Social Media

Creating Chief Content For Your Landing Pad

Garth Beyer

Your blog is your landing pad. All properties and social media outlets change without your control, but not your blog.

Recently I’ve blogged about independent PR blogs and how to face Goliath, the mass content producing sites like Pursuitist. I was privileged recently to sit in on a talk by Christopher Parr, founder of Pursuitist. I heard the story of how he made Pursuitist what it is now, a success.

Worth noting, not once did he say he couldn’t have done it without the help of all his contributing writers (group blog model). Perhaps he may think it, but I would still respond with disagreement. He could have done it by himself too. Why do I believe that?

Below you will find a list of ways he swears by to create blogging success. Bare with me 10 seconds before you scroll down to read them. As you do read them, ask yourself if you could do the action by yourself. Matters of speed and time aside, it is purely a matter of what you think you can and can’t do. You can take on the content machines. You can.

 

 

 

 

Chief Content Officer Takeaways:

  • Engage your community with questions.
  • Share amazing photos.
  • Create content that can be easily consumed on mobile devices.
  • Keep it “human.” Don’t be a bland corporation.
  • The best posts or videos come from the frequently asked questions people have.
  • Interviews make great content.
  • Share original, behind-the-scenes photos of you and your team.
  • Create interesting, brief product and service demos with videos.
  • Testimonials are great, especially if you can highlight the hero, your customer, and not your product.
  • Point out the great people in your community with videos and interviews.
  • Deliver instruction and teach someone how to do something. Create a “how to” series.
  • Keep publishing, keep creating great content. Don’t give up.

 

What do you think? Think you’re up for it. I do.

And again. You don’t need to neglect the benefits of them, by all means participate, but also withhold your own landing pad.

 

Stay Positive & Imagine David And Goliath As Friends

My Concern With Google+

Garth Beyer

Google+

An incredible change is occurring with Abercrombie & Fitch and they have nothing they can do about it.

There’s a guy giving Abercrombie & Fitch a brand readjustment by giving their clothes to the homeless.

You can watch the short video here.

By all means, participate in the activity, but the activity isn’t exactly what I’m writing about.

Did you notice at the end of the video he suggested that you share the video on Google+ “if you actually use it.” That should frighten people not using Google+. It certainly concerns me.

It’s not the first time people have joked about Google+. And after the frustration of needing a Google+ account to use YouTube, there’s even more hatred directed at it.

Yet, the more we (yes, I’m guilty) hate on Google+, the more Google+ establishes its niche. We are reinforcing the idea of those using Google+ are “in” and anyone else who didn’t push through Google+’s low, doesn’t deserve their attention.

You can look at Google+ like the rich girl analogy made by Kate Knibbs,

“Google+ is like that rich girl with all of the coolest toys who tries to throw a party but everyone’s already made plans to hang out at their usual place and besides, she’s getting a little too eager. And although the numbers do indicate that there is a growing interest in using the network, they may be grossly exaggerating how many people consider Google+ a social media destination.”

Or, you can expect the rich girl to begin inviting the average kids, the drifters, those she doesn’t know and doesn’t have plans. That can be quite a number. And if the rich girl so wishes, she can resent all those who didn’t give her place a try instead of their “usual place.”

You’re better off getting “in” now, even if you have to develop a dual personality. You might not be let in later.

 

Stay Positive & Why Yes, I Did Post This To My Google+ Account…

Photo credit

The Big Sort

Garth Beyer

William McGuire, developer of the Model of Persuasion, says people who are exposed to information that they want to pay attention to, want to comprehend, want to accept, and want to retain, then take action on that exposure. What the model fails to represent is the looping effect; that people then act on finding more information that corresponds with their beliefs. This is the method used by political candidates. Could “actions” also consist of surrounding oneself with other likeminded people, other people who vote the same? Bill Bishop would say yes.

Bishop says that despite how diverse and polarized America has become, the places we live are crowded with people who live, think, and most importantly vote like we do. He goes on to say how the second half of the twentieth century brought social specialization, the displacement of mass culture by media, organizations, and associations that were both segmented and more homogenous. Combine this with historical efforts of gerrymandering, it’s no wonder people live in communities where others have similar views – especially on politics, the hottest button of all beliefs.

The largest turn of trends comes post-materialism. There are two parts to this which Bishop covers. The first is that materialism is viewed as a value-system. Given the industrial revolution and consumerist society, people no longer have to worry as much about survival. As a result, attention is turned toward post-materialistic movements (civic political ideas). The second part of post-materialism is the idea that “every economic order grows to a state of maximum efficiency, while simultaneously developing internal contradictions and weaknesses that contribute to its systemic decay.”

In the end, Bishop notes that, “homogeneity may be a perk of the unprecedented choice our society offers – but it also breeds economic inequality, cultural misunderstanding, political extremism, and legislative gridlock.” Arguing for the middle ground in politics is like trying to write a completely objective article; it’s been pursued but never accomplished. Dare I suggest that Bishop is taking a similar outlook on The Big Sort as does the news on any topic: negative. I believe there is a route that Bishop could take that could exploit The Big Sort in a way that it benefits, not only the community, but the entire nation – despite polarization, despite the changing/declining economy, despite the inequality.

Americans are prone to move forward and construct lifestyles – as well as political realms – that work off their polarizing beliefs. While I’m no economist, I think Bishop copped out. There are two routes of further research and foresight he could make to support (or counter) his theory of The Big Sort. First, if The Big Sort is making a large enough impact as he states, then why not seek ways that America can leverage it? Secondly, if The Big Sort is leading to such turmoil, then what’s next? Sure, Bishop does a brilliant job of explaining The Big Sort, supporting it with endless research, but if I held the cure to cancer, just holding it doesn’t do much good.

What’s Next For Internet

Garth Beyer

You already know my obsession with questions. (No? click here) So when I was asked a question that I had no immediate answer for, that I had to really sit down and ruminate on, I got excited.

A phenomenal freelancing reporter and great friend of mine, David Douglas, had asked me what I thought was next for Internet. Well, here is my response.

What’s Next For Internet

Better question is what new way can we connect more? People have yet to completely open up.

Since the digital revolution began in the early 90’s, a stigma has grown around face-to-face interaction. Even though we feel more and more connected online, people still have a difficult time connecting in person. Despite this setback, our minds remain open, we’ve become natural learners, and we continue to discover the extent of the simultaneously happening information revolution.

What’s next for the internet is based on our next need, desire, and the demand which I can tell you in a moment. First let’s look at how we started and where we are now.

– We began with individuals creating specific content for small groups.

– Then individuals began creating general content for a general audience.

– Then groups began creating specific content for other similar groups.

– Then we entered the age we are in now – the age of mass: mass groups creating mass content to other mass groups.

With recent years, the internet – side by side with the mass – has developed individuals who are creating specific content to specific groups, essentially connecting, creating tribes.

What’s next for the internet is what will assist us in partnering, grouping, and associating more than ever to create ultimate forms of content. Not just any content – content created for the peculiar, the individualized,  the artists. The internet has provided us unlimited information and it has provided us unlimited connection, but it has yet to harmoniously combine the two.

Of course, it’s not just about creating a medium that synchronizes information and connection, it’s also about creating more new groups to continue the cycle. What comes next won’t be something that can be monopolized when its goal is to continuously reproduce more of its kind.

Internet will have to morph into a medium where small groups get together to build on each others content with the assistance of other groups – not necessarily growing with them because they are focusing on a new idea already, but assisting in their artistic growth. It’s about the associated life in which the goal is to exit, meaning that the goal is to develop a new group, a new tribe.

It’s not just a melting pot of special people and great ideas, it’s artistic alchemy.

 

Stay Positive & What’s Next For Internet Can Be Predicted, What Will Be Produced From It, I Can’t Even Begin To Imagine

Garth E. Beyer

Why It’s So Hard To Connect

Garth Beyer

We wear too many accessories. Too much cologne. Too many patches, badges, and pins. We can’t connect using these mediums. Just because you share the same band as someone, doesn’t make you connected. It’s simply a visual effect, a momentary lapse of our barrier.

Look at what you wear, look at your desktop background, look at your Facebook profile. Trying to connect to someone by asking them their “favourites” is like selfishly stating that you’re going to have a ham sandwich two weeks from now. Just because you will, doesn’t mean you will have someone else to eat a ham sandwich with you. There is no connection in it, or in favorites, emblems, and markers.

The stylization of our lives, in comparison with others, is just a way to calculate the possibility of having a better time in the future – it, in no way, guarantees there WILL be a future.

The internet is playing a dictative role in preventing connections. Yes, you read that right. In one sense, on face value, the internet is corrupting the connection (or in many cases, preventing it completely). It allows us to emblematize ourselves and to show our aspirations, but it’s where all talk and no action happens.

The internet has sucked us into what I plainly call, The Search. The internet strives off of us being on it. And when you think about what we search for on the internet, we can Google a question, but we’re not looking for an answer. No. What we are looking for is a connection to the people who are asking the same question and a connection to the people who are answering that question. (Neither of which – the question or the answer – can provide. They are again, merely symbols providing an illusive connection.)

Because of The Search, we’ve been programmed to think that there will always be someone we can “connect” with better. So we ask different questions, search for different answers, IM this person, comment on this post, etc,. We explore the social networks, follow people, “like” pages, and view profiles to see if the person or group will be a suitable match.

And, of course, once we find someone. We begin our search for the next person or group without creating a real connection.

This in turn, plays an effect on our real world, the unplugged world. For years people would advocate that you never settle for anything but the best: in relationships, in friendships, in partnerships, in business, and so on. Now the current trend, the dominating idea in the physical world, is that there is always someone who you can “connect” with on a greater level.

The Search mentality equated with the online world, has now become the mentality of the unplugged world. This leaves us with the reason why it’s so hard to connect with people.

– continuation of post is open for discussion –

 

Stay Positive & Maintain A Positive-Realist Mindset, The Online World Is Not A Utopia

Garth E. Beyer

Idea Day!

Garth Beyer

I have a lot of ideas for businesses or publicity acts and what not. Here’s one I wrote about already. Here’s a handful more.

  • Music media channels. One person puts a music channel on (similar to Pandora stations) and other people can tune in to the same station and chat about it. Where music professionals go.
  • A social media site that requires you to have more than 400 characters to post something. A place where you must find meaning in everything.
  • Create a magazine that you can only find the magazine content in the magazine, and the online content, online. Freshtent: Will never find the same story in a different tent.
  • New designed paper shredder. Cross cut’s as you put it in +++++
  • Cop-locater Facebook page. Use of Google maps to see where people have marked a cop car in the last hour.
  • Abercrombie & Fitch
  • Dog leash shoelaces: like the retractable 32 foot dog leash, but picture it in a shoe. So in winter when you toss your shoes the laces don’t get soaked in the melting snow because they retracted back into the shoe.
  • Picture texting: You take a picture and you can put your text inside it. For example: Take a picture of a billboard and you can write what you want in the billboard.
  • eReaders sectioned like real books in a library. Grab and check out an eReader. Now you hold access to 50 books on the subject you want, not just one.
  • President can provide a photo filter for people to upload their social media profile images to represent the President that they want to win. For example
  • Nook Nook Instead of looking for a book and sitting down at Barnes & Noble, why not have a lounge area stocked with eReaders where you can just sit down, pick up an eReader and browse their online collection of books.
  • A restaurant creates an area online where they post the days and times waitresses will be working so that frequent eaters can either 1. Reserve to be waited on by a certain waitress or 2. Can go there and request to have the same waitress as last time. – I’m not being discriminatory: waiter/waitress, whichever. –

Stay Positive & Keep The Ideas Coming

Garth E. Beyer

One Thousand And One Nights (Of Media)

Garth Beyer

If you’re looking for a great story-teller, there is no one other to look to or compare to than the unbelievably talented Scheherazade (Shuh-Hare-uh-zahd). This goddess of storytelling delayed death by one thousand and one nights simply by telling stories. She did what every reporter, journalist, and center of the media dreams of, and for the same reasons; neither wants to die, be fired, or be humiliated. So what means of attack do they use against death in all its shapes and forms?

Storytelling.

How important is storytelling?

For the eBook I have written called Start Schooling Dreams, I had asked Karthik Puvada, creator and writer of BeThePurpleCow, if he could add just one class to the school curriculum, what class would it be? Immediately, he responded “Storytelling”. I was not satisfied with his single word response, so I pried more to get the following;

“Martin Luther King, Jr.  Steve Jobs. Gandhi. Mark Twain.  Pablo Picasso.

What’s one thing they all have in common?  Yes, they were geniuses in their own fields, but they also were brilliant in something else too.

Storytelling.

They told influential stories all throughout their lives. The stories that defined them. The stories that captivated millions of people around them. Some ended up as iconic books, some as revolutionary civil protests, some as incredible gadgets and some as legendary paintings. But they were all various forms of stories, more importantly ideas.”

You may now be wondering what this has to do with media. Since the introduction of media, the stories of Scheherazade and the incredible world changers that Karthik used as examples have only been amplified. That is what the media is capable of doing with a story – it amplifies it. Storytelling in the media takes on the cumulative effects theory in the sense that the urge for you to consume what the media is presenting is built up to the point of consumption rather than occurring immediately. Just as well, it can shift your views, beliefs, judgments and even your character as easily as it gets you to consume a product.

Like the stories of Scheherazade, the media uses all five elements of story to make a successful impact on your beliefs.

Exposition: the introduction of the topic the media is presenting

Rising action: the media provides specific information to the audience to build tension, suspense, and intrigue

Climax: what the media truly wants you to know and approve

Falling action: what the next steps are for you to take

Resolution: taking those actions and resonating them

Extraordinary storytelling and utilization of the media to amplify it can make you a legend, a millionaire, an artist, and a leader of social change.

My question to you is would you rather watch and listen to Steve Jobs tell a story or a misinformed underpaid reporter? Your answer shows exactly how good storytelling in the media affects what media content you consume.