Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business
Isn’t it funny, the things people say without really thinking?
I was listening to the radio recently, as some experts were discussing how good a recently deceased artist was, when one of them said;
“history will judge him!”
I disagree!
Surely the future will judge him?
My FriendFeed buddy Robert Scoble announced last night, that he was going to unfollow around 105,000 people on Twitter. He has his reasons for doing this, most of which are valid in my opinion.
Robert also publicly said (very generously) that he now realises he was wrong, when he said that I should not have reset my Twitter account way back in January. That meant a lot to me, as Robert’s one of the brightest people I know, and I value his opinions a great deal.
Robert’s decision comes after other well-known Twitter users unfollowed their followers too, including; Loic Le Meur, Jason Calacanis and Natali Del Conte. By the way, all of these people simply unfollowed their followers. I completely reset my account – zero followers / zero following – and started again from scratch.
I reset my Twitter account because of the time it took me to deal with all the spam and ‘noise’, that came from following everyone back, when I was the 3rd most followed person in England. Back then, almost everyone, including a man I really respect Guy Kawasaki, was telling people that the ‘right’ way to use Twitter, was to follow everyone who follows you. I disagreed with Guy and with ‘the crowd’ on this.
I believed then, as I do now, that different people should use their Twitter accounts in different ways, based on what they want to achieve. In fact, if you have the same business model as Guy, following everyone who follows you might be the right thing to do.
It might not be the right thing for you to do: Just because ‘the crowd’ are all taking one piece of advice, does not make it automatically the best advice for you or the right thing for you to do. I am not talking about Twitter here, I’m talking about the commercial importance of having faith in your own judgement.
If you know your subject, have done your research and you truly believe that you are right, do it!
When Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library became an Internet star, hundreds or maybe thousands of people tried to imitate him. Almost overnight, I saw wine expert websites and blogs popping up everywhere.
I started getting followed on Twitter and FriendFeed by wine experts. This sudden rush of wine experts everywhere was incredible – However:
That’s because Gary was the first – or rather, he was the first wine expert to maximise social media. By the way, I don’t drink alcohol and even I became aware of Gary’s work really quickly – such is his reach and influence. I’m a diet Coke person, which is a pity as Gary emailed me recently and offered to take me out for a beer. (Yes a beer, not wine!)
I was at a football game earlier this year, when I noticed that there was one person wearing a bright yellow shirt, in an area of the stadium, where they were surrounded by about 5,000 people wearing red shirts. That one person was more noticeable by themselves, than the other 5,000 people combined.
Just like the person in the bright yellow shirt, true originality stands out. It commands our attention.
There’s no point in someone trying to be the next Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary himself only succeeded, because he allowed his own unique style and personality to come through.
So, does this mean that we can’t learn from pioneers? Of course not! Google was not the first search engine; they actually came to the party relatively late. However, they did have a uniquely valuable approach to search. It was their unique value that started them on the road to success. If they had simply copied what AltaVista or Yahoo were doing back then, they would have failed.
If we want to stand out or we want our business to stand out – we need to break away from what the crowd are doing. Yes, this requires a lot of confidence and courage, but the rewards can be amazing!
I have just updated the blog’s ‘about’ page and was going to include some personal information about me, which is not business related.
Then I realised that if the information just gets added to the about page, almost none of my regular readers will see it! I like to know a little about the people who’s work I read and I know others do too. So, here are 6 things about me that you probably didn’t already know.
On the day my son Lewis was born, (a month before he was due), a story appeared in a UK newspaper with the headline; “Jim may have to make an early exit!” The story related to a comment I made to a reporter, about a talk I was giving at The London Stock Exchange building for AWD PLC. I said that it was my last speaking engagement because my wife was 8 months pregnant. The newspaper is a great keepsake for when Lewis grows up.
I ‘died’ briefly, when I was 17 years old; after receiving three scull fractures during a fight, where one of my assailants was armed with an axe. I grew up dirt poor, on a London council housing estate – very much on the ‘wrong side of the tracks’. Although blessed with loving parents, I got in with the wrong crowd and almost paid the ultimate price. I was 21 years old when I turned my life around (that was 23 years ago); thanks to the support of my mother, father and older brother.
Billy Connolly, the famous comedian / actor is a cousin of mine. I only found out about 15 years ago, when visiting another cousin for the first time, in Galway, Ireland. I noticed pictures of Billy Connolly on the wall and then realised that the pictures of Billy were actually taken in the house. I have never met Billy but those I know who have, tell me he’s a really nice fella!
I once coached a BBC Radio presenter live on air! Lara King was hosting her first ever solo radio show and was extremely nervous, so the interview she had planned with me on her launch show, became a live on air coaching session. Lara is a real professional, a genuinely lovely person and it was always a joy to work with her.
I have been in love with boxing all my life, both inside the ring and outside. Though I never fought professionally, I have sparred with scores of professional fighters and have a dedicated boxing gym at home. This is one of the reasons I don’t drink alcohol or smoke – It made training so much harder! I have just restarted training (last week) and need to lose a STACK of fat, after a serious shoulder injury stopped me from training for almost 5 months.
I own (and write for) The Tech News Blog. The blog is just a year old and has already been referenced as a news source by many of the best known people in tech news, including; Leo Laporte’s TWiT network, Dave Winer’s Scripting News, The BBC, C|net and ReadWriteWeb.
So, those were six random things about me, which usually don’t fit into the topics I cover. I hope you found them interesting and that maybe you feel you know me a little better now too.
I have a question for you. “Why does one person’s recommendation carry a lot of weight, when another person can give the same recommendation, yet few people take any notice?”
The answer, of course, is influence.
The recommendation of an influential person is powerful and in business it has a huge commercial value too. It’s why a sports star will get paid millions; just to be seen wearing and endorsing a brand like Nike or Adidas. Their influence is so strong that it changes the way people actually feel about the brands they endorse. As a result, the brand makes more sales.
One of the great things about sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, is that they give you an insight into how influential some people are – online at least! On FriendFeed, I have seen people like Robert Scoble and Louis Gray generate hundreds and hundreds of comments; just by asking a quick question – such is their influence.
On Twitter, I have seen similar results. On Sunday, for example, Chris Brogan sent out the message below.
When I checked my blog stats for Sunday, I saw a significant spike in visitors here from Twitter. The interesting thing was the unusually high percentage of Chris’ ‘followers’, who clicked that link. It was around 400% higher than I usually see, when someone ReTweets my posts. In other words, Chris’ followers were 4 times more likely to click a link he sent, than I usually see. His Twitter followers clearly trust him to provide interesting links. Now, I am the first to admit that this was a snapshot, but I see similar patterns repeated all the time.
I have a friend, who has recommended my marketing services to seven of her contacts. All seven contacts called me and within just one call, all seven became clients. Each one told me how much they respected Sarah’s recommendation and endorsement of my services. In other words, before I even spoke to these people, Sarah’s recommendation had already reassured them that I would get the sales results they needed.
Influence, is a huge subject – way too big to cover in a single blog post. However, there’s a great tip I found years ago, which we can all use, in order to help us understand how to increase our commercial influence.
The tip is simply to study two types of people: Those who are highly influential and also those who lack influence.
You will quickly see that there are certain things, which people within each group have in common. For example, I find that people with commercial influence are usually far more knowledgeable in their field than their counterparts. They are also excellent at developing trust.
Okay – Now it’s your turn! Please share your thoughts regarding influence.
Since yesterday’s post, I’ve had a number of emails from people; wanting to know where I got the beautifully designed Twitter icon I used in the post and also in my sidebar.
Both the Twitter icon and the FeedBurner one I use on the blog, come from a blog called IconTexto. They are part of a set of 28.
By the way, I am not affiliated in any way with that blog or the designer, I just think this set of icons are superb.