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Marketers are obsessed with size. Especially size of market, and they often spend billions of dollars chasing the biggest market of all: New Customers. And yet, rock stars follow a completely different marketing path. Instead of marketing to New Customers, they go out of their way to create experiences and engagement with their biggest fans.
Over the past few years there has been a big surge in the use of the term 'content marketing'. And really, the idea that your content IS your marketing. As social media usage has become mainstream, we've all become content creators.
Over the past few months I've been sharing with you what I've been learning from the process of creating my book Think Like a Rock Star, and then marketing it, etc. Today I wanted to give you an update on how the book's doing and also talk about my marketing efforts to this point.
I have a friend that runs a small retail business and a couple of months ago I gave her a copy of Think Like a Rock Star. She loves the book and the last two times I've been in to see her, we've been discussing ways that her business could leverage social media to drive sales, and cultivate fans.
Over the past 5 years or so, there has been a rush by companies to understand how to use social media tools. Customers are using these tools, so brands rationalize that they need to learn how to use these tools to better sell to those customers via those tools.
"I just said we gotta do this, this is at the heart of the brand. We've got a real problem in losing control of our ability to talk to friends." - Former Maker's Mark CEO Bill Samuels Jr. on how he pitched the idea of launching a brand ambassador program to his Board of Directors.
The last few weeks I have been thinking a lot about this. It seems a lot of the free social media tools that we are 'renting' have come under fire, or disappeared. Google Reader went away, disrupting how readers subscribe to and receive our posts.
I'm super-pumped to announce that Mitch Joel will be joining #Blogchat tonight at 8pm Central! Mitch will chat with us about how he does blogging, as well as his new book, Ctrl-Alt-Delete! Here's the schedule: 1 - 8:00-8:15PM - We talk about where Mitch gets his blogging ideas from.
We're now in the 2nd half of 2013, and I'm pretty excited because it means I'm about to hit the road to present Think Like a Rock Star! I'll be presenting TLARS at several stops mainly in the Deep South for the rest of the year.
I help businesses of all sizes learn how to better incorporate social media into their marketing efforts and grow their business and cultivate fans. Perhaps the most common question I hear (especially from small businesses) is 'How active should we be with social media?'
Earlier this month I was the closing keynote for an all-day social media event that the AMA held. I presented Think Like a Rock Star to close the event. Due to some technical issues, I couldn't appear live, and had to record the hour-long presentation.
I've been blogging here for just over 4 years now. I love blogging, but one of the things that has always frustrated me about blogging is that I have never been able to draw a direct line between my blog and a quantifiable business benefit.
Tonight at 8pm Central, Jay Baer will join #Blogchat to co-host and talk about his new book Youtility, which launches this week! Here's what we'll be discussing: From 8:00-8:15PM, Jay will talk about Youtility and what it means for your marketing and your business (it also applies to anyone that creates content).
I'm beginning to work on my first set of digital products to offer here, and I'm pretty excited. It's something I've been wanting to do for a couple of years now, but I've put off doing it because I was scared of getting started.
I offer phone consultations on marketing, social media and blogging strategy, and my standard price for these consultations is $150 for a 30-minute call, and $250 for an hour-long call. At that price, the average customer is a mid to large-sized company, and typically they buy them in blocks and have monthly or weekly calls.
Tonight at #Blogchat we're going to apply the Think Like a Rock Star principles to building your blog's readership and fans. In the book, I talk about the four reasons why rock stars have fans instead of customers. You can apply each of these areas to your own blogging efforts to grow your readership and actually create fans of your blog.
Over the past few weeks I've been adding dates to my speaking schedule for the Fall, which you can find here. I am planning on speaking 2-3 times a month for the rest of the year. As you can see, I have one date already locked down for most of the months.
We'll have FIVE Sundays in June, as well as one rock star co-host! Here's the lineup: June 2nd (Tonight!) - We'll be discussing How to Use Topic Buckets For Your Business Blog . This will be an expansion of last week's post on the same topic.
Note: This is a guest post from Paper.li's Kelly Hungerford, who heads up Marketing and Communications for the brand. I asked Kelly to write this post for several reasons, but mainly because she's been a huge supporter of me and my book Think Like a Rock Star for months now.
1 - There has to be a clear benefit for the reader 2 - It has to be easy for the reader to perform the desired action 3 - There has to be a clear benefit to you the blogger I will tell you upfront ...
A couple of years ago I talked about the concept of using Topic Buckets on your blog. The process is pretty simple. You pick 3-5 main topic areas that you will cover on your blog, and each one is a 'bucket'. Then you write posts that are related to each bucket.
I've always tried to be brutally honest with y'all when it come to money in this space because: 1 - It helps you trust the content I create here 2 - Being transparent is more comfortable for me than being vague 3 - Too many people in this space have
I recently got this email from a reader of Think Like a Rock Star that's interested learning how to use social media to connect with her fans and market a 'cool' product.
Sara Rosso is definitely what you would call a 'superfan' for Nutella. So much so that in 2007, Rosso decided that the chocolate-hazlenut spread deserved its own holiday and created World Nutella Day. Over the past 6 years, the 'holiday' has grown into first a community for fellow Nutella fans, and now a movement celebrating the brand.
I didn't realize how bright the lights would be. I was sitting on stage, in a room of 500 or so people, but when I looked out at the crowd, all I saw were those blinding white lights. It was 2008, and I was the moderator of a packed session in a ballroom at South By Southwest.
