This year we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the formation of Jester Creative. For 10 years, we’ve been able to consistently provide production services of all sorts – video, web design, digital marketing, print design and training – to a wide variety of clients of all kinds, across many different industries. We feel very fortunate to have worked with so many great people over the years. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past 10 years about business, it’s that the development of the business never stops. You continually need to seek out new opportunities, and it’s a lot of work. We’ve tried many different approaches to drum up business, from traditional marketing to some of the newer ways of doing things. We’ve worked with many clients that found us via Twitter. A lot come from referrals through tools like LinkedIN. Once, I even found a client by having a conversation in the chat tool during a webinar! Owning your own business means you are continuously looking for a job. You have to pound the pavement, put feelers out, respond to opportunities and network all the time. It never stops. Every pitch is like a job interview. But to even get to the place where you’re doing pitches, you have to take a step back. Because you can’t just sit and wait for opportunities to present themselves. You need to find them. And often the road to the perfect opportunity is never a straight line. It requires the ability to recognize the possibility of an opportunity, and then act accordingly. Always be scanning. There are lots of ways to drum up new business. Networking events, content marketing, and searching RFP databases are one way, and they are definitely effective. But there are lots of other places to look too, that might be less obvious. Start with friends and family. Now, I don’t mean going and asking your Uncle Eddy for a job, necessarily. But I do mean being aware of the people you’re close to. If you don’t already know, (and I find a lot of people don’t), endeavour to find out more about the kinds of work your family and extended family does. Check in with friends that you don’t have a work connection with. Keep an eye on these people. Have conversations with them about the kind of work they do, and about the kind of work you do. Go back and revisit former colleagues that you had a good relationship with. Invite them for coffee and a catch up. The secret here is not to pitch them on your business directly – of course, that’s the temptation. The secret is to know a little bit more about what people do, so down the road when they might be looking for someone with your skills, you’re already in their mind. If you don’t talk to people for years, and just sort of fade into the woodwork, they won’t know how to find you when they need you (or they don’t even know to look for you in the first place!). This is one of the reasons I like to stay so active on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. I want to hear about what my friends are up to, so I’m always scanning the territory, checking in and asking questions. I do it mostly because I’m genuinely interested in people and want to know how they are doing. But this type of networking has the secondary benefit of allowing me to be in their minds (and them in mine). Making regular connections with people is the best way to drive referrals. So never stop scanning, but do it from a place of genuine curiosity. It will pay off. When you least expect it. Have you ever had the experience of feeling the pace of your business slow? It’s freaky, eh? Every business goes through peaks and valleys. Some months are insanely busy, and others tend to be slower. The slow down always makes me a little bit nervous. But the thing is, it never seems to last for long. The minute I start to get nervous, the phone starts to ring. The emails start to come in. Is it a miracle? No. It’s the payoff. All of that scanning and questioning and networking and prospecting we’ve been doing helps to ensure that when there is a dip, it won’t be for long. And often, the new opportunities will come knocking when you least expect them. And if they don’t, repeat step 1 until they do. Ideally, you want to be making the calls and having the coffee dates BEFORE you get to the dip. But if you need to, keep scanning until the new opportunities come along. But sometimes…. Patience is a virtue. The most challenging part of being in business, I think, is having the patience to stick with it. At any given time, we are waiting. Waiting to hear back about a proposal we submitted. Waiting for a client to sign a contract. Waiting for deliverables to be approved. Waiting for a cheque. This is all normal, and all just part of being a business owner. But if you think of your business as being a cycle – sometimes you’ll be doing the work, sometimes you’ll be waiting for others to do theirs – it makes it easier to be patient. It doesn’t matter what type of business you have, “hurry up and wait” is just the name of the game sometimes. But I firmly believe that those that have mastered the art of patience are the ones that will prevail. So be patient. Be in the moment. Anticipate the unexpected, and you’ll not only be more successful, but you’ll have a lot more fun along the way. And how about you? What secrets have you learned about marketing your business and bringing new clients in the door? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Five Things to Think About
Weekends are always a great time for unwinding and reflection. Here are a few topics for you to ponder as you head into the end of your week. The Pageview Industrial Complex Ok, call me a Mitch Joel fangirl. I don’t care. This guy just makes me smarter, and he’ll make you smarter too. I admit, this post is so meaty I had to read it a few times for it to really sink in. If you’re at all interested in the future of online advertising and the struggle that brands are having to continue to be relevant in an ever-changing world, then you need to read this. Oh, and while you’re at it, go buy Mitch’s new book, CTRL ALT Delete. Twitter Illustrated Well, thanks to my pal Chris, here’s 45 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. In hilarious Tumblr, cartoonist @pants takes peoples’ random descriptive tweets and illustrates them, bringing them to life. It’s funny, it’s clever and you’ll spend so much time on it, it will get you in trouble with the boss. Sneaking Through a Networking Event Keeping in the “smartypants” theme, here’s a great article from Chris Penn. It’s a little something he wants you to try at your next networking event – a bit of a role reversal, if you will. Try it, and see what happens! Man Pitches iPad App to the Next Web. NAKED. Ok well not entirely naked, but with his iPad strategically placed, this developer puts an interesting twist on pitching a reporter to blog about his new app. And the best part is, the app, 360 Cities, looks like it is pretty cool, too. Watch Your Twitter Life Flash Before Your Eyes This made the rounds of some of my Twitter friends yesterday – it’s a new tool called “Vizify” that scans your Twitter profile and produces you a little 30 second video with a snapshot of the who, what and why of your Twitter account. It’s something fun to do on you coffee break today. So go try it and post your video link in the comments! Here’s mine. So, over to you! Have a great link to something thought-provoking that you’d like to see on next week’s list? Email it to me at murphy.sue@gmail.com ! Have a great weekend!
Do You Know Who Your Real Friends Are?
This past weekend, I was fortunate to spend time with a bunch of friends – some new, some old, and all wonderful. All real. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that I have become much better at picking my friends. I no longer have time for toxic or negative people, and I’m usually able to weed those people out of my life very quickly. This holds true not only for my in-person friends (i.e. the people I see all the time) and my online friends (i.e. the people I don’t see in-person, but whom I still consider friends). I think that these past 6 years or so, as I’ve learned how to be friends with people online, I’ve actually developed an even greater capacity for getting to know people and being able to tell which relationships are worth nurturing and which ones might not turn out to be healthy. This seems sort of counter-intuitive – after all, how can I possibly develop a deep friendship with someone if I’ve never even met them face to face, right? Wrong. These days, my friends basically fall into four categories: People I see in person often, but also who I hang out with online. This includes people like Bob, Stacey, and Dennis. People I have met in person, but mostly see online. This includes people like Jon, C.C, and Diane. People I used to see in person all the time, but now only really see online. This includes friends like Nick, Carol, and childhood friends like Leigh-Anne and Lexie. People I have never met in person, with whom I interact solely online. This includes people like Mark, Becky, and my podcast co-host Stefan. The one thing I have in common with all of the people I’ve mentioned here is that, regardless of how we met or how we spend most of our time communicating these days, I consider them all friends. Good friends. We’re the kind of friends that, if one of us was stranded somewhere, the other would not hesitate to come to the rescue. We’re the kind of friends that, even though distance and years may separate us, we would be there for each other no matter what. We celebrate each others’ highs and support each other in the lows. I care just as much about the online friends that I’ve never met as I do about the ones that I see every week, or the ones that I maybe haven’t seen in a long time or only see once in a while. And I think (I hope!) that they feel the same about me. I feel so fortunate that, because of the Internet, I’ve not only have I been able to make and nurture new friendships with people that I would otherwise have never had the opportunity to meet, but also that I’ve been able to maintain friendships with people that I thought I’d never connect with again. I’ve been thinking about what it is about social media that allows us to keep these deep connections with others going. It used to be that the only way you could really stay in touch with a friend was direct contact – through meeting up with them, talking on the phone or sending letters. But life is busy, and finding the time to keep in touch with friends through these methods was a challenge. Often we’d lose touch with all but our closest pals. Not only have social networks like Facebook and Twitter enabled us to connect more instantly with friends near and far, but they allow us to do something unprecedented – I call it “passive interaction”. You see, not only can I reach out and talk to my friends directly and have a conversation with them through the Web, but I can also passively watch their lives happen right in front of me. I can see when a friend posts something new to their blog. I can look at their Facebook page and see photos of their kids or their last gig or their wedding. I can see status updates that let me know that all is well in their corner of the world and I can take comfort in knowing that they are happy and healthy. And if they need me, I can be there in an instant. We now live in a world that allows friendships to blossom on so many different levels. There’s nothing more exciting to me than meeting an online friend in person for the first time, or how thrilling it is that I’ve been able to watch my best friends from childhood as they have thrived and grown beautiful families. Or how nice it is to know that, even if I don’t see someone every day, or even every week, month or year, that the love that we share with one another as friends is continually blossoming and that our friendship is ever-deepening. Indeed, what a remarkable world we live in. What about you? Do you have any special friendships that have been made more special because of social media?
The Long Road to Building a Community
Community. It’s the buzzword du jour of many a social media guru. Like many other things in the online world, community has become commoditized. There are myriad posts on how to acquire, grow, and influence a community online. “Community Management” is a profession that didn’t even exist 5 years ago. I feel as if we’ve lost sight of what it really means to build and nurture a community. It’s just a catch-phrase now, with a misguided perception that community=popularity=clicks=sales. In other words, if you can build a big community, you’ll sell more widgets. And since we’re all in a hurry to sell more widgets, people are trying to find ways to fast track community building. There are some things you just can’t fast track. Community is one of them. I grew up in two very small, isolated towns – Inuvik, Northwest Territories, and Masset, Haida Gwaii, in British Columbia. When I first moved to these communities, I knew no one. At first, I spent a lot of time by myself. Then, I had one or two friends. As time went on, those friends introduced me to other friends and our community grew, in a very natural way. The relationships grew and became stronger only with time and time spent. And because of the strength and confidence that comes after being part of a community over time, I was eventually the one introducing other new people into the community. Social networks have a capacity to build communities like never before. We can seek out like-minded people not just in our home town, but any where in the world. We can connect with these people, share our experiences, and build profound relationships. Often, connecting to a person means you naturally are able to connect to the people they are connected to, and so on. Community happens quite naturally when it’s not forced. Somewhere along the way we’ve lost that natural feeling. Community in the online world, has become about acquiring people who are influential, so they can help you spread their messages. “Community building” has become quite self-serving, and at times very disingenuous. This morning, for fun, I downloaded my archive of Twitter posts. I went back to 2007 when I was just getting started on Twitter and re-read some of my first posts. Once I got over the initial humiliation about how openly I professed my love for things like Blackberry, Second Life and James Blunt, I discovered something quite fascinating. My initial journey on Twitter was mostly made up of “broadcast” type tweets. This was partly due to the limitations of the tool at that time, and partly due to the fact that many of us were still trying to figure out what to really use Twitter for. But as I scanned, something interesting emerged. My tweets started to be less about myself and more about other people. I started to converse. Where at first, the people I followed on Twitter were only people I’d previously met in person, as time went on, I was including other people in my group, whom I’d never met. I noticed that a little community had very naturally emerged, and not only was I talking to individuals, but the group was expanding because we were introducing each other. What started out on Twitter as me feeling like the new kid, not talking to anyone, eventually evolved into me chatting with a few friends. Then through those friends I met a few other people, and so on. Eventually, I was the one introducing new people to the community. Sounds familiar, eh? Just like those small towns that shaped so much of who I am today, online communities evolve in a very similar way. Sadly, many online “community builders” are doing so because they really only have a mission to sell more widgets. They search for influential people around the topic of their choice, then employ “best practices” to “successfully engage” with those people. There’s nothing sincere about it. There’s nothing organic. There’s little to no serendipity. To me, it defeats the entire purpose of what true community really is. Of course, this isn’t true in all cases. There are lots of examples of people building great, genuine communities. Two that come to mind are the United Way Ottawa and Spin Sucks, both of whom work hard to really foster individual relationships and allow those relationships to help the community become stronger as a whole. So where does one start to build strong communities online? Well, it’s the long way around, but it starts with you, and the connections you can make, individual to individual. Then from there, being open to finding and meeting new individuals of interest. Over time, if you keep reaching out, growth will start to happen. Individuals will connect you to other individuals, who will connect you to others, and so on. You have to stay open to serendipity, and not discount the value of face-to-face meet ups. It all combines to create the whole. Does it take time and effort? Absolutely. But the slow build is what will ensure your community remains strong and viable into the future. I’d love to hear more examples of strong online communities. What are you seeing?
Five Things to Think About
Today is the start of a new series on suzemuse.com. Weekends are always a great time for unwinding and reflection. Every Friday, I’ll help you wind down the week by presenting five things for you to ponder as you head into your weekend. So here you go – the inaugural edition of Five Things to Think About. Tried and False How can we really be sure that the tried and true methods are going to work for us? In today’s tumultuous world, that might not be the best way, says Seth Godin. I tend to agree. Andrew Stanton – the clues to a great story Hat tip to the lovely Dennis Van Staalduinen for this. Andrew Stanton is the creative brain behind some of the best stories around – he wrote Toy Story, Finding Nemo, WALL-E and Monsters Inc, to name a few. In his amazing TED Talk he breaks down what makes a good story – and does it wrapped in a reverse-chronological story. Super cool and have your Kleenex handy if you’re a sap like me. Spreadsheet Artist Paints with Microsoft Excel Prepare to have your mind blown. If you think Excel is just for boring numbers, think again. Tatsuo Horiuchi is a 73 year old artist whose canvas is everyone’s favourite spreadsheet app. I love his quote, ““Graphics software is expensive but Excel comes pre-installed in most computers,” explained Horiuchi. “And it has more functions and is easier to use than [Microsoft] Paint.” Indeed. Hat tip to Bob LeDrew for this one. Introducing Breather I first met Julien Smith at Podcamp Toronto in 2007. The instant he spoke to me for the first time I thought to myself, “This guy is a genius.” And for the past 6 years I’ve known him, he’s proven that time and again. His latest venture is Breather, an innovative startup that promises to bring private space back to big cities. Rolling out in major cities in the US soon, Breather gives members access to private spaces that they can use to work, meet, sleep, or think. And it’s all done through your smart phone. Genius. Friendship and Gut instincts I was thrilled to meet up with a bunch of friends at the Social Capital Conference in Ottawa last weekend. My good buddy Lindsay Bell-Wheeler makes some great thought provoking points about her experience at the conference in this article; meeting people in person for the first time, being an extroverted introvert (cheers to that!) and going with your gut instincts on people. So, over to you! Have a great link to something thought-provoking that you’d like to see on next week’s list? Email it to me at murphy.sue@gmail.com ! Have a great weekend!
The Secret to Getting Executive Buy-In for Social Media
I spent last weekend at the Social Capital Conference in Ottawa. It was a really amazing event, with many great speakers and tonnes of awesome hallway conversations (the best part of most conferences, in my opinion). What I loved about this conference is that I’m getting the sense that we are now entering a new era of social communication. No longer is the crowd seeking the “101” approach – we’re all figuring out how to tweet and how to set up a blog. The conversations at this conference revolved around much more than just the latest new feature of Facebook. The conversations were about how to connect, and tell great stories, and build great experiences for people. They were about relationships, and engaging, and being awesome. It was so refreshing. One of the major themes that came up time and again at Social Capital was that of getting “executive buy-in” when it comes to dedicating time and resources to rolling out digital marketing and social media plans. There are some great challenges in this area, especially in my town, Ottawa, where there are a lot of federal government offices with a lot of bureaucrats who still don’t quite get it. This leaves many communications and marketing teams in a tough position. They know they need to move forward and start being more active online, but many ideas are getting quashed before they even get off the ground. Here’s the thing. Human nature dictates that if one does not have enough information, one will either 1) procrastinate or 2) disapprove. In many organizations (not just government, but non-profit and private sector too), the people at the top of the food chain often don’t have enough information, and they are too busy to seek it out themselves. So, when the lower ranks develop great strategies and plans and come knocking for approval and funding, they often don’t provide enough hard facts, examples, and experiences. The exec doesn’t understand enough make a decision that works in their favour. But there’s hope. One of the speakers at Social Capital was my former co-worker and good friend Mary Pretotto. Mary is the Senior Manager for Social Media Community for Rogers Communications, the largest provider of wireless, cable, internet and phone services in Canada. Mary has spent the past few years spearheading all social media activities at Rogers, and boy does she have her work cut out for her. As you know, these types of service providers tend to have issues keeping all customers happy at all times, and online sentiment of communications service providers is far from rainbows and unicorns most days. But Mary has done some amazing things during her time with Rogers. She’s built a system which allows Rogers to LISTEN to customers, ENGAGE with them and SOLVE their problems. She and her team have been able to cast a very positive light on Rogers and have been able to turn a lot of people into fans, ambassadors and even advocates (including me, and I not only am a customer but used to work for them too ;). What I find curious is that Rogers, which, like many other large corporations, has a massive executive hierarchy and the typical amount of corporate bureaucracy, has been able to embrace this new way of communicating with their customers. They have jumped full-on into social media – blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, blogger outreach, and most importantly, talking to people in a human way. What is super cool is that Mary and her team have managed to convince the higher-ups to take this new way of connecting with customers on, and they are reaping the benefits of doing so. So how did she do it? Well, during her session I asked her, and her response was brilliant. “What we do is make sure that we are sharing information about the things we are doing across departments and to senior management.” By creating a culture that shares openly the activities that go on and the information they are gathering, Mary and her team are able to foster a sense of understanding amongst various people in the company. They aren’t operating in a silo, as many large organizations tend to do. They are plugged into the overall marketing and communications plan for the company, and they are documenting and sharing their activities, failures and successes with others in the organization. As a result, they have managed to create a culture shift where people outside the social media bubble are able to appreciate and embrace the great work that they are doing. And the results are great – while Rogers might not be at the top of everyone’s happy sunshine list all the time, they certainly are making great strides in changing peoples’ opinions and attitudes in a positive way. If you’re going to shift the culture of an organization and get them to start embracing social media, you can’t just exist in your own little silo, working on secret projects that nobody knows about. Lack of understanding by upper management leads to two things, remember? Procrastination and disapproval. So if you want to help them understand, communicate to all levels of the organization what you’re doing. And don’t just file monthly reports. Go talk to people. Share case studies. Show them real examples of the engagement you’re getting and the relationships you’re building. It’s going to be baby steps at first, but keep going. And you just might find that shift starting to happen within your organization too.
It’s Okay to be Ordinary
Think about your best friend. What are some of the best times you’ve had with that person? Sure, vacationing in Cuba or a zip lining adventure are fun. But most of our memorable times with friends are the more ordinary times, right? Watching a great movie together, or sharing a plate of nachos and a drink on a sunny patio are some of the best times. Just chatting quietly at home over a glass of wine can be wonderful. The ordinary times with those we love are what become most special to us. They are the times where we share who we really are. They are the times that memories are made of. So why are we always so desperately trying to be anything but ordinary online? We work hard to stand out, and be unique. We feel pressured to have the most compelling blog and the most engaging conversations all the time. Ordinary just doesn’t cut it anymore if you want to be a success, right? Well, it’s okay to be ordinary, too. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t work to create compelling content, or find ways to be interesting and engaging, especially if you want to grow your audience or leverage your online presence for your business. But think about the ordinary things that happen in your life too. I can see what you do if you post a link to your web site on Twitter. I can understand how much you know if you share your ideas with me. But what if I want to get to know the real you? A photo of the great dinner you ate last night, or the beautiful sunset you saw at the beach could show me a little more about the things that you enjoy. A photo of your daughter’s new pet rat would show me that your family loves animals. A comment on a movie you saw recently would show me what kind of things entertain you. Yes, my friend, it’s the ordinary that allows your true colours to shine. Because while sharing your work and business and all the things that go with it are important so I’ll know what you do, it’s the ordinary that shows me who you really are. Share something ordinary with me, won’t you?
What’s Holding You Back From Telling Your Story?
If there’s a term out there these days that I’m not fussy on, it’s “content marketing”. I totally get that content is king (though I believe that conversation is actually king), but content has become so commoditized lately. It seems like content is now a product or service being sold by myriad “social media consultants” as the be-all and end all of online marketing. Yes, content is vitally important. It gets you search engine love and positions you as an expert and all those wonderful things. But reducing it to simply a product to be bought and sold is not the right approach. The online world is a noisy, noisy place. Figuring out how to make content more than just a product is the single most important thing you can do to stand out from the noise. You need to find the story you want to tell. And you need to figure out how to tell them in a way that sets you apart. That’s not easy to do. And because it’s not easy to do, many of us stop before we even begin. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can produce great content that cuts through the noise. But you have to start somewhere. Read then Write Everyone always says they don’t have time to read – I’m guilty of it myself. But if you ask anyone who puts out vast quantities of content, you’ll discover that all of them, without exception, read voraciously. The only way you can learn to think critically about a topic is to understand various perspectives on that topic. So read everything you can. Hard to find the time? Yep, me too. If you don’t have time (or patience) to sit and quietly read a book for at least 1/2 an hour a day, then get into audiobooks. You can listen in the car, on the bus, at the dog park. My friend Tom even listens to audio books on double speed, so he can get through more books more quickly. As for blogs, if you’re not using a feed reader and subscribing to blogs that interest you, start doing it today. Get Feedly. You can read on your laptop, your tablet, or smart phone. You can do this reading in line at the supermarket, or waiting at the doctor’s office. To really get clear on what you think and the story you want to tell, you simply MUST read. A lot. Only then will the concepts start to flow. Just Start Writing I got up this morning and didn’t know what I’d be blogging about. I just knew that I wanted to put a post out. I scanned through my ideas list and nothing really struck me. So I opened my page and just wrote the first thing that came to me, as the title of the post. (By the way, I changed the title halfway through writing this- the rule is, there are no rules!). Then, I just started riffing. It’s not entirely stream of consciousness, but it is the culmination of all of the ideas and experiences I’ve been absorbing the past few days. Try coming up with a headline, and then just riffing on it. It takes practice, but after a while it gets easier. Some of my most successful blog posts have been the result of me just riffing on a subject. So just sit and write. Don’t wait for the perfect time or the perfect inspiration, because inspiration doesn’t have a schedule and it only comes from one thing – hard work. Just Hit Publish I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating…at a certain point in the process, you have to just suck it up and hit that publish button on what you’ve done. (In fact, I wrote a whole e-book about it.) Every time we interview someone for our podcast, every time I push the Publish button on a blog post, every time I hit record on a video, there’s a little voice inside me that tries to say, “Nobody is going to read this. Your questions are silly. Who wants to watch this?”. But I do it anyway. Sometimes nobody reads what I write. Sometimes the question doesn’t come out exactly the way I want. Sometimes the video doesn’t get watched. But I suck it up and do it anyway. The process of telling a story is one thing. But that only gets you so far. You HAVE to get over your fear and get it out there while it’s still fresh. Will you feel ridiculous? At first, probably. But it’s like hearing your own voice on a recording or seeing yourself on TV. It feels really weird, makes you cringe a little. But if you do it enough, eventually you get used to the feeling. And the rewards to your business, your relationships with others, and your life if you do hit publish? Second to none. So, what holds you back from telling your story? Let’s talk.
My Online Reading List
Thanks to my friend Brad Filippone for the idea for today’s post! You can follow him on Twitter or check out his blog all about the playwright Thomas Dekker. Well, with only a few short weeks left before the demise of our beloved Google Reader, I’m now working with Feedly for my online reading (though I discovered a neat little MacOS app the other day called RSS Notifier that I’m also pretty keen on.) Once I got everything set up in Feedly (they make it easy with their Normady project), I looked through my feeds and discovered a bunch of stuff I wanted to get rid of. After doing a purge of old and unwanted feeds, I was left with just the sites that I find most valuable. Today I am offering a selection of some of my favourite online reading sources. I encourage you to subscribe to them and enjoy! Christopher S. Penn – Awaken Your Superhero Want to be a smarty pants? Subscribe to Chris. He posts several times per week on productivity, digital marketing, and wraps it all around philosophical life lessons. Chris is a very smart guy, an awesome presenter and a great guy to read while you sip your morning coffee. Copyblogger The definitive source for writers of online content, Copyblogger digs deep into content marketing topics of all kinds. Many posts are in the form of list posts, but there’s never any fluff on this site. Just practical tips and guidance that will make you a better copywriter and more effective at content marketing. Dumb Little Man – Tips for Life This is one of my all time favourite blogs. Having a down day? Head over to Dumb Little Man and receive practical tips and wisdom on living a better life. It might be just the kick in the pants you need. I know it often is the one I need. Science and Story I have been friends with Arlene Smith for literally decades. She’s an amazing writer, and has a way of wrapping a story in a spiritual lesson that I just love. Her posts are brief and poignant, and you can expect a couple of great gems every single week from her. FoodiePrints With the food blog to end all food blogs, my friends at FoodiePrints, a.k.a. Don and Jenn Chow, are a food blogging force to be reckoned with. Several times per week, you’ll see FoodiePrints share their experiences as Ottawa foodies – from reviews, to recipes, and even food news! Their photos are drool-worthy and their stories are charming. Content Marketing Institute Back to business for a bit – if you’re into content marketing at all, you need to subscribe to this blog. It is chock full of great concepts, ideas, and new things to try. I learn something from this site almost every single day. Mom Pop Pow Diane and Steve Brogan are two of my favourite people. They are a charming, lovely couple and remind me a lot of my own parents. Their blog, Mom Pop Pow, is a reflection of their daily life. Sometimes you’ll see a new, delicious and healthy recipe they’ve just tried, other days you’ll see a video book review, and some days Diane shares these wonderfully reflective and touching snippets of her experiences. All in all, it’s a wonderful accompaniment a cup of tea on a chilly morning. So that’s it – some of my favourite picks from my online reading list. Give these sites a try and let me know what you think. Do you have some favourite sites? Please add them to the comments below.
Become a Social Media Smarty Pants
Check the end of this post for a special giveaway! I am a huge advocate of training and education, especially when it comes to gaining a better understanding of the world of digital marketing. While there’s a certain point where you need to just hit publish, there’s also a point where being in a classroom (virtual or otherwise) can really help you to get focused on the right areas to move a digital strategy forward, or glean a few new ways of doing things. It’s why my company has spent so much time developing a series of digital marketing courses that are more than just “how to tweet”. Having a strategic approach to building and sharing great content is really important. Being smart about how you use your time online to accomplish business and personal goals is vital. Being in a classroom has great benefits, but there’s nothing quite like going to a great conference. Being able to spend focused time learning from the top people in your industry is a wonderful way to learn and extend your knowledge. It can take you from a basic knowledge of something into the realm of becoming a real smarty pants about it. And that’s a good thing. But even more than that, I find the hallway conversations at conferences to be absolutely invaluable. Let’s face it – we are all busy people and we don’t always have a lot of time for in-person interaction. Conferences provide a great outlet for being able to meet and interact with friends new and old that we may only otherwise interact with online. I try to make it to at least one or two conferences per year, and I’m usually pretty picky about the ones I attend. They tend to be smaller – rather than thousands of people milling about, I stick to the ones that are only a few hundred deep. I look for sessions that dig deep too – focusing on more than just “Facebook 101”, but getting to the heart of the latest trends and topics. I check out the speakers too – visiting their web sites to really understand who they are and if I’m lucky, watching a few of their presentations online to get a sense of what I might glean from seeing them live. I head into the conference with a blank note book and an open mind, and I’m rarely disappointed. May 31st and June 1st in Ottawa (my hometown), there’s a conference happening that meets all of the above criteria, the Social Capital Conference. It’s not too big, not too small, and has a great lineup of speakers too. Smarty pantses like Bob LeDrew, Mark Blevis, Gini Dietrich and Danny Brown will be there, among many others. I’m thrilled to be part of it too – on Friday May 31st I’m doing a morning workshop on digital storytelling, and in the afternoon that day, I’ll be working with my esteemed colleagues Anthony Wong and Shawn MacDonnell on an interactive session that brings together digital storytelling, video and social into one epic 3 hour, hands-on workshop. Then on Saturday, I’m honoured to be joining Eden Spodek, Martin Waxman, and Diane Begin on a panel called “Social Media Goes to College”, where we’ll be discussing the merits of social media education. If you’re around Ottawa next week, I strongly recommend you hit up Social Capital. There are still a few spaces available in the workshops on Friday, and there’s going to be an awesome crowd in attendance on the Saturday. You can get your tickets here. And wouldn’t you know, I just happen to have one full conference ticket to give away. This will get you into both the workshop day (Friday May 31st) and the conference day (Saturday June 1st). It’s a $329 value! All you need to do is leave a comment below (including a valid email address!) telling me why you’d love to come to Social Capital. I’ll put all the commenters’ names in a hat, and will draw the winner on Monday May 27th. Hope to see you at the conference! UPDATE: Congratulations to Don Chow and Lisa Mounteer who were our lucky winners!