer insight within seconds and begin using such data to optimize their digital and social marketing programs for the highest success and ROI possible.

Social media is equivalent to one big fat focus group that never sleeps. There is not a time of day or night that you can't crawl up in your cozy chair with your laptop and learn what people think of you and your brand. It's there for the taking. Smart marketers know how to tap into the research and testing power of the social networks without becoming a spammer.

Would you like to...

know how your new message and brand platform resonates with your audience?
know what people think of your brand?
pre-test campaign themes before launch to best optimize for success?
know what people think of your latest campaign?
understand what visuals are going to drive action?
know what call to actions will drive the highest conversion using social media?
how to design your website or blog for highest traffic, engagement and conversion?
know what content will drive social conversation, conversion and ROI?
know what marketing mediums such as audio, video or text your audience will best respond to?
test visual marketing campaigns before launch?
know the goals and objectives of your audience?
know the best times to publish on each of the social networks to better achieve your business objectives?
The answers to all of these questions and more are available for the taking by smart digital marketers who know how to tap into the power of social media marketing to learn, tweak, rinse, repeat and optimize!

Take a listen to the 187th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 8 ways you can leverage social media for test your own marketing with social media starting today!
Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social and Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:

8 ways to use social media to test your own marketing and social media programs
How to test headlines for blog posts within seconds
How to pre-test marketing programs and campaigns prior to launch
How to save time with marketing and program development by using social media
How to test content marketing programs
How to test visual marketing programs
How to conduct a/b tests using social media
How to leverage social media to select the best mediums for your audience
How to measure results of your own posts to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and more
How to understand the impact of different mediums and actions for posting content such as tagging, using urls, hashtags and more
How to test different marketing call to actions, offers, events, milestones

Direct download: SZF_187_Social_Marketing_Research_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:04am EDT

Social media presents tremendous opportunities for digital and social brand marketers to conduct market research.

Long gone are the days of spending months and years in long drawn out focus groups, hiring expensive 3rd parties to gather people, rent expensive venues, pay for their insight, analyze the data for months and the list goes on. While there may be times that these longer research projects are required, most modern businesses of today don't need them as often as they may think they do.

Social networks present all of us with focus groups that are alive and dynamic 24/7, 365 days of the year. Any time of day or night there are people online, ready to engage and likely give you feedback by way of their actions or conversations.

It is important for marketers to focus on the needs of their customer as a top priority before developing any marketing program, campaign or piece of content marketing.

Would you like to learn...

what people think about your brand?
What people think of your service?
What people think of your employees?
What people think of your store location?
What people think of your website or blog?
What people think of your content?
What people think of your competition?
What people think of industry influencer in your niche?
Many of these answers are only a click or two away for smart marketers who know how to find the information needed. The goal is not to purchase the top 10 social monitoring and analysis tools. The goal is to select the tools and technology that will help the brand achieve the desired business goals and objectives. Marketers must have the power to select new shiny objects selectively and know when a new tool or technology is going to provide real and measurable value to their audience and the brand itself.

Do you know the emotional driver behind the actions your audience and customers take online or offline? It is critical that brand leaders understand what is driving their audience and customers action. Why are they clicking? Why are they engaging? Why are they choosing to take a certain action? What is the business or personal driver inspiring them to take such an action? What was the emotion behind the specific driver of the action?

Take a listen to the 186th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 5 easy ways you can leverage social media for customer and market research today.

Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social and Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:

5 Easy ways to use social media for customer and market research
How to leverage social media to learn more about your market
Top social media research tools and technology (free and paid)
Why you must know your audience
Why you should focus on the relationship with your audience as an input to the type of research you need to do
How you can leverage social media to better understand your industry
How to leverage social media research to create content for your audience that will inspire and connect with them in a human way
Importance of understanding what content your audience is reading, listening to, watching, engaging with, curating and sharing
How to leverage social data to understand specifically what your audience wants from you

Direct download: SZF_186_Social_Market_Research_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:36pm EDT

One of the most foundational elements in creating a social and digital marketing platform is building a platform that works when you are not working.

Unfortunately too many marketers think they need to be the loudest brand on the social web to get attention. They focus on quantity versus quality. The truth is you want your audience to discover and find you in a natural and easy way.

A goal for smart marketers should be to build a platform that helps you achieve defined and measurable business and marketing goals in the most efficient way and with the highest ROI possible. The platform should be constantly increasing brand awareness, inspiring people to connect with the brand, generating leads and even sales without the marketing and social media teams having to sit at the keyboard all day spamming links.

The goal is not to spam the digital and social web with massive quantities of the same content every other brand in your industry is publishing, or to win the award for sending the most tweets on a daily basis.

The goal is to work smarter, not just harder. Digital marketers must find a way to create unique, valuable content that is discoverable. You must find a way to create content that your ideal customer finds without you having to push it to them. You must find a way to create unique and personalized experiences that your customer, partners and audience will remember for a lifetime.

Discoverable content is easy for the right people to find and engage with and share. It's content that is relevant to what they are searching for. Discoverable content that is relevant will give your reader that "oooh I like this" feeling after reading only the first paragraph. They should know they have landed on the right page, with the right content source and are about to read, hear or watch content that is going to help them solve their problems, achieve their business and life goals.

Would you like to know how to...

Optimize content for discovery
Stop being a slave to traditional SEO since in reality it no longer works anyway
Understand how SEO and SMO can work together to increase business and marketing results
Maximize investment and results using the social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Snapchat
Create evergreen content that has a long shelf life and can help you achieve your business goals not just today or tomorrow but next year as well
If these are the questions you would like to understand the answers, then you are in luck today. Take a listen to the 185th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 7 strategies to create more discoverable content.

Direct download: SZF_185_DiscoverableContent_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:18am EDT

People will not remember every word you say. They will not remember every tweet you write or the Facebook post you publish. They won't remember every visual image posted to Instagram.

However, people will remember how you make them feel.

When it comes to marketing, experience is everything.

Smart brands know how to create personalized experiences that are memorable, meaningful and inspire the human on the other end to connect with the brand in a real and human way.

The truth is, customer experience is your brand. You can spend days, weeks, months and years and hundreds of thousands of dollars crafting the perfect brand story, brand and message architecture and still miss connecting with your audience, customers and broader community in a personal and human way.

You must realize it's not about you. It's about the people.

It's not about being perfect. It's about being human. It's about creating human experiences that give other humans a glimpse into who you are, what you are and what you can and will do for them.

Would you like to better inspire and connect with your audience, customers and online or offline communities? Would you like them to feel they know you and you know them?

Take a listen to the 184th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear 3 reasons why you should create personalized experiences for your audience and customers. You'll also learn 7 tips and strategies to help you start creating these unique and amazing experiences today.

You don't have to have hundreds of thousand or a million dollar digital or social media marketing budget. Even if you are working for or own a startup or small, medium business you can learn from these examples. You need to embrace imperfect perfection and accept the fact you are human and so is your customer.

Give them a feeling they will remember for life and maybe you will have them as a customer for life.

Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 20 minute podcast you will learn:

3 Reasons why you should be creating personalized customer experiences today
7 strategies and tips to create digital and social marketing personalized experiences
How to leverage customer experience to stand out from the crowd
Differentiating from your competition with unique customer experiences
Why you must start from the inside out when creating the customer journey and designing personalized experiences
Why you must also include partners, sponsors and your broader community
Importance of planning and thinking about the end to end customer journey
How to make the most of the 6-7 brand touches it takes your customer to remember you
Making it easy for your customer and audience to engage, communicate and work with you
How to build community and leverage online communities to differentiate your brand
Key metrics in measuring success of the personal and digital, social experiences you design

Direct download: SZF_184_PersonalizeExperience_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:23pm EDT

The holiday season is here. We're jumping smack dab into the middle of the time of year where digital and content marketers must balance keeping their family and own soul fed while at the same time ensure they are giving their audience, community and customers the content they need and expect from you.

The truth is that the holidays are an amazing time to rise above the noise by providing real value. There are so many brands both big and small that fall to spammy sales tactics, pushing products and services, coupon codes and constant in your face promotion. Brands and marketing leaders that can focus on providing relevant, contextual content that inspires, connects and serves their audience will grab the mindshare, attention and heart of their readers, viewers, listeners and online communities.

Maybe you are feeling overwhelmed and have no idea how to keep up your social presence, content marketing and overall brand during the holiday? You want to take time off but you don't want to do it so much that you lose the connection with your audience you have worked so hard to nurture this entire year.

I believe wholeheartedly that we must take time to unplug. We need to disconnect from technology, social networks, mobile apps and connect with the people who are often the WHY we are connected to all of these devices in the first place!

Take a listen to the 183rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 tips to help you not just survive the holiday season but leverage the holiday to inspire and connect with your audience in a human way!

Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to The Inspiration Age. Are You Ready?" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:

10 tip to maximize every piece of content during the holiday
How to leverage a content marketing calendar to increase efficiency and productivity in creating content
How to rise above the holiday online noise with real value and inspiration for your audience
How to focus on higher quality content over mass quantity
How to leverage old content and refresh for the new year
Content ideas to summarize your year
Types of content to help you inspire and connect with your ideal customer and audience
Tips for writing "greatest hits" and "predictions" type of blog post and content
How to ensure your content is unique and not falling into the echo chamber of others in your niche
How to create one bigger higher quality piece of content you can break into numerous pieces of content to use over a long period of time
How to leverage visual marketing
How to leverage automation to save time
Importance of taking a break over the holidays
How to inform your audience you are taking a break in your content

Direct download: SZF_183_Contentholidaysurvivial_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:00am EDT

Do you have a dream so big it scares you? Is it a dream that keeps you up at night and zooming turbo all day, every day?

Many entrepreneurs, business owners, business leaders and marketing leaders have dreams so big even some of the closest people in their life and business can't understand them.

Many people struggle with getting people on board to join their journey.

How do you get past the starting block to build the life and business of your dreams? How do you bring your dreams to fruition?

The truth is you must start small but continue to build the dream. Most people have limited resources, time and budget. Very few people have millions of dollars sitting in a bank account ready to help them make their dreams come true.

Dream it, plan it, do it, live it, love it!

You can build your dream business and life. The only catch is that you must have plan to get there. You must be realistic. You must set goals. You must prioritize. You must learn to say no. Say no to the wrong thins so you can say yes to the right things! You can't spend the next year chasing shiny objects and implementing random acts of marketing and business and expect to be in a better place than you are today.

Take a listen to the 182nd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear 7 tips for how to dream big and execute small for the win.

Direct download: SZF_182_ThinkBigExecuteSmall_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:20am EDT

Social media is changing the game for events and conferences. It seems like just yesterday conversations were limited to the stage, break out sessions and show floors. Now event organizers have the opportunity to almost immediately ignite community, inspire, delight and entertain audiences like never before.

You are serving an audience of audiences. Event conversations are now happening on every flavor of social network from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, to Snapchat. Attendees are live streaming what they see, hear and experience via live streaming on their mobile devices. They are using mobile apps such as Periscope, Meerkat to give their audience a real-time behind the scenes and front row view into exactly what they are experiencing.

If you are a marketing or business leader planning an event in this ever changing social landscape, you better understand the social and digital landscape of today. There are tremendous opportunities to build community and increase overall business results and ROI if you integrate social media into your event with a well thought out, planned and organized approach.

Event organizers and business leaders must understand the opportunities as well as the associated risks.

What will you do if your hashtag gets spammed heavily?

How will you curate attendee and user generated content?

How will you organize your live stream video, audio, visual and other marketing assets to make it available pre, during and post show?

How will you maximize use of all investments and the content that others are creating on your behalf?

How will you handle wi-fi issues if too many attendees are live streaming?

How will you handle intellectual property if people want to live stream your event and you prefer they don't?

What is your plan B when something goes wrong with a social network?

How can you maximize the conversations with hashtags?

How will you maximize investment in paid speakers?

How will you ensure maximum value for sponsors, partners, speakers and attendees?

If you wait until the last minute to setup your Twitter account, choose a hashtag and jump on Periscope you are setting yourself up to fail. Marketers must educate themselves and truly understand both the art and science of inspiring and connecting with their audience. Even if you are brand new to social media, your audience and attendees are not.

Take a listen to the 181st episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast and learn 25 tips and strategies to increase ROI at events and conferences by integrating social media. Learn how to plan, how to align to business goals, build community and more.

In person events are the perfect medium to fully embrace the power of social media and social business. Social media is really one big conversation.

Direct download: SZF_181_Event_Tips_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:00pm EDT

Twitter is an amazing platform to connect in a human way with clients, potential clients, colleagues, industry leaders, influencers, old friends and new peeps you haven't even met yet. They can live next door, down the street, across town or across the globe. No matter the time of day or night, it's a guarantee that someone is available right now and eager to have a conversation with you.

The biggest struggles most business and marketing leaders face when it comes to Twitter is the learning curve as well as finding the time to make the investment to achieve a positive ROI on time invested. It takes time to plan a Twitter strategy, manage your account and following, create content, find new followers, inspire the followers they you already have and the list goes on.

Many new to Twitter think it's a very overwhelming platform. They struggle with not only knowing how to inspire and connect with other Twitter users in a human way, but finding the time to do such.

Leveraging automation and technology can help increase the ROI of time spent on Twitter as well as give you back your life! There is much debate in regard to automating Twitter or not automating Twitter. It is definitely both art and science. It requires setting goals, knowledge of your audience, customers and knowing how much automation will benefit your audience and your business vs hinder the results you are seeking.

Using automation with social media requires a crawl, walk run approach. It's best to test the waters first and see how your audience responds. Then you can more easily tweak, rinse, repeat, and optimize for the highest results possible. The last thing you want to do is tick off your loyal followers just because you want to save a few minutes a day.

If you are not already tapping into the power of Twitter video, you should be. Take a listen to the 180th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 5 of my favorite Twitter automation tools plus 5 best practices to leverage Twitter automation so it helps, versus helps your business.

Show notes Page loaded with resources, worksheets and more. 

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:

5 Best practices for using Twitter and any social media automation
5 of my favorite tools for Twitter automation
5 things you can easily automate with Twitter
Why you must set goals and develop a plan for what you want to automate with Twitter
How to leverage automation and not be a spammer
Why you should not automatically tweet your Facebook posts
Why you must understand each social network and not treat them all the same
How to automate and curate content to keep connected with your audience
How to choose the right times of day to automate your Twitter efforts
Balancing both art and science with Twitter automation strategies

Direct download: SZF_180_Twitter_Automation_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:34pm EDT

Do you have a brand story that you share with people who come in contact with your brand? A story that serves as the connective tissue and foundation representing the who, what and why your brand exists on this planet today?

Your brand story should be the thread which connects your value proposition, team, vision, mission, and purpose with your customers, potential customers, audience, community and partners. It is who you are, what you are, why you are in business, where you have been, where you are going, why you are going there, who you have helped, and the list goes on.

Can you answer these questions?

What is your brand story?
Who are the characters in your brand story?
What is the setting?
What are the lessons learned?
What happened and is happening on the journey of building your brand and business?
What differentiates your brand story from your competition?
Why did you start your business in the first place?
What is your short, medium and longer term vision and mission?
How do you do what you do?
Who do you help? What have the specific results been to date?
Many marketers struggle with developing and communicating their brand story publicly. They may feel uncomfortable or simply have a hard time pulling it together in a way that they feel comfortable and confident knowing that it represents who they are and what the have to offer the market and the humans within.

If you have ever struggled with creating, developing and launching your brand story, then you have landed on the right blog post and podcast today!

Take a listen to 179th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 6 key foundational content elements that must be included in your brand story.

In this episode you will learn how to begin to craft your own brand story that represents who you are, why you are in business and why anyone who comes in contact with you and your brand should trust you and be inspired to engage in a relationship with your brand and the people within.

Direct download: SZF_179_Brand_Story_Elements_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:49am EDT

Marketing and business leaders are experiencing tremendous pressure to get online, embrace and start leveraging the social networks, create content, launch corporate and executive blogs, design new Instagram profiles, fill Twitter feeds with amazing content, build Facebook communities, embrace live streaming and the list goes on.

Unfortunately there are still some digital marketers who buy into the the thought process of "if you build it they will come."

Sorry folks, but "build it and they will come" has never been a recipe for success for smart, social and savvy digital and social marketers. It simply doesn't work that way.

Believing that if you build it they will come works about as well as chasing shiny objects as a foundation for your social business strategy.

Stop the excuses and get to work. Quit wasting time all day on Periscope or Blab listening to your competition and all the awesome things you think they are doing. Why aren't you the one doing amazing things? You are not going to leap frog your competition and knock your business and marketing goals out of the park in the next 12 months by copying what others are doing. You need to design, build and implement your own plan that will attract YOUR ideal customers and grow YOUR business.

The new year is coming and you need a plan. You need to know where you are going and why.

You are never too big or too small to plan. If you fail to plan you plan to fail.

Take a listen to the 178th episode of the Social Zoom Factor for 10 reasons you need an integrated digital and social media marketing strategy.

You can't just throw some digital websites, blogs and pretty images at the web and tweet them out. Facebook ads for your social spaghetti content is also not going to solve the problem.

You need to get your marketing, digital, social marketing and branding efforts aligned to business goals, integrated and rockin' real measurable results. You need key performance indicators to measure and optimize your success. There is no way around it. If you want to succeed in business today you need to plan your work and work your plan.

Subscribe to series: Get Fit Social Digital Business

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:

Why you can't skip the planning process
Why if you want to succeed in business today you must have a plan for your digital and social marketing
Importance of integrated marketing including digital, social media, SEO, SMO, branding, email marketing
Why Random Acts of Marketing (RAMs) can kill your marketing results
Avoiding Random Acts of Marketing (RAMs)
Acknowledging you don't know your customer or standing in market place
Identifying your unique value proposition and positioning in the market
Setting goals for where you want to take your brand, market position in the next 30-18 months
How proper planning helps you be more agile, more proactive vs reactive
Building a human brand requires proper planning, research of your audience and how you can connect with them
Tips to achieve buy-in for your program
Why brand consistency requires planning 

 

Direct download: SZF_178_Digital_Marketing_strategy_10_Reasons_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:27pm EDT

You are the media. Yes you. You, your friends, your mom, your dad, your kids, your pastor, your teacher, your hair stylist, your car mechanic, and even your dog has the opportunity to be the media. We all know cats steal way too much time from the inter webs.

Each of us has the opportunity to be the media. We can launch a blog, start a business, embrace video live streaming, get on snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and everything in between and within a short time steal media attention from even some of the biggest, baddest media platforms that have been doing this for decades.

Media at a human level gives us all an even playing field. It enables the little guys and gals and even furry friends to compete with the big media.

Here is the catch though. You are only the media if you participate. Times are changing and you can't simply throw sloppy media to the masses and expect to build your business or brand.

Welcome to the participation age my friends. The age where you must embrace conversation, human connection and meaning in dialog, not just one to many show up and throw up content. The traditional media is changing regardless if you want to accept it or not.

I am the co-founder and CEO of a successful social media, digital marketing and conversion optimization agency. We help brands of all sizes embrace the media of today to build community, build their brand, build their business and most importantly build the people who want to engage and join them in this world of inspiration and participation.

The one thing we have found consistent in working with entrepreneurs to Fortune 10 brands is that the brands who have the mindset of participation, inspiration and human connection are the brands that see an ROI from the new media of today. Unfortunately the brands who embrace media today as a way to blast their noise, beg for tweets and downloads never see the light of day when it comes to success in the digital world of the ever and always connected consumer.

Did you know that 90% of smart phone owners have their mobile device in arms reach 100% of the time? Why does this matter? Because they are available 100% of the time to listen, learn, engage and participate. It's up to you what you do with that person on the other end of the smart phone, iPhone, Android device.

Are you ready for the participation age? Are you ready to inspire, connect and help your audience achieve their goals? It's going to require participation from you, period. You can no longer throw masses of dollars at a traditional agency and expect to get the same return you did 10 years ago.

Take a listen to the 177th episode of the Social Zoom Factor to learn more about the participation age. I share with you 10 ways you can embrace the participation age and ensure your brand is smack dab in the middle of the fun, action, reaction, conversation, engagement and success of this new participation and inspiration era.

Direct download: SZF_177_Participation_Age_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:22am EDT

It's every smart and social, savvy digital marketers dream to reach their audience in a human, relevant, memorable and meaningful way. Video marketing provides marketers the unique opportunity to connect with their audience in the most human and relevant way. You can almost look your audience in the face eyeball to eyeball. They can hear your voice, see your facial gestures, experience where you are and the power of what you have to share like never before.

Are you an active user of Twitter? Did you know that you can now within one minute record and upload a video to Twitter natively that will engage, inspire, educate and entertain your audience? Yes, one minute. Simply record up to a 30 second video, craft a simple 140 character tweet and hit the "tweet" button. Plus you can see the response and statistics within seconds! You will almost instantaneously know how many people saw the tweet, engaged with the tweet, watched the video, shared the video and more.

Did you know...

82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter
41% of Twitter users think Twitter is a great place to discover Twitter videos
Native video on Twitter drives more engagement than other 3rd party players (2.4x replies, 2.8x retweets, 1.9x favorites)


I had not done much with Twitter video until Gary Vaynerchuk sent me a personal video using Twitter.  It literally took me experiencing the personal and engaging video from Gary that inspired me to pick up my iPhone and send and share my first Twitter video that same day with my audience and community. Thank you Gary! :)

If you are not already tapping into the power of Twitter video, you should be. Take a listen to the 176th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 5 best practices to tap into the power of Twitter video marketing as well as 10 ideas for Twitter video content to inspire and connect with your audience and social media community.

Direct download: SZF_176_Twitter_video_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:04pm EDT

It's no surprise that even the most social and content savvy marketing leaders find it difficult to keep up with everything including creating compelling, relevant content that will inspire, delight, entertain and educate their audience. They have good intentions and know they need to provide value. However, finding the time is an entirely different story.

As a result many overwhelmed marketers unfortunately resort to sloppy, irrelevant content that looks. smells and feels like everything their competitors are providing. It clearly lacks the unique factor and is often far from inspiring or valuable.

These cookie cutter blog posts, podcasts, presentations, webinars, and even live stream videos all start to sound and read the same. It's like everyone is reading and writing from the same exact play book. They know they are starting to sound like a broken record. However, given the overwhelm they continue down the path of the status quo. It's almost a guarantee they wind up scratching their head thinking... "hmmm I wonder why my content isn't delivering value!?"

Creating content that inspires and connects you with your audience doesn't have to require a PHD in rocket science or master of the shiny object syndrome. With knowledge of your audience and a creative mindset you can easily create a content calendar and framework jam packed with value, inspiration and helpful knowledge to keep your audience and community coming back for more. If done right you can absolutely leverage content marketing to attract your ideal customer, increase brand awareness and achieve your top business goals.

Check out episode 175 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 types of content to help you consistently deliver value to your audience in the inspiration age!

Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to The Inspiration Age. Are You Ready?" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:

10 types of content to help you inspire and connect with your ideal customer and audience
How to create content that inspires, delights and entertains in the inspiration age
How to create content even on a very limited budget and with limited resources
How to tap into the power of co-created content in partnership with industry thought leaders and influencers
Leveraging offline and online events for content
How to tell brand and customer stories that inspire and engage your audience in your journey
The difference between storytelling and bragging about yourself constantly
Why it's important to share the good, bad and sometimes even the ugly to bring your audience closer to your brand
Incorporating different mediums into your content such as video, audio and presentations
Supporting Resources:

Audience Analysis Worksheet (worksheet to help you prioritize your niche)
Welcome to the Inspiration Age (episode 170)
50 Ways to Inspire Your Audience (white paper)
Twitter Persona Worksheet (worksheet to help you develop your Twitter Persona)
Twitter Lists in a Nutshell
7 Metrics to Measure Value of Your Content in the Inspiration Age (episode 172)
Should You Narrow Your Marketing Niche? (episode 171)
Brand Humanization in a Nutshell
20 Tips to Humanize Your Brand
10 Tips to Focus on Needs of Your Customer
8 Steps to Develop a Social Business Plan (white paper)

 

Show Notes Page loaded with free resources, worksheets, content calendar template and more! http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/175

Direct download: SZF_175_Content_Inspiration_Age_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:31pm EDT

Are you tired of hearing business and marketing leaders brag about the measurable results they are achieving using the social network, Twitter? They talk about all of their new friends, new communities and even new clients. Do you feel like you are being left in the Twitter dust and that you are never going to catch up or really learn what it's all about?

Have you tried to use Twitter for business but honestly have no idea how to achieve anything close to an ROI on your investment of time and resource?

Does this questions sound familiar?

You want to reach new audiences and markets?
You want to increase and enhance brand awareness?
You use Twitter but have no idea what you are doing?
You wish you could better nurture relationships using social media?
You want to learn how to better use Twitter for business?
You want to learn more about what your competition is up to?
If you would like answers to these questions, then you must listen to episode 174 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast. I share with you 5 proven strategies to maximize your results using Twitter in the inspiration age!
Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to The Inspiration Age. Are You Ready?" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:

Why you must learn how to embrace the inspiration age for success using social media for business
How to tap into the power of Twitter to nurture relationships
How to leverage Twitter to grow your email list of subscribers
How to use Twitter to learn more about your market and competition
How to test new products, services, taglines and other marketing messages with Twitter
How to truly inspire and connect with your audiences using Twitter

http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/174

Direct download: SZF_174_Twitter_Inspiration_Age_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:44am EDT

It's time get real on the value of your content. Is your content really providing value to your ideal customer, audience and community?

Many business and marketing leaders are spending loads of time and money on content strategies, framework, media, posts and distribution. However, when you ask them the value of their content and how it is resonating with their audience they often return a shoulder shrug and head shake meaning "I have no clue!"

Can you answer these questions?
Do you know if your content is truly resonating with your audience?
Is it providing them real value?
Is it helping them solve their problems?
Is it helping them grow their business?
Is it helping them become part of something bigger together than they can be by themselves as one?
Is your audience truly engaging with your content in a human way?
Is your content helping you nurture real and human relationships?
Is your content helping or hurting your brand?
If you would like answers to these questions then you are in luck today. Take a listen to the 173rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 7 easy ways you can measure and determine if your content is providing value to your audience in the inspiration age.

Direct download: SZF_173_ValueContent_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:09pm EDT

When I ask business leaders, owners and digital marketers who is their ideal client or target market I often get the response similar to "anyone between the ages of 35-65 who has problem A, B or C." What does this translate to in real business results? Nothing, nada, zip ROI.

Having a business that is focused on selling to everyone and their mother, grandmother, kids, dog and cat is a recipe for failure.

The world is filled with generalists who can sell you whatever you want if you simply pay the $99 and you too can become rich and super duper famous.

We all know the tricks, the lies, the spam that many marketers throw at us. The media is everywhere. Heck, as we have discussed in past blog posts and Social Zoom Factor podcasts, you and me are also the media.

We now live smack dab in the middle of the Inspiration Age where inspiring and connecting with your target audience and ideal customer in a human way is a requirement, not an option.

Tell me, how can you connect with your ideal customer at a human level if you don't know who they are? If you state they are somewhere between the age of 35 and 65 and live in Colorado, Florida, Australia or Timbuktu? How you market, speak to, inspire, connect with, engage and build relationships with each individual persona is going to be different.

This is why if you are wanting to build a successful business you need to consider narrowing your business niche. Maybe you are focusing too broad and it's time to get laser focused not only on who you are serving but also on what you have to offer them.

Take a listen to the 172nd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn the benefits of narrowing your niche as well as 7 strategies and tips to help you build a niche strategy and plan. Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to The Inspiration Age" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn:

Benefits of narrowing your niche
Answer to the question of "are the riches really in the niches?"
How to find the right fit for your niche
Why you must be careful of being "too unique" when choosing a niche
Importance of researching your niche, what you must know
How to research the larger ecosystem of your target market niche
Determining how to position yourself
Telling your brand story so people will understand your brand promise and value proposition
Importance of planning your go to market strategy versus "winging it"
Determining the actions you want your audience to take to engage with you
Why focusing on a niche strategy will help you prioritize investment, time and resources for better success
How to embrace the inspiration age with a solid niche strategy and plan
Importance of humanizing your brand and leveraging niche marketing to do such

Direct download: SZF_172_NicheFocus_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:35am EDT

Welcome to the inspiration age where connecting with your audience is a requirement, not an option.

In this episode Pam Moore, CEO & Founder of Marketing Nutz provides 5 solid tips to help you better connect with your social media communities and audience both online and offline.

Direct download: SZF_171_ConnectInspirationAge_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:13pm EDT

Welcome to the inspiration age, where connecting with your audience and communities is not an option, but a requirement for business and life.

What is the inspiration age and why should it matter to you and your business? We answer these questions and more in episode 170 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast. Take a listen and learn what the inspiration age is as well as 8 solid strategies and tips to inspire your audience.

You must learn how to embrace the inspiration age to grow your business, nurture relationships, earn trust, establish authority and most importantly touch the hearts of the people you want to bring closer to your brand.

Coming out of the information age it was easier to put most marketing tactics and strategies in a box. Brands with big budgets could simply throw big money at advertising agencies and the remainder at more predictable marketing mediums such as traditional media, direct mail and email marketing.

However, times are changing drastically. Now it's practically a free for all. We are all the media. The world is noisy on and offline. It is more difficult than ever to stand out from the crowd, to rise above the noise and to earn trust and connect with hearts. We can communicate anyway we want. We can communicate how, when and where we want... and so can our audience.

You do not own your audience. You do not own your social media communities on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat even if they are following you, like you or snap with you.

Your audience is not there to serve you. You are there to serve your audience, period!

Download Whitepaper 50 Tips to Inspire Your Audience: http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/inspireme

Direct download: SZF_170_InspirationAge_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:45am EDT

Many business leaders, social and digital marketers are finding it hard to get buy-in and approval from their c-suite for their social media programs.

Do any of these statements sound familiar?

  • You can't get your social marketing budget approved.
  • You are not getting buy-in across the organization for your social business program.
  • Your CEO, COO, CTO and most executive stakeholders have shut down your employee advocacy program.
  • You don't know where to go next as you just keep hearing no, no, no.

If these are your struggles with regard to your social media marketing or social business program then you definitely want to tune into the 169th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast as I share with you 5 top social media metrics and priorities your CEO and c-suite cares about most when it comes to social media.

If you are having difficulty getting the buy-in, approval and budget allocated for your social media program, the problem could very well be you are not understanding what really matters to your stakeholders and executives. You must "get in their head" and understand the risks they are concerned about as well as the metrics that truly matter to them.

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • What key metrics your CEO is most concerned about for your social media and social business program
  • The key risks your CEO and C-suite is most concerned about regarding social media
  • How to communicate the strengths, benefits and risk to your key stakeholders and executives
  • How to get buy-in on your program from the C-suite and board members
  • Why you must think both internally and externally
  • Understanding the key risks associated such as brand protection
  • Importance of aligning social media to business goals and outcomes including sales
  • Importance of identifying key performance indicators that matter to the business and CEO


Direct download: SZF_169_CEO_5things_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:14am EDT

Learn how to save time and maximize ROI using Twitter for business. Pam Moore provides 8 social media tips to help zoom business results and save time. Learn how to balance automation with real time engagement, provide content marketing that is relevant and helpful for your audience. 

Direct download: SZF_168_Twitter_Savetime_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:04pm EDT

If you are new to the content marketing, digital marketing or social media you may have heard the term "evergreen marketing" by the experts and not been certain what it is or why you need it. It's often a term that is thrown around by even top industry experts who don't develop or implement evergreen content marketing best practices themselves.

Evergreen content is content that is timeless, sustainable and has a shelf life longer the latest Facebook feature or favorite mobile application. Evergreen content is foundational to helping your ideal client and audience solve their smallest and biggest problems. When done right evergreen content will drive continuous traffic to your blog. It's then up to you to make sure you can convert a large percentage of that traffic into community members, new friends or even sales. 

So what is evergreen content marketing and how can it help you achieve your business and marketing goals? Why should you care about evergreen content?

If you would like to know the answers to these questions, today is your lucky day as the 167th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast puts evergreen content marketing in a nutshell. We also provide 15 types of evergreen content you can start creating and implementing today to help you better connect with your audience, build community, increase brand awareness and increase sales.

Take a listen to the episode and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 40 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Evergreen content marketing in a nutshell - what is it and what it is not 
  • 15 types of evergreen content marketing you can start implementing today
  • Top business and marketing benefits of creating evergreen content
  • Why evergreen content must be relevant, timeless and sustainable
  • Importance of knowing your ideal customer, industry and niche
  • Why you must inspire, inform, educate, entertain and delight your audience
  • Why success is in the details and the importance of information rich content
  • Why less is not always more when it comes to evergreen content marketing
  • Why Google loves evergreen content
  • How to tap into the power of industry influencers and leaders to curate evergreen content
  • How to easily curate content that has a long shelf life
  • How to leverage one piece of quality content to create multiple additional pieces of evergreen content
Direct download: SZF_167_Evergreen_Content_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:55pm EDT

Would you like to build authority, establish trust, increase brand awareness and grow your business results? 

Guest blogging and syndicating your content to top sites in your niche can more quickly help you establish industry leadership, brand awareness and trust. When done right, integrated and aligned to your business goals and marketing objectives, guest blogging can also help you improve business results. When attached to a solid online conversion funnel you can grow your email list and subscribers, grow community and even increase sales.

Successful content syndication and guest blogging requires both art and science. You must know your ideal customer, current and desired audience as well as understand the platform and audience for which you are wanting to guest post.

Before pitching an editor it's best to establish a relationship, earn the trust and prove you are ready to deliver value to their audience and readership and you won't have to pitch.

Take a listen to these 10 foundational elements to zoom business and marketing results with guest posting on the 166th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast. This episode is part of a new  series in which we are digging deep into how you can build an integrated social and digital platform that works when you are not working. A platform that helps you inspire, connect with and delight your audiences. 

Direct download: SZF_166_Guestbloggintips_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:02am EDT

Why am I not on blab? Take a listen to this podcast to learn why Pam Moore has not yet jumped into the latest social shiny object and video streaming, collaboration platform. The answer might surprise you! 

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

Why Pam Moore is not on Blab 

8 Tips and strategies to work smarter, not just harder 

The importance of the Smart Hustle

Why you must know your WHY 

Why you must know your audience 

Prioritizing activities, priorioties and goals 

Avoiding the Fear of Missing Out when it impacts your business and life goals 

Not getting caught up in the fallacy that hustle is required 24/7 to drive results 

The importance of adequate sleep for mind, body and spiritual health 

Direct download: SZF_165_Not_On_Blab_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:04am EDT

Smart marketers and business leaders know that their online integrated digital and social platform is not simply a megaphone for to tell the world how great their business is and beg them to make a purchase. Though you may see many new marketers to the online and social world fall to spammy tactics, they don't usually last long.

Your website, blog, Facebook page, Twitter profile, YouTube channel, Instagram page, Blab conversations, Periscope sessions and Pinterest boards all create opportunities for you to inspire, delight, connect, entertain and inform your audience and readers. 

With every virtual touch, swipe, view, and listen you have and opportunity to earn a friend, to earn an advocate and customer. You have an opportunity to earn trust, start and nurture real and human relationships. You have an opportunity to earn a sale, not just push sales. 

If you have not thought about using your online digital and social assets to inspire, engage, entertain and inform then you should. How are your sales? Are they hurting? Maybe you should look at the content you are sharing? Is it really helping your audience want to buy from you? Are you truly helping them make a decision to buy? Or are you leaving them confused or maybe even pushing them away to your competition because you are all about yourself.

Take a listen to the 164th episode of the Zoom Factor podcast for 10 Tips to help your online community and audience buy from you.

Show Notes Page

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 10 tips to help your online audience buy from you
  • Why you need buyer personas 
  • Why first impressions are so very important 
  • Why you must have a brand foundation and message architecture 
  • The importance of testing varying forms of media such as audio, video and text 
  • The importance of articulating clearly who you are, what you do and WHY
  • Why you must share HOW you do what you do to help your ideal customer 
  • Why the first, last and every brand touch in between matters 
  • Why you should be a connecter of value, knowledge and people 
  • The importance of inspiring action 
  • How to choose a call to action that can help increase sales 
  • Letting your audience know what the next steps are to engage with you 
Direct download: SZF_164_Social_Sales_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:35am EDT

With the explosion of social, digital marketing platforms and technologies such as mobile live streaming even small businesses and individuals have the opportunity to become the media. 

Becoming the media today does not require millions of dollars spent on advertising and fancy websites. Instead an individual person serving as an industry influencer or thought leader can launch a blog and integrated digital, social platform and quite quickly have brands eagerly wanting to engage with them. The brands want to tap into the power of their community, reach and voice because it is truly people who are becoming the media. You and me are the media. 

Many brands and people struggle with how much of them personally do they incorporate into the communications, platform and media. 

Because they don't know how to brand themselves, incorporate brand storytelling or properly engage their audience they wind up spamming and pushing people away versus drawing them closer to their brand. 

The leaders who are rockin' their personal and business brands online know how to balance content about themselves while always serving and making it about their audience. It truly requires both art and science. 

Take a listen to episode 163rd of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 key foundational elements to successful brand storytelling.

This episode is part of the "You Are the Media" series in which we are digging deep into how you can build an integrated social and digital platform that works when you are not working. A platform that helps you inspire, connect with and delight your audiences. 

Direct download: SZF_163_YouFactor_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:04am EDT

Social media is a great way to rev up your brand to turbo speed and leave your status quo competitors in the dust! Not only can you tap into the power of community, human relationships but you can also increase brand awareness, equity and even sales. 

Zooming your brand to turbo speed using social media requires both art and science. It requires the knowledge and ability to connect with humans in a way that inspires, connects, delights and entertains while at the same time staying true to your brand personality and tone. 

Unfortunately many brands hop online with no solid understanding of their audience, or even their own business goals or objectives.  They have no plan and wind up throwing social spaghetti at the wall and then wonder why it doesn't stick. They wonder why they get stuck with at best status quo results. 

Brands that hit turbo speed know who their audience is, know intimately how to grow and nurture their community and network, how to create and deliver content and conversations that surprise and delight them. They aren't afraid to try new things while at the same time balancing the desire to chase shiny objects while staying focused where they know they can achieve the highest measurable business results. 

The smartest social media marketing leaders know how to best leverage multiple mediums to tell brand stories, 

Take a listen to the 162nd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 tips and strategies you can start implementing today to finally once and for all start leveraging social media to grow your brand and business results. 

Show Notes Page

Direct download: SZF_162_BrandZoom_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:58pm EDT

It's not news that people buy from people or that business and life are about personal, human relationships. People have been buying from other people, communicating with other people and connecting with other people for years, decades and centuries. It's in our DNA to want to connect with other human beings who believe in the same things we do. It's these common foundations that weave the threads for relationships, trust and community.

If we all know life and business is really about people, then why do so many marketing and business leaders still fall to lazy marketing tactics and corporate marketing speak as they set out on their online digital and social media adventures? They claim they want to connect with real human beings. They say they want to build community. However, their priorities, actions and language is doing the opposite.

For years people have gathered around campfires and dinner tables to connect and relate to one another. We share. We laugh. We cry. We tell stories. We grow. We become part of something bigger than ourselves.

When you share a story you share a piece of you. You invite people into your world. You share with them who you are, what you care about, why you are doing what you do. You are inviting them in a human way to be part of your story, part of your journey.

Brands can tap into the power of storytelling to inspire, connect with and serve their audiences. Storytelling helps build relationships and earn trust.

Brand storytelling is not about bragging about yourself all day on the latest live video streaming mobile application. It's not about creating a viral video or a long winded essay in corporate speak. Brand storytelling requires both art and science. It requires having a solid brand architecture and message foundation as well as knowing your audience and how you can serve them real value. 

Show Notes Page 

 

Direct download: SZF_161_Brand_Storytelling_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:42am EDT

There is a clear separation between true social marketing business leaders and those that are sliding along with status quo. Many new and seasoned marketers and business leaders hop into the world of digital and social media marketing thinking they can send a few tweets, learn how to optimize visuals and social profiles and they will have a positive ROI on their investment in social media. Unfortunately too many of these same "status quo" seekers find themselves struggling to keep up with the true leaders, holding down a real job or feeling and experiencing real success. 

So what are the habits, behaviors and foundational success elements that true social marketing leaders embrace? How do they rise above the status quo? How do they consistently serve the needs of their customer, keep the brand top of mind and help achieve a positive ROI for the investment and time into social media? 

Take a listen to the 160th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 foundational habits of successful social marketing leaders. Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 10 Habits of Successful Social Marketing Leaders 
  • How to rise above status quo with real business results
  • Why social marketing leaders must take lead. Own the plan, business and results! 
  • Why social marketers should learn to embrace data and analytics to improve business results 
  • The importance of integration into business and marketing initiatives, programs
  • The difference between social media and social business 
  • Why social media is not just about YOU! 
  • Importance of community and relationships 
  • Importance of shutting up and listening
  • How to set priorities 
  • Why content is king, queen and joker 
Direct download: SZF_160_10_Habits_Social_Marketer_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:49pm EDT

There is much confusion regarding online brand and reputation management. Some think it's only for brands who get themselves in trouble and need to cover up the bad. Some think it's public relations, while others think it's just social media monitoring or some ninja SEO tricks.

The truth is every brand has a reputation regardless if they think they do or not. Your brand is the sum of what people think, say and tell other people about you. You can spend all the money in the world to create a beautiful brand inclusive of digital elements and visuals, fancy logo, website, blog and social media channels and profiles. However, if you don't deliver on your brand promise it's all for nothing.

Your brand is the foundation of your business. It doesn't matter if you are a small business, corporation or something in between you impact your brand with every action you take. Every tweet, call, post on Facebook, Instagram photo, Google+ update is a representation of your brand. Every employee that works for you is leaving hundreds of brand impressions every day online and offline.

They are talking about you! Yes, people are talking about your brand, your executives, your service and your employees. They are talking about what you do right and what you have screwed up on. The question is do you know what they are saying? Are you part of the conversation? Or are you choosing to ignore it? The truth is, the conversations are not going to go away. You might as well be proactive and understand how you can leverage the same social technologies and strategies that may scare you half to death to your advantage. It's all about perspective and how you choose to look at it and manage it.

Take a listen to the 159th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast where I share 10 solid tips to help you protect your online brand reputation.

Trust me, this is something every business leader, digital and social marketer should care about. If it's not keeping you up at night you should ask yourself why. Is it because you are proactively managing it or is it because you are ignoring it? Ignoring the need to manage your online brand and reputation is simply not an option if you want to be in business tomorrow.

Direct download: SZF_159_Brand_Reputation_Online_mixdown-3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:04pm EDT

It is every digital and social marketers dream that their ideal customer, partner and fan will easily find their blog, website or other online social channel. Unfortunately it's not as easy as building a website or blog and people just show up at your digital front door, banging to get in and buy from you.

It takes time for the traditional search engines such as Google and Bing to even know your site exists so they can start sending your traffic your way. Plus now you have tremendous opportunity to earn traffic to your blog or website via the social networks.

You can of course leverage paid media, earned media and even influencer marketing to increase blog traffic.

Remember though that visitors to your online platforms are tourists. They are stopping by. It is up to you to make sure that you are inviting them in, inspiring them to connect with you and helping them feel at home so they will stick around for awhile and maybe even tell a few friends how great you are.

One of the best ways to increase traffic to your blog or website is via organic traffic. Organic traffic is not paid media. Organic traffic is traffic that comes to you via search on the search engines, social networks or other online platforms. You don't pay for it directly, though you pay for it via your time invested in content marketing, website and blog development, influencer marketing and the list goes on.

Our websites and blogs earn between 45% - 75%+ organic traffic. We don't pay for expensive SEO tricks or expensive earned media. Instead we focus on creating a platform with content that inspires and connects us with our target audience and online community.

Take a listen to the 158th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 strategies and tactics you can implement today to increase organic traffic to your website or blog. I share with you the exact strategies and specific tactics we use in our business every day. 

This episode is part of a new “in a nutshell" mini-series of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to do a deep dive on many marketing and business concepts, strategies and tactics important to understand if you want to be successful in the online world and with digital marketing.

Direct download: SZF_158_Organic_Traffic_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:43am EDT

Social media agencies face many exciting opportunities to work with brands and clients of all shapes and sizes. Although some may focus on a certain niche or industry, many consultants and agencies work with clients from varying industries, experiences and levels of understanding of what social media really is or what it can do for their business. Obviously, each client has different expectations, goals, objectives and grasp of the power of social media.

Although it may be tempting to take on any client, a key to success is ensuring the client is a match for the agency. It’s also critical that as new clients are onboarded, they are taken care of from the start.

A client’s first interaction with an agency sets the entire stage for how the relationship will kickoff. You only have one chance for your team to make a great first, second and third impression, so why not make the most of it at every touchpoint?

Below are some best practices to help social media agencies ensure the onboarding process goes as smoothly as possible with new clients. The best part is that most of these tips can be used for many different types of businesses, not just social media agencies.

Take a listen to the 157th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for a deeper dive discussion on each of these 13 points. I share with you exactly the most important steps, tips and strategies for how we onboard clients for my agency, Marketing Nutz.

Direct download: SZF_157_Social_Media_Agency_Onboarding_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:10pm EDT

Facebook has launched a mobile live streaming application and feature only available to users of the Facebook Mentions application which requires the Facebook page be verified. 

This podcast shares Pam Moore's thoughts on why Facebook made the decision and what is the possible future for the mobile live streaming via Facebook

Direct download: SZF_156_Livestreaming_Final2_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:26am EDT

What does it really mean to be a thought leader? Unfortunately too many digital and social marketers have a false belief that they can simply write a few blog posts, send a few tweets and increase their social influence scores such as Klout and they will quickly become the go to thought leader of their niche.

We've all seen the blog posts promising the magic 10 steps to be a thought leader in 140 characters or how to be a thought leader on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and every other social network known to digital man and woman.

The truth is that you can not become a thought leader in 140 characters. You also can't become a thought leader via mastering one single social network.

Becoming a thought  leader requires earning trust, respect and investing time in helping the human beings in your community, network and audience.

I've seen loads of businesses and people promoting their own personal brand spending months or even years of time trying to become "thought leaders" yet they have no real business. In reality they are helping almost nobody as they are too focused on becoming "influential" vs actually helping a real business or person.

Take a listen to the 155th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for an overview of what it means to be a thought leader as well as 5 steps to help you build a plan do establish yourself and your brand as a thought leader.

This episode is part of a new “in a nutshell" mini-series of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to do a deep dive on many concepts, strategies and tactics important to understand if you want to be successful in the online world and with digital marketing.

In this 15 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Definition of thought leadership
  • Why you can not establish thought leadership overnight or in 140 characters
  • How to build thought leadership
  • 5 steps to get you started in building thought leadership
  • Who can be a thought leader
  • Why thought leadership is important for B2B and B2C organizations and brands
  • Benefits of establishing thought leadership
  • What thought leadership is not
  • Why a content marketing strategy and framework is at the core of establishing thought leadership
Direct download: SZF_155_Thought_Leader_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:14am EDT

Do you know the difference between traditional marketing, ecommerce, multichannel marketing and omnichannel marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is not simply a buzzword for multichannel marketing. Omnichannel marketing requires that the multiple marketing channels are working together to create and deliver an amazing, seamless user experience.

Did you know that according to Google, 25% of shoppers start on a PC but eventually move to a mobile device.  Shoppers are no longer using one channel to research, shop and buy. People don't always simply walk into a store and buy a product. They may first be researching the product or service online via mobile device, tablet, desktop or all of the above.

Even in the B2B (business to business) space, business leaders are doing the same thing. They are researching products, services and people behind the brands using multiple channels. They jump from iPhone to iPad to laptop within minutes. Both B2B and B2C (business to consumers) customers expect brands to design a user experience that is personal, relevant and seamless across devices.

It is important for digital and social marketers to understand the reason why, the context, the when, where and how their customers are using what screen to connect with and buy from the business.

Take a listen to the 154th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast "in a nutshell" episode for an overview and definition of omnichannel marketing.

This episode is part of a new “in a nutshell" mini-series of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to do a deep dive on many marketing and business concepts, strategies and tactics important to understand if you want to be successful in the online world and with digital marketing.

In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Definition and overview of omnichannel marketing
  • Difference between traditional marketing, ecommerce, multichannel marketing and omnichannel marketing
  • Why channels must work together to be considered omnichannel marketing
  • How omnichannel marketing differs from multichannel marketing
  • Why you should not force your online buyer to scale up screens (move from mobile device to desktop)
  • Why marketers should become experience architects
  • The importance of being at the right place at the right time, not every place all of the time
  • The importance of creating personal and seamless user experiences
Direct download: SZF_154_OmniChannel_Marketing_Final_mixdown-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:44pm EDT

Marketers and business leaders spend a lot of time thinking about what we need to do as content writers, sales people, digital marketers, social marketers, brand leaders, data analysts and business owners to grow our business. 

We focus on content and visual marketing that grabs attention. We build beautiful landing pages that convert readers, listeners and viewers to buyers. We dig in deep to data, analytics, and key performance indicators so we can measure and optimize business results and achieve the desired business outcomes. 

However, what can often happen is that we get too inwardly focused. Too many digital marketers start forgetting about why they are doing the work in the first place. Remember, that human being you need to connect with on the other end of that tweet, post, pin or video? Yes, that is the person you need to be thinking about. 

Let's flip this conversation around. Let's talk about what we need from our buyer. What do you need from a potential customer or buyer before you can sell to them? 

Take a listen to the 153rd episode of the Zoom Factor podcast for 4 things you must have from your buyer (or anyone for that matter) before you can sell to them. 

In this 15 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 4 things you must have from your buyer before you can sell to them 
  • Why you must earn the attention of your buyer 
  • Why trust is so important in online marketing and social selling 
  • Why it is important that your buyer also invest in a relationship with you and your brand  
Direct download: SZF_153_SocialSelling4Needs_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:44pm EDT

One of my favorite childhood stories is Goldilocks and the three bears. A story about a little mischievous little girl that made her way into a house owned by a family of bears. Goldilocks made herself comfortable in the house so much as to fill her belly with good porridge and even fall asleep in the little bear's bed.

As digital marketers there is much we can learn from the story of Goldilocks. We need to build a digital platform that is inviting, serves value, makes our readers, viewers and listeners feel safe, comfortable and taken care of. We need to help them feel comfortable and invite them to come back for more. 

Take a listen to episode 152 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 8 key takeaways we can learn from Goldilocks to improve our digital and social marketing results. 

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 8 things digital and social marketers can learn from Goldilocks and the 3 Bears 
  • 8 tips to improve digital marketing results 
  • How to make sure your social media and digital platform is inviting to your target customer and audience 
  • How to make your blog and website visitors feel welcome 
  • How to make sure you are serving your audience real value 
  • How to earn attention but not be too overbearing with your marketing and sales communication 
Direct download: SZF_152_Three_Bears_Content_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:33pm EDT

Smart marketers are not afraid to dig in deep and even "geek out" on data and analytics to achieve success in social media, digital marketing and business.

Many marketers get overwhelmed with trying to understand how they can leverage data and metrics to guide their business in the right direction. As a result they run away from data and the power it can provide versus digging in and learning how to tap into the power of what it has to offer.

I am thrilled to introduce Andrew Caravella from Sprout Social as a guest on the 151st episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast.

Andrew leads the marketing team and efforts at Sprout Social and has an amazing background and years of experience in digital marketing to help us all. 

Take a listen and learn how you can better tap into the power of social and marketing data to zoom your business. 

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • How Sprout Social uses data and analytics to create an amazing customer experience
  • Biggest mistakes brands and digital marketers make in embracing or not embracing social metrics and analytics
  • Top questions Sprout Social receives from customers of all sizes as it relates to social media data and analytics
  • The importance of planning and selecting the right key performance indicators for success
  • Where to start when selecting KPIs, goals and objectives
Direct download: SZF151_SproutMetricsAndrewInterview_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:31am EDT

Content marketing is at the center of marketing today. Everything we tweet, post, pin and create is a form of content marketing.

Blogs are a foundation for many brands and people establishing thought and brand leadership online. Blogs can serve as a home base and help connect the dots between earned, owned and paid media to nurture relationships and achieve desired business outcomes.

Unfortunately too many digital, social and content marketers think they can just write a long blog post or throw social content spaghetti at the wall and hope it sticks. They foolishly believe that hundreds or even hundreds of thousands of readers are going to come beating down the social blog virtual doors begging to buy from them. This couldn't be further from the truth.

Attention is the most scarce resource marketers struggle with today. Throwing blog content spaghetti at the wall is not going to help you gain attention, build community or achieve real business results. 

Writing epic blog content that attracts, inspires and connects you with your ideal customer requires a combination of both art and science.

Direct download: SZF_150_Epic_Blog_Post_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:19pm EDT

There is not a morning I log into Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram that my feed is not bombarded with spam. From people begging for clicks, link backs, free shout outs to over the top self promotional automated messages, replies and the list goes on. 

I even recently had an social media agency CEO spamming and begging for support of their non-profit campaigns that are based on a foundation of 1000's of fake RTs on every tweet on behalf of the client. They are charging the client for campaigns based on fake followers and fake metrics. This is a true story my friends and these things are happening all around us every single day. 

Think with me for a moment... 

  • Would you walk into a room of real human beings and start blasting the name and url of your business? 
  • When you meet somebody new at an event would you walk up to them and ask them to watch your video on YouTube before you had a chance to say hello? 
  • Would you tap someone you just met on the shoulder and asked them why they unfollowed you or if they would follow you, listen to you?
  • Would you yell at people in real life asking them to pay attention to you? 
  • Would you keep sending people the same message over and over even if they already told you they were not interested? 
  • Would you keep talking to someone about a topic if they clearly let you know they didn't want to talk or hear about it anymore? 

If you did these things people would think you were crazy. However, there are thousands of marketers and brands who are embracing these spammy tactics every day.

 

It's time we stop the spam insanity. It's time we put the human back in social media, marketing and business. 

Attention is the most scarce resource we have. The lack of attention is a core reason brands and even smart digital marketers are falling to lazy social spamming tactics. They are desperate for attention. They think that by blasting into our social feeds they will grab out attention. 

The thing many marketers are missing is that by spamming they are losing trust. They are hurting their brand more than helping. We all need to put food on the table to feed our families. However, that is not an excuse for any person or brand to fall to spammy, fake tactics. Build a brand that is built on authenticity, trust, integrity and serving others and success will be exponentially higher. Will it take a bit longer to get there? Absolutely. However, doing such will help build a brand that is sustainable and that will out last any campaign or Facebook news feed built on spamtastic nonsense. Yes I know spamtastic is not a word. I just made it up. ;) 

Check out episode 149 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for some serious tough love to help you identify if you are guilty of these spammy non-human tactics. I also provide 10 solid tips and strategies to help you put the human back in your social media, business and life. 

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 10 tips and strategies to put the human back in your social media marketing 
  • How to identify if you are guilty of spam tactics 
  • How to balance automation with being human 
  • Why you must be patient in building relationships and not just go for the sale at hello 
  • Why you must be aware of your own digital body language 
  • Why your intention is at the core of how others perceive you and your brand 
  • Why trust is key to earning the right attention and building relationships 
  • How a mentor can help you get real with your own digital and social behavior 
  • How to know if you may need to get help from an external social media digital agency or consultant 
  • The importance of knowing your audience 
  • Why spam will not build your business for the medium and long term 
Direct download: SZF_149_Stop_Spam_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:04pm EDT

Welcome to the digital marketing era where attention is the absolute most scarce resource. There is clearly no lack of people and brands trying to grab your attention. Every where we turn, every device we turn on, every social network feed we scroll, there is noise. Brands want us to check out their hot deals, digital marketers want us to watch their videos, download their white papers and the list goes on.

Many digital and brand marketers hop on Twitter with the hopes of grabbing quick attention of their target customer and audience. They foolishly think they can send a few tweets to a handful of influencers, beg for some clicks and links and they will achieve their business and goals.

The core foundational issue is they have the wrong intention. They have an intent to help themselves and achieve a quick win versus investing in the people who they want to trust them.

The truth is our actions speak louder than their words. Unfortunately many business leaders and even the most social savvy digital marketing experts are clearly unaware of their own digital body language. Their intention is easily seen by even those new to the social networks. It's often easy to identify a spammy business or marketer. When their posts, tweets and conversations are all about them, they wind up pushing people away versus bringing them closer to their brand. 

Your intention may be good, but your execution may be poor and negatively impacting your digital marketing results if you are not earning trust and attention as a result of the right intention.

You don't have very long to earn and lose trust. You can lose trust in one single 140 character tweet if you are only using spam tactics. Because attention is such a valuable resource, it is critical for marketers to maximize every second they achieve attention from their communities and audience. Attention can no longer be taken for granted. 

Check out episode 148 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for a "get real" discussion on the power of intention and trust in earning attention. You will learn why intention and trust are foundational requirements to earning attention for your digital, social media and marketing strategies and tactics. 

In this 13 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • How to earn attention with the power of trust and intention
  • Why and how your intention shines through your digital body language
  • How to leverage social networks to best meet your goals and objectives
  • The power of relationships and earning trust in building your business
  • Why you must know who you are and how you can provide the greatest value to your audience
  • Why the quick fix, spam tactics will not earn attention for the short or long term
Direct download: SZF_148_Attention_Dont_Sell_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:39pm EDT

Welcome to the digital age of marketing where you are the brand. You can run, you can hide but you can't escape the need to build your personal brand. 

We all know people buy from people.  People also tweet with other people. They connect on LinkedIn with other people. They live video stream, Instagram and SnapChat with other people as well. 

When a new potential client contacts us to do business, the first place go to learn about them is the internet. We will start with a Google, Facebook or Twitter search. We then immediately click through to LinkedIn. 

In a matter of seconds we can find out who the person is and if they are who they said they are in the contact form. We can find out where they work now and where they have worked the past 10 - 20 years. We will within seconds know if they have a blog, if they have kids, where they went to school and the list goes on. 

Yes, you may be sitting there reading this and think... "Pam,  you will never know that about me because I will never post all of that information." 

I want to ask you why? Why would you not want me to find out the best information about you? Why not ensure your digital persona is a true representation of who you really are? 

It is becoming a requirement , not an option to develop your personal brand. If you want to be trusted and rise above the noise you must connect with people as a human being, not just a logo. 

Building your personal brand doesn't happen by jumping on Facebook or creating a fancy Twitter background or highly edited profile photo of yourself. 

You don't build your personal brand in minutes or hours. You build your personal brand over days, weeks, months and years. You must earn trust, establish credibility and authority. 

You must know who you are. You must know who your audience is and how you can serve them. 

Even if you are just getting started online, it is important you start somewhere. It only takes a seed. it's how you nurture your personal brand that will bring success. 

Check out episode 147 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 7 fundamental steps to build your personal brand. 

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 23 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 7 fundamental steps to build your personal brand 
  • Why you must be self aware of your strengths and weaknesses 
  • Why personal branding is a requirement, not an option 
  • Why you must stop excuses and start building your personal brand today 
  • Why you are the media 
  • The difference between authenticity and transparency 
  • Why you must know who you are and what you stand for 
  • Why you must know your audience and what they need from you 
  • How to be aware of your digital body language 
Direct download: SZF_147_PersonalBrand_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:06am EDT

Do you ever feel like you are going through the motions of life? Maybe you get a strange feeling that your life is set on auto drive but you don't know who is at the wheel?

Maybe it's the not the life you thought you would live? Maybe you aren't really sure how you got where you are right now but you do know you want a change.

Do you ever feel like your business is running on turbo yet you are running out of fuel? Good things are happening but they are not the right things at the right time.

Are you working way too many hours and the work is taking you away from the reasons you started your business or career in the first place?

If we don't take charge of our life and business, there are sure enough things that will steal our time and mindset and run us into a state of frenzy, late nights without sleep and time with the ones we love most.

It is time you take control of your life and business. It's time you design the life you want. Design your business to help you achieve the life you want to live.

Take a listen to the 146th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 strategies and tactics to help you design your dream life and business. These tips include actions you can implement starting today. They are applicable to entrepreneurs, small business owners up to professionals and executives working in large corporations.

Regardless of the size of the company you own or work for, taking charge of your own life is key to success and happiness.

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Why you must design and take control of your life and business
  • 10 tips to design the life and business you dream about
  • Why you must value your time and knowledge so others will as well
  • The importance of mind, body and spirit to achieve success in life and business
  • The importance of envisioning the life you dream about
  • Designing every hour of your day to achieve your goals
  • Embracing and integrating your passions into your business
  • Choosing clients and work that truly brings you joy
  • Prioritizing your time and a focused mindset into the most important things
  • How pivoting can help you move forward
Direct download: SZF_146_Design_Business_Personal_Brand_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:35am EDT

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Are you tired of working 18 hours a day and yet still not achieving your life and business goals? 

Do you ever feel like a silly hamster in a wheel, running and running and not getting anywhere?

There are far too many business leaders, entrepreneurs, digital marketers and executives who feel stuck. They know that things are not working. However, they are afraid to make change. They believe that if they move to plan b, c or even d that they have completely failed.

The truth is moving on to plan b, c, d or even plan e does not mean you failed. We all learn from our mistakes. True success comes from falling down and getting back up, over and over again.

Real leaders are able to embrace change. They help their organization, team and themselves stay relevant.

Real leaders must be able to pivot. They must know when it's time to pivot.

Staying "stuck in a rut" is not good for business or your life. It's the easy way out.

Take a listen to the 155th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast as we explore the importance of embracing change and learning how to pivot. If you are feeling stuck, as though you need to make change in your life or business but haven't had the guts to do such, this is the podcast episode for you!

In this 15 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Why true leaders are not afraid to embrace change and pivot
  • How pivoting can help you move forward
  • How to stay focused on your life and business goals through major changes
  • Importance of empowering and training your team to embrace change
  • Definition of leadership and pivoting in business
  • My personal story of embracing major career, business and life changes
Direct download: SZF_145_Leadership_Pivot_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:35am EDT

What happens to your anxiety level and blood pressure when you think about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram going away? Does it rise? Does it stress you out? 

If Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Snapchat were to drop off the face of the earth tomorrow what would happen to your business? Would your business be negatively impacted? Would it thrive or would it crumble under algorithm changes and paid media models being aggressively implemented by every social network that hits prime time. 

Are you building your business on digital property that you own? Or are you too dependent upon the social networks and larger social ecosystem for your business success? 

Are you building your business on rented land? Are you building your business on social land that is far from a solid foundation to build your life and business upon? 

Building your business foundation on digital and social networks you don't own puts your business at much risk. You have no control on what these social networks do, what happens with their product roadmaps or how your audience and ideal customer react to their upcoming changes in the future. 

Simply take a look at Facebook, Twitter and any social network for that matter and you'll see how quickly they are changing. Facebook organic reach is in the tanker. Brand and digital marketers who put all of their social eggs in the organic Facebook basket are being hit incredibly hard. 

Don't let this happen to you. You need to build your own plan, strategy and integrated platform that inspires, attracts, engages and nurtures your ideal customer. You need to look past the numbers and market segment statistics and connect with real human beings in real ways on your owned digital property. 

Direct download: SZF_144_Rentedland_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:39pm EDT

You have put your time, resource, sweat, sleepless nights and maybe even some tears into your product or business and are ready to take it to market. It's an exciting time. It feels like your baby. You want to shout from the mountain top to the world how awesome it is. 

You look at all the millions and billions of people on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope and the list goes on. You want to tap into the power of community. You want some social buzz. You want people to be talking about your brand. 

Slow down there my friend. I know you are excited but how you enter the world of social media is very important. Remember you only have one chance to make a first, second and third impression. You don't want to lose people at the first 140 character hello because you are all about yourself. 

Even though you may be new to some of these amazing social networks, the millions of people who are already living and breathing them daily more than they want to admit are not new to them. They have behaviors they are accustomed to. They have certain ways they like to communicate with people and brands. 

You can't just plop onto Facebook or Twitter and announce your new product or mobile application has launched expecting to build instant community and fame. 

You need to develop a solid plan and strategy for how you will integrate social media into your business and launch for real result. You need to think it through. You must start long before you launch, not the week before or morning of. 

Take a listen to the 143rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast where I share with you 5 foundational elements you must have to launch your business or product using social media. I also provide 10 simple ideas and tips to integrate social media into your launch immediately. 

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 5 Foundational Elements Your Social Media Product Launch Must Have 
  • 10 tips to integrate social media into your product, service or business launch of any kind 
  • How to best leverage pre-launch activities and time to build community and earn trust of loyal advocates early on 
  • How to tap into the power of the OPC - Other People's Community and Content 
  • How to NOT work with influencers and industry thought leaders 
  • How to avoid damaging your brand with spam 
  • How to tap into the power of video live streaming and mobile broadcasting on apps such as Periscope and Meerkat 
  • How to leverage Twitter chats and Facebook groups to grow community 
  • The importance of integration vs random acts of marketing (RAMs) 
Direct download: SZF_143_Launch_Strategies_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:13pm EDT

What is the first thing that comes to mind when I ask you define social media? Is it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Periscope, or Snapchat?

What if I told you that you should not be thinking about the technology first? You should be thinking about people. You should be focused on your ideal customer. Think DNA, not tools. How can you get in the head of your customer and inspire and connect with them?

Your mission with social media is to figure out where your ideal customer is hanging out online and then determine how you can have the most relevant conversation with them possible.

You need to be where your ideal customer is, not just where you want to be or even necessarily where you feel comfortable.

Do these questions found familiar?

  • I am spending loads of time on social networks with little business return.
  • I am spending loads of time learning tools and technology with zero business return.
  • I feel like I am online 24/7 yet am making no progress.
  • I don't know where to go next and sometimes feel like throwing in the social media towel!

If this is you, then you definitely need to listen to the 142nd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast. I explain in plan english why you must quit focusing on the technology, and instead focus on how you can connect with real human beings. How can you best serve them value? You must know where you are going and why.

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Why you can't start with technology when building a social media strategy and plan
  • 5 Tips to build your social media strategy and plan
  • The difference between social business and social media
  • Why your priorities must first be focused on your audience and ideal customer
  • Tips to avoid being online 24/ 7 and have even higher result
  • Why your most important question you must ask in building your social media strategy is WHY
  • Example social media outcomes, goals and objectives
Direct download: SZF_142_SocialMedia_Technology_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:29pm EDT

Many digital marketers scramble and fight for attention every day to get their message heard on the social networks. They may fall to spammy tactics such as tweeting 24 hours a day with automated tweets, automated direct messages, blasting Facebook business pages with too many updates, constant cat photos and word puzzles. They often dilute their brand with these silly tactics when they could be increasing brand equity and building a thriving community who is on the edge of their seat waiting for every word they say. 

There is also another group of smart digital marketers who know the value of an email list. They create epic and compelling content offers that inspire, educate, delight and help their ideal customer and audience solve their greatest problems. They earn their trust and email address. They are then able to more easily nurture relationships with a captured audience who WANTS to hear from them. 

Unfortunately many business leaders and even smart marketers don't understand the value of email marketing. They don't know how to integrate email marketing into their programs and business. They don't know how to grow an email list and write off email marketing all together. 

Did you know that 88% of B2B marketers cite email marketing as their most effective lead generation tactic? 

If you are not using email marketing to inspire, connect, delight, entertain and serve your audience you are truly missing out on opportunities to grow your brand and business. 

Take a listen to the 141st episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 tips to grow build and nurture your email list. These are the exact same tactics we have used to grow our list from 12,000 to over 50,000 people over the past 18 months! 

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Why digital marketers can not ignore email marketing 
  • 10 Ways to grow your list by 400% 
  • Important foundational elements to implementing email marketing 
  • How to choose an email marketing service provider 
  • How to integrate email marketing with your other marketing tactics 
  • How to integrate social media to grow your email list 
  • How to leverage the new call to action button on Facebook to grow your list 
  • How to organically attract your ideal customer with relevant, contextual content
  • Importance of managing the entire conversion funnel, end to end 
  • Importance of end to end user experience 
Direct download: SZF_141_EMailSubscribers_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:52am EDT

Business leaders and digital marketers all over the world are struggling every day with how to stay up to date on the latest trends, technology, social networks, methodologies and more. 

Even with the large number of people we see of embracing change and having a genuine desire to "be the change" as change agents, there is very little real change happening in regard to mindset. There is very little that most people are doing to truly help people take action and move their business and life forward. Instead people are getting stuck on social media buzz from their own community and wind up in a dangerous swirling, whirling echo chamber. 

It's easy to get stuck in a box. Does any of the below sound familiar? 

  • You don't know where to start so you gravitate to things you feel comfortable with such as shiny objects or deep analytical data. 
  • You avoid public conversations on the social networks as you are afraid of saying the wrong thing.
  • You are a lurker more than an active contributor.  
  • You want to embrace change but feel stuck. 
  • You worry too much about what others think of you. 
  • The arguments over semantics drive you nuts. 
  • You are part of the arguments and complaining over semantics. 
  • You have lots of social media buzz but very little social media bucks. 
  • You spend far too much time online for the business results you are achieving? 

The truth is there is far too much talk and not enough action being taken in the world of digital marketing, social media and online marketing. 

Answer this...

  • Does it really matter if we use the term social media expert, guru, or professional?
  • Do your customers and prospective customers really give a rip about half the things the masses argue about online all day via Facebook, Twitter chats and more?
  • Does it matter if you get thousands of hearts on Periscope, or on every leader board on the planet? Is it really moving your business forward? 
  • Why do you have the customers you have? How can you earn and retain more of them? Shouldn't you focus there? 
  • Why are there so many events becoming a real life "echo chamber" that the only people speaking are the sponsors and same people speaking everywhere? 
  • Do you need to get out of your own box and help move the industry forward? 
  • Are you ready to truly embrace change and start helping the industry move forward? 
  • How are you going to get out of your box? 

It is my belief many are living and embracing the echo chamber. It's time we get out of the box. It's time to quit arguing about semantics. It's time for the masses to start delivering value, real value. 

Take a listen to the 140th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for some real talk on how we can get out of our box and move the industry forward. 

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 15 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Why it's time the social ecosystem gets out of the echo chamber and embraces change
  • Why people must stop arguing about semantics such as "social media guru" 
  • Why you must stand on the foundation of your morals and value you offer your customers and community 
  • Importance of unplugging and getting out of your own box and way 
  • Tips to get out of your box and out of your own way, starting today 
  • The importance of self reflection and mindset 
  • Why you should take a look at your 2015 goals and assess how you are tracking toward progress 
Direct download: SZF_140_Stoparguinsemantics_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:32am EDT

Many brand and digital marketers are poorly confusing influencer marketing with earned media. Some of these marketers may be making innocent mistakes. However, some very well know the difference but are pretending that they don't. As a result they are negatively impacting their brand perception and damaging relationships with the people who they claim they want to embrace and invite closer to their brand. 

Yes, this is the elephant in the room for many brand marketers and the influencers, thought leaders and people who they are reaching out to begging for tweets, likes, free blog posts or even days spent at an event on behalf of the brand with zero compensation. The brands make themselves foolishly believe they don't need to compensate the influencer for their time since they are bucketing the engagement into "earned media." 

Let me put this very simply for you. If you are paying for travel, accommodations, fancy dinners and entertainment it is not earned media. 

Earned media is media that you earn. It's not media that you pay for. It's not dependable. It's not something you can wine and dine an influencer for and expect to get measurable results. 

Learning how to integrate earned, paid and owned media is key to success for digital marketers. 

Check out the 139th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for some real talk on why brands must quit confusing earned media with influencer marketing now. I share with you a story of how one of the largest car manufacturers in the world reach out to me asking for 5 days of my time at an event without any compensation and claiming they couldn't compensate for time as it fell into the category of "earned media." Seriously people, let's get real on this topic. It's time we make the leaders in this industry accountable. They need to walk the walk,not just talk the talk. 

This episode is part of a new “in a nutshell" mini-series of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to do a deep dive on the 3 types of media you must understand if you want to be successful in the online world and with digital marketing. I provided a quick overview of paid, earned and owned media in episode 138 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast

 Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!


In this 15 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Difference between earned media and influencer marketing 
  • Why influencer marketing is not necessarily earned media 
  • Importance of valuing relationships over reach, followers, Klout scores 
  • Why brands must value time of influencers and thought leaders they want to work with 
  • Tips to best use influencer marketing 
  • The difference between paid, earned and owned media
  • How to avoid blurring earned and paid media
Direct download: SZF_139_Earned_Media_Notearned_Media_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:19pm EDT

Remember the days of simple media and mass communication? The days marketers would simply buy an ad, tv commercial slot, throw out some direct mail, a few magazine ads, radio spots, measure the response and get on w/ their day job of herding cats, taming elephants and locking up the crazy monkeys in-house begging them for everything under the sun ;) Joking but you get the point. 

Media is not simple anymore, not that it ever was, but now it’s even more complex. It’s not just the explosion of social media, but the fact that according to a Nielsen study that confirmed the most trusted source of info in all countries surveyed world wide is earned media, also described as what use to be known as word of mouth. The issue is that many are confusing earned media with paid media and owned media. They are blurring them all together and as a results wasting millions of dollars, ticking off their audiences, ruining relationships with thought leaders and influencers and the list goes on. 

Today we are kicking off a new “in a nutshell: mini-series on the 3 types of media you must understand if you want to be successful in the online world and with digital marketing - paid media, owned media and the favorite earned media. 

This mini series is part of a larger “you are the media” and “influencer marketing” series.

In today's episode we will cover in detail the definition of paid, earned and owned media. 

Direct download: SZF_138_Media_Paid_earned_Owned_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:19pm EDT

Twitter can be very overwhelming to even the smartest and most social savvy business leaders. Many people find it frustrating to sort through the chatter and noise to get to the people, content and conversations that matter to your business and life.

Twitter lists are a great way to organize the people you follow and also help you organize conversations to get a grip on the clutter and noise so that you can truly leverage Twitter to rock your business and brand.

Twitter lists enables you to organize people you like to follow so that you can better read, engage and even curate content you want to share with your following. Lists can help you keep track of potential clients, clients, partners and even competitors.

Take a listen to the 137th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 15 business use cases to maximize your use of Twitter by utilizing Twitter lists. They are 15 use cases you can begin implementing today!

My blog and our agency site is loaded with information to help you with all aspects of social media, marketing and business. I encourage you to first listen to the podcast and then download our free resources listed at the bottom of this blog post including the Twitter Persona Worksheet.

In this 15 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Why you should use Twitter lists
  • Overview of Twitter lists
  • 15 business use cases for using Twitter lists
  • How to use Twitter lists to organize the people you follow
  • How to use Twitter lists to highlight your team
  • How to use Twitter lists to organize industry and niche content
  • How to maximize micro-communities with Twitter lists
  • How to maximize events with Twitter lists
  • How to learn what your audience thinks of you by analyzing what lists your followers put you on
Direct download: SZF_137_TwitterLists_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:26am EDT

If you haven't heard about the latest live video streaming apps on the market, Periscope and Meerkat, you must have been hiding under a rock. Periscope won the hearts of the social community and hit 1 million users in only 10 days!

Periscope and Meerkat are grabbing attention of everyone from celebrities to geeks, pastors, journalists, marketers, moms, dads, teens and more. Meerkat stole the spotlight at the SXSW event in Austin Texas in April. Twitter quickly announced the launch of their recently acquired mobile live streaming app, Periscope. Twitter then immediately shut down the API for Meerkat putting a damper in the quick growth Meerkat was experiencing.

Live streaming is not new. However, the ability to so simply live stream directly from the palm of your hand via a mobile device is what these two new apps have to offer that is unique.

With these two apps you have the ability to potentially launch your own TV channel from your mobile device. Crazy opportunities are in front of us if you really think about the ways we can use this technology.

It's not news how addicted TV and online video viewers are to reality TV. Now you can host your online daily reality show straight from you car, bedroom, front porch, or local coffee shop!

The biggest question marketing and business leaders have in regard to using these two new live streaming apps is how can they use them for business?

Take a listen to the 136th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 use cases for how you can use Periscope and Meerkat for your business starting immediately! Also included is a succinct overview of these two exciting platforms!

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Overview of Periscope and Meerkat
  • What is live video streaming
  • 10 use cases for how you can use Periscope, Meerkat and any live video streaming application
  • Key differences between Periscope and Meerkat
  • How to crawl, walk run when tapping into the power of these new applications
  • How to give your audience a real-time, front seat view even if they are not at your event live
  • How to offer up close and personal interviews with your executives, clients and partners 
  • How to share events, product demos, product launches and more to build community via live streaming
  • How to conduct market research using live video streaming 
  • How to give a behind the scenes and exclusive access to your live video streaming audience
  • Where to focus your efforts for greatest results
  • Live streaming behaviors to avoid

Supporting Resources:

Direct download: SZF_136_PeriscopeUses_final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:01am EDT

Failing to plan is planning to fail. When it comes to anything in life or business, you get what you put into it.

Although many smart marketers and business leaders know what they need to do to achieve real business results when it comes to marketing and integrating social media into their business, the truth is far too many are still searching for the easy button.

Unfortunately too many marketers are simply being lazy.

They are too busy self promoting themselves, chasing shiny objects, bashing their competition and focusing on problems versus solutions.  As a result they have no time put time and effort into the right things that could bring the highest return for their efforts.

Check out the 135th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear the top 10 stupid marketing tactics you must stop today!

 

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 10 stupid marketing tactics you must stop immediately
  • Why failing to plan is planning to fail
  • Why you must set goals, objectives and KPIs early on in project planning process
  • Why you must define what success looks like and be able to measure it
  • Why you must put effort in solving problems versus worrying about problems
  • The importance of integrated marketing versus silo'd marketing
  • Walking the walk, not just talking the talk
  • The importance of prioritization and alignment to business results to ensure you are not wasting precious time
  • Taking time to slow down to speed up
Direct download: SZF_135_StopMktgTactics_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:07pm EDT

Many marketing and business leaders hop online to the social networks and struggle with getting attention or achieving their goals and objectives. When this happens, often times without even realizing it, their mindset starts to shift to negativity. 

Though they may want to feel positive, they let emotions take them over. They may be frustrated with people in their communities, their own team and leadership and even clients. They may be jealous of competitors or others in their field. They wind up comparing their chapter 1 to everyone else's chapter 20. Instead of looking over the fence they should be focused on their own business and life! Because they let negativity enter their mind, they let negativity enter their life and business. 

We attract what we are and what we put out into the world. When we let our mindset and thoughts shift from positive to negative it is eventually going to be the negativity that people see, feel and hear from us.

When it comes to online marketing and communication via the social networks, live video streaming, photo sharing and even texting, we are limited to 140 characters or short bursts of information. One negative tweet can change the perception of a potential client who was thinking of contacting you or your business to conduct business.

Mindset is key to success in both business and life. The power of positivity is incredible. If you feel as though you have fallen off the positivity wagon recently, take a listen to the 134th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for some inspiration to focus on your mindset and assess if maybe you are the reason so many people feel negative around you? 

The 134nd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast provides a quick 10 minute dose of inspiration to help you embrace the power of positivity in your life today! 

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • How your mindset may be impacting your online and offline relationships
  • What to do if you know negativity is impacting you, your brand, and your communities online 
  • Why we are what we tweet and post to the social networks 
  • Why you may be finding yourself in many negative conversations online 
  • Why you must take time off to recharge and reinvigorate your mind and brand 
Direct download: SZF_134_PositivityPower_final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:26am EDT

Do you ever feel like you are running up against brick wall, obstacle after obstacle when it comes to trying to get people on board with your social media, digital marketing or social business plan?

Do you feel as if nobody around you "gets it?" Or that the people around you might be just stupid or clueless?

Smart, social savvy marketers who at the heart are innovators and change makers often feel a deep sense of frustration when trying to get their management, board members, direct team, partners and clients on board with where they want to take them in adoption of new media, technology and improved processes. These marketers know that there is benefit in tapping into the power of this new ecosystem of the constantly connected customer and 24/7 online environment has to offer. However, getting buy-in across their organization and even with outside clients and partners is  more than challenging.

There is a solution. Change agents don't just dictate change. They must embrace the reasons people want or don't want to change. They must facilitate discussions, educate, earn respect and obtain buy-in, even from some of the least supportive team members and executive managers.

Change agents do not ignite transformational change by preaching, yelling & banging tables. They don't inspire their management to adopt new media by yelling about it on Periscope or a Google Hangout. Instead they must understand the people. They must understand where they are, why they are where they are and how they can emotionally motivate them to move the needle in the right direction.

As a first step as this relates to the adoption of new media and technology it is important for marketers and change agents to understand where their team, management, customers and partners are in regard to the adoption of technology. Are they innovators and technology enthusiasts who will willingly embrace new technology and ways of doing business? Or are they more conservative or even skeptics?

If you walk into an office of a skeptic trying to sell him or her on the why he or she needs to approve your latest plan and budget because you will be first to market, and will be breaking new ground in your industry, you are likely to get kicked out to the curb. This may work with a tech enthusiast and early adopter, but not the laggards and skeptics.

Take a listen to the 133rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for a quick yet informative dive into the Geoffrey Moore Technology Adoption Lifecycle. We explore why you need to make this model your best friend to help you win the hearts, minds and support of the people you need to get on board with your plan and strategies! This is a must do for any marketer or business leader working in technology today.

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Overview of the Geoffrey Moore Technology Adoption Lifecycle
  • History of the Technology Adoption Lifecycle and how it started in the farming industry, 1957
  • Why smart marketers must understand the technology adoption lifecycle
  • The importance of taking time to understand where people are in adoption of technology and why
  • How to best communicate with innovators, tech enthusiasts, pragmatists, laggards, skeptics and everything in between
Direct download: SZF_133_TechadoptionLC_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:41pm EDT

Does the thought of jumping on a new live streaming app such as Periscope or Meerkat, or other social media network give you major anxiety? Does it excite you yet at the same time make you want to bury your head in a pillow for the next 30 days?

Many marketers want to embrace the new media of today. They want to lead. They want to take risks. However, they also fear they will fail. They fear they will make mistakes. So they avoid anything new when it comes to marketing and social media. Or they are the laggards, the last to adopt new technologies and processes that could improve their business and life.

Does this sound familiar? 

  • You want to learn to better maximize your time on the social networks but don't know how.
  • You want to try out the latest social network but are fearful of making a fool of yourself.
  • You don't want to hurt your brand by making a silly mistake.
  • You don't know where to start.
  • You don't feel comfortable with the format such as video, audio, but would like to try and learn.
  • You want to do more but fear is holding you back.

If this is you, you are in luck today. The 132nd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast provides you 10 Tips to help you knock your fear of adopting social media or any new communication medium to the curb.

Use these 10 tips to gain confidence, develop a plan for learning and know how to prioritize your time spent learning and engaging.

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

 

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 10 ways to stomp fear of social media to the curb
  • Why you should consider setting up test accounts
  • The importance of social listening as a first step to learning a new social network
  • Why knowing your audience is key to success
  • How to prioritize your time spent learning new social networks

Supporting Resources:

Direct download: SZF_132_Fearofsocial_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:26am EDT

Creating content that people want to share with their communities, audiences, friends and colleagues is the icing on the social media and online marketing cake. 

When people share your content with their communities you are able to tap into the power of the OPC (other people's content and community). You can exponentially increase the reach of your content within seconds when it is shared. Social media amplifies this like we have never seen with any other communication medium or platform. 

Unfortunately even many smart and social savvy marketers have no clue how to truly produce content that is shareable. It's not just about having the right share buttons on your blog or website or begging people to retweet. it comes down to trust, value, context and relevancy. 

Many marketers are spending loads of time creating content but find that their content is still not being shared? Many new clients come to us with these problems and can't understand why their content is still sitting on or within a silo that nobody knows about but them. 

The truth is there may very well be solid reasons that your content is not being shared. Ask yourselves these questions... 

  • Do people trust you and your brand? 
  • Are you selling too hard versus focusing on establishing relationships? 
  • Are you providing real value? 
  • Does your content help people solve real problems? 
  • Does your content have a purpose other than to sell more of your products or services? 
  • Is your content easily understood by your readers, listeners or viewers? 

Take a listen to the 131st episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 tips to create content that is share worthy!  Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • The power of creating share worthy content 
  • How to create content that people trust 
  • How to create content that people want to not only share but shout about from a mountain top 
  • Why it's about relevancy, value and context 
  • How to create content that inspires your audience to take action 
  • Why accuracy of your content matters 
  • Why you absolutely must know your audience 

Supporting Resources:

Direct download: SZF_131_SharableContent2_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:55am EDT

Build it and they will come never worked. Many marketers and business leaders waste loads of time and money on creating stand alone silos of content without ever having a strategy for how they are actually going to get eyeballs on it or ears listening.

Creating content is simply the first step. It's the easy part. Everyone including their mom and even some of their dogs are creating content. You can find a video, YouTube channel, podcast, blog, Instagram feed, Snapchat feed on almost any topic you can think of.

The challenge is not in creating the content but instead in getting people to read, listen, watch and engage with your content.

One great way you can break through the noise, grab real attention from your audience and earn their attention is to inspire people to subscribe to your content. Increasing and growing your subscriber base across your email newsletters and updates, RSS feeds, blogs, video channels, podcasts, and social networks will help you nurture relationships, grow community, and even increase brand loyalty!

Would you like to increase the number of subscribers to your content? Would you like to have hundreds or even hundreds of thousands of people sign up to receive updates from you automatically? This means they choose to receive updates from you. They WANT your content.

The 130th episode of the Social Zoom Factor provides 5 easy ways you can increase subscribers to your content.

Does this sound familiar? 

  • You have created loads of blog posts but nobody is reading them
  • You don't know if anyone is reading your content
  • You have a podcast but not sure if anyone is listening to it
  • You struggle with getting people to view the videos you have invested in
  • You don't know how to build community
  • You don't know how to build a loyal base of readers, viewers and listeners

This podcast will help you activate your audience to invest in a relationship with you as well as increase the ROI on your content marketing, digital marketing and social media investment.

Take a listen to the 130th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 ways you can activate your audience and online communities to achieve your business goals starting today!   Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 5 Ways to Increase Subscribers
  • How to use RSS feeds to nurture relationships
  • Using email marketing to grow subscribers and increase ROI across numerous marketing channels
  • Leveraging video, podcasting, white papers and useful tips and kits to increase subscribers
  • How to introduce your audience to different communication mediums / subscriptions you use via one single method
  • How to organically attract your right audience with relevant, contextual content
  • The power of earning trust to increase subscribers

Supporting Resources:

Direct download: SZF_130_Subscribe_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:23pm EDT

Sometimes in life the moments that create the most success are the ones that may feel a bit rough around the edges as they are happening. The key to success is standing back up even when you get knocked down flat on your face. 

 

There are many business and marketing leaders who may tout they are change agents. They claim they lead their organization to embrace change and empower change agents with a goal of better serving their customers and broader community. They want higher efficiencies, margins, and to lead the way in innovation and working smarter, not just harder. 

 

Unfortunately when you pull back the covers on some of these so called change agents, they are really not doing anything innovative at all. They spend more time following, copying and bashing others in their industry vs really innovating. In reality they are falling to status quo. They fall to 

 

Following status quo is a huge risk for any organization or business leader. Though it may feel safe for a short time, you can easily lose your competitive differentiator. You may never get to where you need to go mostly because you are stuck in status quo and following others. 

 

In this 129th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast I share a personal story explaining a big event that happened early in my career. I got myself fired from an organization almost fresh out of college. 

 

I was fired over an Apple computer. Yes, an Apple computer. 

 

Had I not gotten fired, or refused to accept status quo I would not be where I am today, period. 

 

If you have hit a wall of fear lately in stomping status quo, I encourage you to take a listen to this podcast for a serious dose of inspiration. I explain in detail why and how I got fired and why it was a very positive career and life changing event for me personally. 

 

I truly believe your business and life need to be free of status quo if you want to live a life zoomed with success and happiness. 

 

 

What do you believe? Do you believe in status quo? Or do you believe in real change for the right reasons? 

Direct download: SZF_129_Apple_Fired_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:36pm EDT

You hear your colleagues, boss, friends and even teens rave about how crazy amazing Twitter and other social networks are. They brag about how many people they have met, relationships nurtured and rocked. The are excited about new partnerships, friendships and opportunities that all started with a simple 140 character tweet.

You smile as they share the excitement with you. You nod your head in agreement. However, the truth is you are questioning the validity of their statements. If what they say is true you wonder why you have such a hard time even getting a conversation on Twitter started.

Does this sound familiar? 

  • Do you struggle with what to tweet about? 
  • Don't know if you should share what you ate for lunch or not? 
  • Wonder if you should share the kids Saturday morning soccer game on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or all of the above? 
  • Don't know where to start when it comes to getting a conversation started on Twitter or any social network for that matter? 
  • Does Twitter intimidate you more than any other social network? 
  • Does Twitter seem like a bunch of crazy noise to you? 
  • Do you feel that everyone understands this crazy 140 character language except for you? 

Social media is one big fat relationship and conversation. Learning how to be a relevant, contributing, inspiring part of the conversation is key to seeing real business and personal results using Twitter. 

Take a listen to the 128th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 22 Tips to help you get the conversation started on Twitter! My blog and our agency site is loaded with information to help you with all aspects of social media. I encourage you to first listen to the podcast and then download our free resources listed at the bottom of this blog post including the Twitter Persona Worksheet.

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • How to get the Twitter conversation started
  • How to develop your Twitter persona
  • Importance of content that is relevant, contextual and helpful 
  • How to properly setup your Twitter profile
  • The importance of understanding the needs of your audience 
  • Using Twitter lists to filter the noise 
  • Installing Sprout Social or Hootsuite on your mobile device  
  • Embracing imperfect perfection 
  • The power of the OPC - other people's content and community 
  • Integrating Twitter with other social networks 
  • Quality over quantity in everything you do 
  • Power of Twitter chats 
  • Why you should never buy fake Twitter followers 
  • How to keep your Twitter content fresh and relevant 
  • How to learn about your audience with social listening and Twitter lists
Direct download: SZF_128_Tweetitup_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:33am EDT

When Monday morning comes do you wish you could crawl back in bed, cover up your head and come back to the real world on Tuesday or Wednesday? 

Monday is going to come and go regardless if you crawl back in bed or take it on like a champion. 

Each of us has the same 24 hours in a day. Success is determined in how we use the 24 hours. 

Answer these questions... 

  • Are you owning your Monday? Or are you letting your Monday own you?
  • Are you letting negative people impact your positive mood on Monday? 
  • Are you letting email control and take over your day and week? 
  • Do you have a "not to do" list? 
  • Are you in the right mindset to start your Monday?
  • Are you taking time on the weekend or working 24/7?
  • Are you prioritizing the most important projects, people and meetings as the top priority? 
  • Are you owning your mindset, mood and results? 
  • Are you making up excuses? 

Take a listen to the 127th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 tips to help you rock business and life results on Monday! No more excuses. 

In this 20 minute podcast you will learn

  • 10 ways to rock your Monday business and life results 
  • How to prioritize the projects, people and meetings that matter
  • How to increase productivity Monday morning starting Sunday night 
  • How to minimize stress Monday morning 
  • Why you need a "not to do" list 
  • Getting in the right mindset 
  • Why you must get rid of the negativity 
Direct download: SZF_127_Monday_Biz_Tips_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:34pm EDT

Triberr is a platform that brings together smart,  savvy and talented bloggers, podcast and content producers of all kinds. It’s a mini social network that helps content creators amplify their content, find new bloggers and build community. 

 

Using Triberr effectively is both art and science. There are some who use Triberr for self serving reasons and/or are using it to blast noise to an already crowded, noisy online world. However, there are even more people who are using it to find great content, provide their audience with valuable content, learning the perspective of others, establish trust and credibility and the list goes on. 

 

We have had great success in using Triberr for the past few years to successfully grow our online brand, establish trust with our audiences, consistently provide value to our readers and listeners and most importantly grow our business. 

 

Take a listen to the 126th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn exactly how I use Triberr. I also share the fun story of how I got started with Triberr and my first conversation with the founder, Dino Dogan that changed my perspective toward sharing other people’s content in big ways! 

 

In this 15 minute podcast you will learn 

  • Why I love using Triberr
  • How I got started with Triberr 
  • How to use Triberr to establish trust and authority 
  • How to use Triberr to grow your brand awareness and audience 
  • The importance of opening your mind to other perspectives 
  • Why creating epic content that inspires, educates and informs your audience is key to success with Triberr and business in general 
  • How I choose what content I share via Triberr 
  • Why I don’t believe in simply sharing content via Triberr for the only reason to get shares of your content 
  • How Triberr can provide your audience with amazing, fresh content with varied perspectives
  • Why you must care about the quality of content you share from others 
Direct download: SZF_126_HowIuseTriberr_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:24am EDT

There is obviously not a shortage of content, conversations and brands begging for your attention.

Brands and the smart marketers within them are quickly learning that they are media. It’s easy for brands to hop on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter to start blasting noise.

The opportunity that every human being and brand can truly be the media is incredible for marketers who respect the media.

However, unfortunately many marketers take the lazy way out and are thinking it is their purpose in life and business to fill a media blank space that doesn’t exist.

They for some reason think that if they are not blasting their brand message from a megaphone that people will not hear them. When in reality if they shut their yapper long enough to listen, engage and provide value they could be spending far less time on the social networks and providing much higher value.

It’s not about being the noisiest one in the room. It’s about being the brand, the guy, the gal, who can provide the absolute most value. It’s about being hunan. It’s about connecting as real people and establishing trust.

Don’t be the noise. Be the value.

In this 125th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast I provide a quick 5 minute dose of tough love for why marketers must stop filling space. There is no space to fill in this crowded, noisy online, connected world we live in. It’s a myth that marketers have created for themselves believing they need to create more noise to justify their job, be heard or whatever the excuse may be. Choose to rise above. Choose to not follow status quo. Choose to stand out from the crowd by putting down the megaphone and listening more than you talk.

Direct download: SZF_125_Stopfillingspace_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:03pm EDT

We are living in exciting times with the advancements in technology, big data and analysis, communication mediums, social media marketing, social networking and the power at our fingertips to bring human beings and communities together. 

 

Smart marketers of today have incredible opportunity to increase brand awareness, build community, establish trust and activate their audience to actions that will bring fans, customers and partners closer to them and their brand while at the same time helping both the audience members and brand achieve their goals. 

 

Unfortunately too many marketers are lazy. They invest in social media platforms but don’t do much more than slap some fancy marketing branding lipstick on a Facebook business page, Twitter profile or Instagram account. Then after months of wasted time they wonder why they have little to no real measurable business result. 

 

If you want to see success in online marketing you must activate your audience to help them achieve their goals. When you inspire your audience to connect with you with a goal of helping them achieve their goals, you by default achieve your goals when you are successful. Inspire, connect, achieve. 

 

One of the top questions I receive from clients, colleagues and members of our training seminars is “how do I activate my audience?” 

 

Take a listen to the 124th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast 10 ways you can activate your audience today! I provide you some solid examples and recommendations for how you can activate your audience with content, value and community building. 

 

There is no need to over complicate activating your audience. You can start with baby steps. The mission of everything our agency, Marketing Nutz does in business is to put these types of things in a nutshell for you so that you can activate your audience, grow your brand and business without having to spend the next five years researching and figuring out these details. This podcast will help you activate your audience and better tap into the power of social media and online marketing this week! 

 

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 10 ways you can activate your audience today 
  • Why you must plan your conversion funnel, hope is not a strategy 
  • Why call to actions must be relevant and valuable 
  • How to activate your audience to nurture relationships and build community 
  • How to leverage live streaming via apps such as Periscope and Meerkat to activate your audience 
  • Tapping into the power of Twitter chats to grow community and provide value to your community 
  • Leveraging Google Hangouts to grow your business 
  • How to tap into the power of email marketing 
  • Leveraging audio communication such as podcasting 
  • Why you need an RSS subscription option on your blog /website 
  • How to use content marketing assets to activate your audience 
  • Why earning trust and establishing credibility must be a top priority to activate audience 
  • How giving your audience an insider, exclusive view can activate your audience
  • Tapping into the power of the OPC - Other People’s Content & Community 

 

Direct download: SZF_124_ActivateAudience_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:15pm EDT

The power of human connection, relationships, content, context, relevancy is multiplied exponentially when you bring people together in community for a common goal.

Communities are the foundation of social media. Communities are where conversations happen, relationships are nurtured and people connect on topics that matter to them.

The truth is that people don't just buy things, they join things. Of course we buy products. We buy everything from burgers, furniture, to iPhones and houses. Yet if you look at some of the most powerful brands on earth they are also connected via community. The fans of the community share their love for the brand and product via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the list goes on. Or they may not ever share their love for that awesome burger they just devoured at all via a tweet or post of any kind. Instead they may simply show their love for the brand by simply buying the product and being a loyal, paying customer or evangelist.

People want to be part of something bigger than themselves. It's in our DNA as human beings to want to connect with other human beings.

For business and brands this foundational need creates tremendous opportunity for brands and the humans within them to provide some of the human glue and connective tissue that connects humans to one another. We can do this quite simply when we know what needs to be done.

Many marketing and business leaders struggle with how to not both start a community and struggle even more with figuring out how to take it to the next level and bring true value to both the community members and the business or brand leading the community.

In this 20 minute podcast I will answer these questions: 

  • How do you determine the purpose of your community?
  • How do you start a new community?
  • How do you build the proper foundation for community growth and health?
  • How do you select the right social networks and tools to help the community grow?
  • How do you manage the organic growth and needs of the community?
  • How do you keep the community fresh, vibrant and alive?
  • How do you empower leaders within the community?
  • How do you utilize data such as Google Analytics, Facebook Insights to grow community and provide the highest value possible.
Direct download: SZF_123_CommunityZoom_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:18am EDT

Attention is the most scarce resource for digital marketing leaders in businesses of all sizes. The world is filled with media. Everywhere we turn, look, see and hear there is a brand or person trying to grab our attention.

Even smart, social, savvy digital and social marketers are finding it difficult to stay front of mind for their customers, audience and community.

Are these some of the questions keeping you up at night?

  • How do you break through the clutter?
  • How do you stand above the noise?
  • How do you earn the ear, eyeballs and mind of your ideal customer?
  • How do you get more people to listen to you?

The most important question you should be asking is WHY.  Have you ever considered that maybe you are asking the wrong questions?

Instead, try these questions on for size:

  • How do you provide the highest value possible?
  • Why should anyone read your blog, watch your video or listen to your podcast?
  • Why should anyone care your brand exists?
  • What are you offering that is unique that 100 other people just like you aren't already offering?

It is time to put down the megaphone and serve. It's time to stop babbling all day about yourself, your brand, your lunch, and you, you, you. It's time you shut your yapper and listen. It's time to serve. It's time to show up big time, but for the right reasons.

Take a listen to the 122nd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 5 easy ways how you can put down the megaphone for good and provide the highest value possible to everyone who comes in contact with your brand online.  

In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 5 easy ways to trade in the loud megaphone for service to your audience and customers
  • The reason WHY is the most important question you should be asking
  • Starting with 3 simple ways to provide value to your audience by identifying 3 ways you can help them solve their problems
  • Why you must listen to your audience and community more than you talk
  • How to know if you have a content problem or the challenge of not knowing your audience
Direct download: SZF_122_Megaphone_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:58pm EDT

If you haven't heard about influence marketing you have likely been either on a long vacation on a beautiful island with zero internet connectivity or you have been hiding under a rock. 

Influence marketing is helping brands big and small ignite their online and offline communities, increase brand awareness and nurture powerful relationships when done right. 

As with anything in marketing, business or life, there are some marketers doing it right and there are others who are burning more bridges than the ones they are trying to build. Many are doing it without really knowing they are damaging relationships. 

I developed episode 121 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast with a goal to help marketers brand new to influence marketing as well as seasoned veterans get the most out of their influence marketing programs. 

The goal of today's podcast is to save you some heartache, wasted time and help you save your reputation along the way as you build, launch and execute your influencer marketing program. 

I share with you tips in this podcast from my experience in working with brands of all sizes from startups to Fortune 100 brands helping them develop and execute influence marketing programs as well as from being an influencer myself.

In this 30 Minute Episode You Will Learn: 

 

  • How many brands are confusing spam with influence marketing
  • choosing wrong influencers
  • How to choose the right influencers and avoid choosing the wrong influencers
  • The importance of the influencer being able to drive real action
  • Why trust matters with influencers
  • Building your team to succeed with influence marketing
  • Importance of doing your research on influencers before reaching out to them
  • How to create value for the influencer as a top priority
  • Importance of connecting influencer with other people at your in person events
  • How to decide if you should compensate influencers for their time
Direct download: SZF_121_Influence_10_tips_Final_mixdown-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:55am EDT

Do you ever feel as though you hit a wall when it comes to creating epic content to rock your business, audience and content marketing goals and objectives? Are you running out of good ideas for content topics? Ever feel like simply giving up and throwing in the content marketing towel? 

Don't give up! You have already invested in your online brand, blog, website, and content marketing. What you need is a simple refresh to revive and reinvigorate your content marketing. 

Take a listen to episode 120 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 5 top ways you can easily refresh and revive your content marketing starting today! 

This episode is part of a new series "You are the Media." In this series we are diving deep into how to build an integrated online digital and social platform that works when you aren't working. A platform that helps you achieve your business goals. We'll be diving into digital frameworks, content calendars and plans, strategic and tactical options for social media, personal branding, business branding, measurement and more.

Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> You are the Media - Building Your Media Foundation

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • How to do an inventory of the content you already have
  • How to maximize every piece of content you have already created
  • Shifting the focus of your content topics from you and your business to your audience
  • Creating evergreen content that Google will love
  • Turning one piece of content into an evergreen, content machine
  • Tapping into the power of Google Analytics to better understand your audience and create epic content for them
Direct download: SZF_120_5wayscontentrefresh_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:16pm EDT

Do you have questions related to social media, digital marketing, blogging, content marketing, strategy, entrepreneurship, startups, or branding? Questions keeping you up at night? 

Do you also like learning from others? Do you like hearing the questions and answers that many in your niche may have? 

If this is you then you are in for a treat today as this is the first Social Zoom Factor podcast episode that we are incorporating questions from the audience. 

Episode 119 questions and answers will cover the following: 

  • Using social media to test a product and do market research before launch 
  • Where to focus for a new online business? Thought leaders and influencers, ideal customers or both? 
  • How to price social media services
  • Where I get my inspiration 

Have a question? Submit your question via voice mail right here on this site and I will play it live on the podcast and answer question for you! All instructions are here-> Ask Pam a Question 

 

 

Direct download: SZF_119_AskPamInfluenceInspirations_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:57pm EDT

Have you invested heavily in an integrated social and digital platform, content, a blog, website or all of the above? Have you defined your audience, goals, objectives and a plan to reach them? 

Do you feel as though you have done everything right, yet your content is still not igniting your business or your audience like you know it could and should be doing? 

If this is you, then you are going to love this episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast as as we interview Mark Schaefer, the author of the newly published book,  Content Code: Six Essential Strategies for Igniting Your Content, Your Marketing and Your Business. 

In this episode Mark explains why people share content, who they share content with and how you can increase the sharing of your content by earning trust and connecting emotionally with your alpha audiences. 

Mark Schaefer is a globally recognized thought leader, international speaker, consultant and owner of the award winning blog, Grow. Mark is also the author of The Tao of Twitter, and Social Media Explained. 

In this podcast you will learn: 

  • Why focusing on blog traffic alone creates nothing more than tourists
  • Why creating content is not enough to drive real results by itself
  • How to maximize investment in your content marketing by increasing sharing 
  • The power of little data over big data
  • How to make it easy for your fans to share your content 
  • How do you create content that connects with your audience in an emotional why 
  • Understanding WHY people share content 
  • The importance of understanding and earning trust with your alpha audience 
  • Why people share content for intrinsic and emotional reasons 
  • Brands share content for economic reasons and are missing opportunities to connect with their audiences 
  • The difference between economic value and intrinsic reasons for sharing content 
Direct download: SZF_118_MarkShchaefer_Final2-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:13am EDT

Unless you have been living under a rock, or on an island all by yourself, you have likely heard of "Mobilegeddon" or in kinder terms, the Google Mobile Friendly update.

On April 21, 2015 Google officially released quite a significant new mobile-friendly algorithm. The new algorithm is designed to give a boost to mobile-friendly web pages in Google's mobile search results.

This is very good news for those of us who have invested in ensuring our sites are mobile friendly!

If you are one of the people who has been living under a rock and/or ignored Google's announcement informing the world this was coming back in December 2014 then this is likely not good news for you.

Don't freak out on me. In this 15 minute episode of of the Social Zoom Factor podcast I am put this new update in a nutshell for you. I provide you with the most important information you need to know as well as what you can do to ensure your site is in good graces with Google and it's new mobile search ranking criteria.

In this 13 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Google Mobile-Friendly Update Overview (what you need to know and why)
  • Answers to some of your most frequently asked questions regarding the new Google mobile update
  • How to check if your site is mobile friendly according to Google
  • What to do to ensure you are in good graces with Google's new mobile search ranking algorithm
  • Common mistakes to avoid
  • Best practices for mobile sites

Recommended Resources mentioned: 

Resources mentioned: 

Direct download: SZF_117_MobileGeddon_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:02pm EDT

Direct download: SZF_116_MonetizeMedia_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:44am EDT

Have you ever tried to get somewhere in a car, on a bike or on foot and you find yourself constantly running run into roadblocks and detours? Chances are the roadblocks and detours made you feel quite frustrated. This is because there are barriers stopping you from getting to your destination of choice. 

Many brands are doing this same thing to their customers, audience and community today. Brands who are not using social media are putting up virtual language barriers stopping their most precious customers and audience from communicating with them. 

If you are a business owner or business professional would you ignore your customer if they called you? What about if they walked through the front door of your business? Would you ignore their actions if they went all around town posting up signs telling people how terrible or great your business is? 

Brands are ignoring their customers who are doing these things today. Their paying customers and fans are communicating with them via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Blogs, FourSquare, and the list goes on. However, many brands are sticking up their virtual hand and saying "sorry Mr Customer, I am too busy to talk to you the way you want to talk to me." 

Your mission as a brand leader in the world of online and digital marketing is to simply figure out where your customer is hanging out online and be sure you are ready to have the most relevant conversation with them. You need to speak to them where, when and how they want to speak. It's no longer on your terms. 

As much as brands may want to control the message, the truth is they can not. Your brand is the customer experience you deliver. Your brand is your reputation. Your brand is how you treat your customers online, offline and behind closed doors. The truth is these doors are opening and all of these channels are becoming more blended, more transparent. Brands can simply no longer hide behind a barrier and expect to be in business in one, two or three years. 

Take a listen to the 115th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for a deep dive into this topic and hear case studies about brands that are putting up barriers and brands that are tearing them down and making the decision to be human, own their mistakes and put relationships and long term customer value and loyalty first.

Brands covered include Fitbit, CBS UnderCover Boss Reality Show, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, Gold's Gym, HostGator, and Panera Bread.

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

    • Explore if you are creating language barriers by ignoring social media channels? 
    • How 8 big brands are utilizing social to open communication doors or create barriers?
    • The importance of communicating with your customers where, when and how they want to communicate with you
    • Why brands can no longer hide
    • The importance of a consistent customer service experience across communication channels such as phone, email, in person and social media 

Supporting Resources:

Direct download: SZF_115_Social_Barriers_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:06am EDT

Many social and digital marketers feel that they are pulled into too many directions. They complain of being too busy. They complain of not having adequate budget allocated to their programs. They may struggle with obtaining buy-in for their program. In addition they feel they are more reactive than they are proactive. Many even struggle with proving their own or team value for their basic existence in the organization.

It is time digital marketers step up and lead. It's time the senior digital marketers own their programs. They need to learn to say no. They need to develop a plan and obtain the resources needed to implement it.

Do these problems sound familiar? 

  • You struggle with getting buy-in for your programs
  • You lack adequate budget for success
  • You are forced into tactics and strategies you don't believe in
  • Your are executing Random Acts of Marketing (RAMs)
  • You struggle with proving value for yourself and/or your team 
  • You wish your executives better understood your goals and objectives 
  • Your program is not delivering measurable results 
 
If you can relate to the problems listed above, this episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast is for you! 

This podcast is part of a new series titled "You are the Media!" where we will dive deep into how you can build an integrated online digital and social platform that works when you aren't working. A platform that helps you achieve your business goals. A platform that helps you achieve and live your dreams. A platform that organically help you inspire, attract and connect with your ideal customer and simply amazing people who you want to have by your side.

We'll be diving into digital frameworks, content calendars and plans, strategic and tactical options for social media, personal branding, business branding, measurement and more.

One of the critical and foundational elements for success in business and online marketing is understanding the power of data and analytics to grow your business and ignite relationships with the people that matter most to your business and life.

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> You are the Media - Building Your Media Foundation

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 10 Tips to take lead on your social and digital program 
  • Lead without asking for permission 
  • How to say no so you can say yes to the right things 
  • Designing your dream team 
  • Setting short term 3, 6 and 9 month goals for both short term and longer term buy-in 
  • How to get your social media budget approved 
  • Why you must dig into the data 
  • Speaking the same language as your executives and team members and why you may need to invest in training as step one 
  • Importance of being accountable for results, with no excuses 
Direct download: SZF_114_DigitalMarketersLead_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:11pm EDT

Many digital and social marketers shy away from data and analytics. The foolish marketers may fear it's the dark side of marketing and that they will get drawn into week long meetings discussing menial metrics and data algorithms. This couldn't be further from the truth.

Smart marketers know that data and analytics is the light at the end of the tunnel to build their business. It is data that helps us know our customers, know our audience, understand how we can inspire, connect with and build communities. The focus on data should be to create delightful, meaningful conversations, experiences and relationships that can help sustain both business and life.

This podcast is part of a new series titled "You are the Media!" where we will dive deep into how you can build an integrated online digital and social platform that works when you aren't working. A platform that helps you achieve your business goals. A platform that helps you achieve and live your dreams. A platform that organically help you inspire, attract and connect with your ideal customer and simply amazing people who you want to have by your side.

We'll be diving into digital frameworks, content calendars and plans, strategic and tactical options for social media, personal branding, business branding, measurement and more.

One of the critical and foundational elements for success in business and online marketing is understanding the power of data and analytics to grow your business and ignite relationships with the people that matter most to your business and life.

Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> You are the Media - Building Your Media Foundation

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

Direct download: SZF_113_Youmedia_Final_mixdown2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:45pm EDT

Are you focusing on menial metrics, vanity metrics and things that are really not moving your business and life forward? Or are you staying laser focused on the right things. The tactics, strategies and big ideas, concepts and innovations that can bring real meaning to your business, your life, your customers, your community and anyone that comes in contact with your brand? 

As you end the weekend, start the weekend, start your week or end your week I simply ask you to think about these two words... menial and meaningful. Make sure you are focus on the right things. 

Take a listen to the 112th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn more. 

Direct download: SZF_112_MenialMeaningful_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:40pm EDT

Thanks to digital marketing and social media, one single human being can have as much and often times more impact than a large Fortune 100 brand. Even some of the world's largest brands are turning to individual influencers, bloggers, podcasters, videographers and more to tap into their trust, credibility and community they have fostered.

Online marketing and social media never has been and never should have been focused on number of followers, Klout scores or other vanity metrics. What matters is being able to inspire, connect, and move an audience. What matters is being able to change minds, touch hearts and connect emotionally with the people within your community.

Remove the buzzwords of the crazed digital world and boil it down to what really matters. It has and will always be about human beings. It's about the people. It's about connecting humans with other humans. It's about helping the humans within your communities solve their problems and achieve their goals. It's about connecting humans to be part of something bigger than they can be themselves.

YOU have the opportunity to be the media today and tomorrow. You can build an integrated online digital platform that works even when you are not working.

You can be the media that educates, inspires, connects, serves, and changes the world. It only takes a seed, one single tweet or Facebook post to create life changes for one, hundreds, thousands and even millions of humans.

However, even with this opportunity there comes much work. You must figure out how you can have the greatest impact in a world where the the scarcest resource is attention. Every brand, every blog, every tweet and Facebook page is vying for attention from the same people you want attention from.

I am thrilled to announce a new series of the Social Zoom Factor podcast titled "You are the Media." In this series we will dive deep into how you can build an integrated online digital and social platform that works when you aren't working. A platform that helps you achieve your business goals. A platform that helps you achieve and live your dreams. A platform that organically help you inspire, attract and connect with your ideal customer and simply amazing people who you want to have by your side.

We'll be diving into digital frameworks, content calendars and plans, strategic and tactical options for social media, personal branding, business branding, measurement and more.

To kickoff the series episode 112 covers the top 10 reasons you need a blog. You must have a home base and build your foundation on property you own, versus rented social land from Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> You are the Media - Building Your Media Foundation

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Why you need a blog (10 top reasons) 
  • How a blog can help you establish your personal brand
  • How a blog can help you earn trust, and establish credibility
  • How to find your voice by serving your audience and customers with content that inspires, connects and educates
  • Why you must focus not only on economics but on emotional and human connection
Direct download: SZF_111_BlogMaster_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:50pm EDT

If you are attending live in person industry and networking events or trade shows you are likely investing a decent amount of both money and time. How can you maximize your ROI for the time and money spent?

Take a listen to the 110th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear my top 5 ways you can increase your event ROI with networking, pre and post event planning and execution.

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 5 Tips to maximize ROI at in person events
  • How to set goals and objectives for attending an event
  • Why pre-event planning is key to maximizing your time invested
  • Tapping into private social networking groups such as Facebook and LinkedIn
  • Importance of researching events on the front and back end of the main event that you can attend
  • Reaching out and connecting to speakers, organizers and attendees via Twitter and other social networks pre-event
  • Creating Twitter and other lists to keep track of contacts
  • Importance of not being shy and reaching out to people you may not know prior to event
  • Making your list of people you want to meet
  • Why event halls are magical for networking
  • The importance of being in the moment, vs having your head stuck in your phone
  • Capturing the moments real time via visual marketing and live streaming
  • Prioritizing networking event opportunities
  • Post event networking opportunities
  • Maximizing visual marketing to keep the conversations going post event

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

Direct download: SZF_110_EVENT_TIPS_FINAL_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:05pm EDT

Your brand is the foundation and one of the most important aspects of your business. Doesn’t matter if you are a solo entrepreneur, small business, large, super size, business to business, business to consumer or anything in between. You only have one chance to make a first, second and third brand impression.

In a nutshell your brand is your promise to all those who come in contact with your brand. It's your promise to your customers, partners, employees, audience and community. Your brand will help you tell your story and helps you build trust as it informs people what to expect. When done right it will also help differentiate you from your competition.

Your brand is rooted in who you are at the core, what you are about and what you do for your customers, employees, partners, audience and even online community.

Your brand is so much more than your logo. Of course your logo, colors, website, mobile site (or not), mobile applications, videos, tweets, Facebook and other social network pages, packaging, communication is also part of your brand foundation.

Some may argue that "your audience determines your brand, so why worry about it."  While this is true that the perception of your brand is in fact in the eye, heart and mind of the recipient. It is not true that the receiver is responsible for that first, second or third brand touch. That responsibility comes from you.

As a marketer you have the opportunity to be storyteller, and to also engage and empowers others to not only be part of the story, but to give them a canvas and a paint brush and inspire them to help you write and tell it.

By developing your brand strategy, brand architecture, vision, mission and more, you can impact perceptions. You can better connect with the human beings on the receiving end of your brand visuals, messages, social media updates and everything you create and deliver via whatever mediums you are using to connect with your audience, community and customers.  Although you obviously can not control how others perceive your brand, you can definitely influence and design a positive, inspiring and engaging experience every time they come in contact with your brand.

Take a listen to the 109th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast where I provide the definition of a brand, reputation and most importantly the top 5 reasons why you must develop your brand strategy and how it can benefit your business, customers and greater community!

 

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Definition of a brand
  • Definition of brand identity
  • Definition of visual branding
  • Definition of brand trust
  • Definition of reputation
  • Top 5 reasons you must develop a brand strategy for your business
  • The power of brand story telling and why you must invest in creating your brand story
  • Inviting and taking other along to help you craft your brand story
  • Earning trust and credibility via branding
  • How to differentiate from your competition via branding
  • How to use branding to connect emotionally with your audience, fans and customers
Direct download: SZF_109_BrandingStrategyFinal_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:43am EDT

Every smart marketer wants their brand to be relevant, memorable, inspiring and positive in the mind of their audience, ideal customer and online community. What many marketers don't know is that the little things they are doing online every day could be hurting their brand more than helping. 

When you think of leaving memorable brand impressions what comes to mind? Do you first think of a logo, colors, messaging, tone, sentiment or all of the above? None of the above?

Even the best business leaders and marketers get overwhelmed with staying up to speed with new media, social media and integrating it into the DNA of their business.

Social media is both art and science. It's easy and dangerous to get caught up in the tools and technology that you lose sight of why you are doing it in the first place. Are you getting so focused on building your community, generating revenue, growing your email subscriber list that you are falling to lazy marketing behavior? Or even trying some spammy tactics that are hurting your brand more than helping your brand? 

It’s not so much about what the technology can do for you as it is what you can do with the technology! It's important to make sure you are using social and digital technologies in a way that is helping you versus hurting you. 

Check out the 108th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear 25 ways you may be hurting your brand online without even realizing it! 

 

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 25 ways you are hurting your brand more than helping it via social media and digital marketing 
  • Why you must regularly audit the social media applications and tools connected to your existing social profiles 
  • To send auto direct messages (DMs) on Twitter or not? 
  • The risks associated with over self promotion 
  • Why you should be careful of not having only negative posts on Facebook and other platforms 
  • How to avoid being seen as a spammer 
  • You are what you share, tweet, pin, post and update via the social inter webs 
  • Why you can't ignore the mobile user and customer and the importance of a mobile responsive website and blog 
  • To use curse words or to avoid them? 
  • The risk of buying fake followers and fans 
  • How much is too much information to share about your personal life? 
  • How not to reach out to industry influencers 
Direct download: SZF_108_Wayshurtingbrand_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:03pm EDT

Attention is the most scarce resource in business. Earning the attention of your customers, audience and community is one of the greatest challenges for marketers in businesses big and small.

 
How do you differentiate? How do you stand above the crowd? How do you embrace real change? How and when do you disrupt the current status quo? How do you bust ahead of your competition once and for all?
 
This week I am at the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was invited as an Adobe Insider to get a behind the scenes look at how Adobe is driving innovation and empowering their clients and community to change the world with amazing digital experiences.
 
The truth is that your product is marketing. Marketing is your product. How you market, how you sell is what will drive you turbo speed ahead of your competition.
 
A top goal for every marketer should be to create the most delightful, amazing, memorable customer experience possible.
 
Combining art and science to create real-time, delightful brand experiences will inspire your customers and audience to fall in love with you and your brand.
 
Take a listen to the 107th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear my top 5 takeaways from day one of the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit. Be sure to also check out the conversation via Twitter and the hashtag #AdobeSummit.
 
In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

 

  • 5 Key Takeaways from day one at the #AdobeSummit 2015
  • Why customer experiences don't have to be perfect
  • Why creating delightful customer experiences is both art and science
  • Why the most scarce resource in business is attention and what to do about it
  • Why marketers must know how to leverage the data and tools to drive outcomes and desired experiences
Direct download: SZF_107_AdobeSummit1_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:27am EDT

Would you like to better convert traffic to your blog or website to a real sale? Do you wish you knew more about your customer? Wish you knew what content is truly engaging your audience? How about the top traffic sources to your blog or website? 
 
Many marketers stay far away from analytics data and measurement as they think it's too complicated. The truth is that understanding analytics measurement systems doesn't require a math or analytics degree. 
 
Even better, you can quickly learn enough to be intelligently dangerous in short time. Google Analytics is an amazing platform to help marketers get in the head of their customer, better understand the performance of their content, online platform and overall marketing. 
 
Take a listen to the 106th episode of the Social Zoom Factor to learn how to get started with Google Analytics as well as 10 Top Metrics you should be using today to understand and grow your online platform and business. 
 

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • The power of Google Analytics and what it can help you understand about your online platform, blog and website  
  • 10 Google Analytics metrics you should be paying close attention to on a regular basis 
  • How to tap into the power of Google Analytics to better know your customer 
  • How to know the value of traffic from social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook
  • How to know what content your audience loves and even dislikes 
  • Why you must enable and setup goals and conversions feature within Google Analytics 
  • Why both quality and quantity matter when it comes to your online audience 
  • How to know what percentage of traffic to your site is coming from mobile devices 
  • How to use Google analytics to help measure the achievement of your goals 
  • How to measure what pages are working to help you achieve your goals as well as what pages may be hurting your efforts 
Direct download: SZF_106_GoogleAnalytics_Final_mixdown-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:36am EDT

The challenge can be overwhelming for marketers to consistently create content that is fresh, relevant and provides real value to their audience, customers, and prospective customers. 

Because of this pressure, unfortunately many marketers fall to lazy marketing tactics. They quit creating their own content and start curating and sharing other helpful content from leaders in their industry. Even worse they start copying, pasting and regurgitating other people's content. They copy, tweak and pretend it is their when in reality they have often lost the real meaning of it without even knowing. They wind up hurting their brand more than helping. 

Though curation can be an impactful and excellent way to establish your brand online as well as serve the needs of your audience, it also requires both art and science to see real benefit. 

Is anything really new anyway? Does content have to be new to be relevant? How can you curate content from other industry leaders and still be relevant to your audience? Where do you draw the line of endorsing other people's content vs supporting their brand more than your own? What are the negatives of content regurgitation? 

If these are some of the questions you have then take a listen to the 105th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn the difference between creation, curation and regurgitation of content. I also include tips and strategies to develop your own curation platform and ensure you are not simply regurgitating content that will hurt you more than help. 

 

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Definition of content creation and new ideas 
  • Definition of content curation 
  • Definition of content regurgitation 
  • How to create content that represents the brand of you! 
  • Why you must keep the brand of you in your ocntent 
  • The importance of adding your own perspective in every piece of content 
  • How to curate content like a curation rock star
  • The difference between regurgitation and curation of content 
  • Why you must stop regurgitating other people's content. 
Direct download: SZF_105_Create_Curate_Regurge_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00pm EDT

Your customers, employees, audience, partners and online social media community is human. They eat, sleep, breathe and talk like humans.

So, why are so many of you talking to them like they are a robot who wants to read your corporate speak? Why are you afraid to let your human show? Why do you keep trying to win them over with stupid stunt marketing and upside down tricks?

Your audience wants to see you, hear you and understand you. They want you to inspire them to connect and engage with you. They want you to help them achieve their goals and objectives. They want relevant content and conversation that makes them think. They want you to inspire them to do more, be more, achieve their life and business goals.  better and be better.

So tell me, are you doing these things? Are you even thinking about these things? Or are you too focused on yourself? Too focused on your own campaigns or developing the next big thing that you forgot why you were doing it all to begin with?

Humanizing your brand is a requirement, not an option if you want to be in business 3 years from now.  Yes, you can put brand humanization on hold. However, every day you lose is a day you could be building relationships, nurturing friendships, establishing and earning the respect of powerful brand evangelists who will shout from a mountain top how wonderful you and your brand are.

Take a listen to the 104th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 20 tips to help you humanize your brand starting today. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or social media brain surgeon to do these things. Start now and start somewhere. Perfection is the enemy of good. Embrace imperfect perfection.

 

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 20 tips you can implement immediately to make your brand more human
  • The definition of brand humanization
  • Why brand humanization is a requirement, not an option for brand survival today
  • Why you want to connect with the heart of the person on the other end of your content 
  • Why relationships are the life raft to the sea of technology change 
  • Why getting in the head of your customer is imperative to humanizing your brand
  • Difference between authenticity vs transparency
  • Humanizing your brand from the inside out
  • Tapping into the power of employee advocacy programs
  • Why you must stop the interruption marketing
  • How to develop a plan that provides results
Direct download: SZF_104_BRANDHUMAN_FINAL_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:48am EDT

The days of interruption marketing and throwing social spaghetti on the walls of the internet and hoping it sticks are over and done. No longer can you create marketing messages in a vacuum and expect to build relationships, build community, increase brand awareness, or achieve your business goals.

Marketers must learn to work smarter, not just harder. Smart marketers are realizing they must stay relevant in the mind of their ideal customer, audiences and social communities. They must consistently provide value and connect in a real, human and memorable way.

You can not fake being relevant. You can not fake earning trust. You certainly can't fake a relationship that has depth.

Take a listen to the 103rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn why you must make it a top priority to stay relevant in the mind of your customer.

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • The questions you should be asking to stay relevant
  • How to stay relevant in the mind of your customer
  • Why failing to plan is planning to fail
  • How to select the right key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • Getting in the head of your customer
Direct download: SZF_103_CANTFAKESMRELEVANCE_FINAL_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:43pm EDT

Are you one of those people who sees others tweeting and talking in 140 characters to build their brand and wish you knew how to do the same? You see them rockin' their personal and business brands, building community, fostering new relationships and growing their business, all using Twitter. However, you may feel like you are left out of the tweeting, posting, pinning, social world.

Would you like to take your brand to the next level by tapping into the power of Twitter but not sure where to start?

If this is you, then you are in luck as this episode and new series of the Social Zoom Factor podcast is going to help you quickly understand how you can begin to brand yourself and your company using Twitter.

This is the first in a series of podcasts that will put how to build your online personal and business brand in a nutshell for you! Over the course of the next few weeks we will be digging deep into each of the major social networks as well as overall brand architecture building strategies and tips. 

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

Direct download: SZF_102_Twitter_Branding_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:09pm EDT

Did you know that according to Google, the average consumer researches 10.4 sources before making a purchase decision? This includes researching content via the web, social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn as well as talking to trusted colleagues, friends and family.

How is your brand doing when it comes to delivering the needed information and customer experience that inspires your audience, customer and online social community members make the desired action or purchase decision? Does a visit to your blog, website or Twitter stream provide information that helps your customer become inspired to further connect with you and your brand? Or it is pushing them away to your competition?

76% of marketers believe they know what customers want. However, only 34% have ever asked them.

The truth is many marketers don't know their ideal customer. They don't know what keeps them up at night or how they can best help them solve their problems.

If you want to achieve real results using social media you must know your customer. You must refocus your energy, content, digital marketing, social marketing and more to the needs of your customer.

Refocusing your lense to your customer can exponentially increase business result in a short time period.

Take a listen to the 101th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn how you can refocus on your ideal customer to truly zoom your social business results.

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 10 Tips to refocus your social media marketing and business on the needs of your customer
  • Why you must stop the stupid marketing
  • Don't forget marketing 101
  • The risk of focusing on the wrong key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • Why you must put customer DNA before social media tools
  • How to conduct a quick content audit and content inventory analysis
  • Why you must know your audience

 

Direct download: SZF_101_CustFocus_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:20pm EDT

It's official. We have hit 100 episodes of the Social Zoom Factor podcast! Little did I know when I set out to test the media waters with podcasting July, 2014 how much I would fall in love with the medium.

We did the research and had solid plans for how to integrate podcasting into our business model, ensure we were providing value for our existing social communities and strategically align to overall business and life objectives. We knew the future of podcasting was bright and wanted to be at the forefront of the movement to audio.

I had no idea though that myself and our online community, customers, friends and partners would like it so much that I wouldn't even need to publish a regular blog post for over 7 months!

Have you considered adding podcasting to your marketing and communications platform? Would you like to explore how podcasting can help you better connect with your audience, deliver better content faster and more efficiently and help you zoom results in your business?

Take a listen to the 100th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn how we have used podcasting to ignite our communities, customer relationships, media platform and business.

In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • 10 Reasons why we chose podcasting as a primary marketing and communications medium
  • Benefits of podcasting over other mediums including video and traditional blogging
  • How we got started podcasting
  • Lessons learned during our first 100 episodes
Direct download: SZF_100_Why_Podcast_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:01pm EDT

How much time should you, your CEO, CMO, CTO, CIO, and staff spend on social media?

 

Are you more or less of an expert or qualified for whatever it is you do in business based on the amount of time you spend tweeting, on Facebook or posting photos to instagram?

As a personal brand and human being utilizing social media how much time is enough, too much or not enough? Must we always be connected, plugged in and turned on to the social networks?

Should your CEO, CMO and other executives even be on Twitter?

If these are some of the questions you have, tune into this episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast as I answer them for you.

In this "Get Real" style of podcast today I lay it out there for you in plain english and tell you exactly what I think on these important questions I have been asked by business leaders across the globe hundreds of time.

In this 15 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • Should your CEO be on Twitter?
  • How much time must you spend on time to be an expert?
  • Why being online all day is not a requirement to be a professional in online marketing or social media
  • Why there is only one way to do social media and that is the way that works for you and your business

This is the fourth in a series of conversations that will cover influencer marketing in detail. 

http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/99

Direct download: SZF_099_CEOTWITTERYES_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:19pm EDT

Your worth on this planet is not measured by the number of social media followers you have or your Klout or other influence score. Instead, what matters is the lives you are able to impact and change. 

What really does it mean to be influential? What is influence? How can you establish yourself and your brand as a thought leader? 

Would you like to know how you can you become more influential to better achieve your business and life goals? If yes, then this is the episode of today's Social Zoom Factor podcast is for you. 

In this 15 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • What is the definition of influence
  • What is the definition of social influence 
  • 5 solid tips to become more influential 
  • Why you must focus on helping your audience and community as a top priority 
  • Why you must build a community that helps one another.
  • Why influence requires changing mindset and driving action 
  • Why you must stay true to yourself

 

This is the third in a series of conversations that will cover influencer marketing in detail. Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

Direct download: SZF_098_Influencerworth_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:14pm EDT

It's not news that your customers, online audience and social network communities are bombarded by information. There is not a lack of blogs to read, Google Hangouts to engage in, tweet chats to tweet into, podcasts to listen to or videos to watch.

How do you stand out from the crowd? How do you rise above the noise?

One of the best ways to stand out from the crowd of never ending tweets and mundane advice is to bring together some of the greatest minds in your industry or niche to co-create content that is unique, relevant, timely and of value to your ideal target customer, audience and community.

Co-created content is not just a buzzword or the next new shiny object that will solve your business problems. It's also not something you should run off and implement as a Random Act of Marketing (RAM) disconnected from your overall business goals, objectives and strategic marketing plan.

If developed and implemented correctly co-created content can help you drive efficiencies in developing and taking to market content that will help you ignite relationships, inspire your audience to connect with you organically and achieve your business goals.

Would you like to better understand how to develop co-created content working with influencers and internal employee advocates can help you zoom results your business? If  yes, then this episode of today's Social Zoom Factor podcast is for you.

In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • What is the definition of co-created content
  • Business benefits of co-created content
  • How to develop a co-creation content marketing plan
  • How to work with influencers to create co-created content
  • How to engage employees and external influencers together to create co-created content
  • Finding the sweet spot for co-created content when working with external influencers and internal employee evangelists

This is the second in a series of conversations that will cover influencer marketing in detail. Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

Direct download: SZF_097_CoContent_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:37pm EDT

You have heard the buzzwords surrounding influencer marketing. Everyone is talking about it. People are sharing blog posts, tweets and maybe even writing them without having any real experience developing and driving a real influencer marketing program for a business entity.

Are you one of these marketing or business leaders who really doesn't understand how you and your brand can ever use and benefit from influencer marketing to achieve your better business and marketing goals?

If you answer yes to this question, then this episode of today's Social Zoom Factor podcast is for you.

In this short 20 minute podcast you will learn: 

  • What is the definition of influencer marketing
  • The four main activities for influencer marketing
  • How to find and select influencers to work with your brand
  • How to identify your top influencers
  • Why numbers are not everything. Quality over quantity is the goal.
  • How not to recruit and kickoff a new relationship with influencers.

This is the first in a series of conversations that will cover influencer marketing in detail.

Direct download: SZF_096_Influencer_Marketing_Final_mixdown-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:00am EDT

The Patriots were clearly not the only winner in the Superbowl XLIX. The Social Media SuperBowl set some new records of its own that are pretty exciting for all of us social and marketing geeks!

On this episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast I provide the following as it relates to the social media and brand advertising portion of the SuperBowl XLIX:

  • A recap of the Social Super Bowl statistics including the top social moments, winning and losing brands in gaining attention from the SuperBowl social audience
  • My thoughts on some of the top SuperBowl commercials and why some flew and some flopped
  • 8 takeaways from the SuperBowl brand advertisers we can all learn from and incorporate into our business today

You can listen here or on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

A few stats to wet your social whistle: 

  • For a 30 second commercial during the Superbowl, NBC was seeking $4.4 - $4.5 million!
  • This was the most tweeted SuperBowl event ever with a record breaking 28.4 million tweets during the broadcast, second only to the FIFA soccer semi-final between Germany and Brazil which brought in 35.6 million tweets.
  • Top hashtags used were #SB49, #SuperBowl and #SuperBowlXLIX
  • Demographics were 54.7% male, 45.3% females
  • 50% of the 66 TV commercials aired during the game incorporated a hashtag
  • On Facebook, the SuperBowl was discussed by 65 million people versus 50 million in 2014. It generated 265 million costs, comments and likes.

Take a listen to the podcast to hear the rest of the statistics and the 8 key takeaways we can all learn from!

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunesStitcher or SoundCloud!

Episode Highlights

  • 8 Social Media SuperBowl Advertising Key Takeaways for brands big and small
  • Why emotion still sells
  • People don't forget what the big brands did last year and the year before
  • The importance of making sure your ad does more than drive emotion and also aligns with your brand
  • Balancing having a plan and being human during and after the game online
  • How Volvo creatively cut through the noise of other automobile advertisers
  • The importance of a social listening
  • Why you must have a call to action
Direct download: SZF_095_SuperbowlRecap_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:47am EDT