I talk about how and why I now have transcriptions under many of my video posts.

Transcription Services.

How to structure your social media and other online promotion for your documentary.

YouTube Link.

More on the Story/Content/Offer format.

So you’re going to get yourself a website to help promote you and your art. What should you have on it?

More on blog content plans and guidelines.

More on the story/content/offer formula, and applying it.

If you’re tasked with using Twitter and Facebook to promote discounts or offers, how should you respond?

It sounds like I sort of contradict myself at the end when I say you should be engaging, after talking for several minutes about how to use Twitter if you don’t have time to be, well, engaging.

I meant be interesting. Be exciting. Be worth paying attention to.

Transcript:
Sings: Video Monday, video Monday, it’s a Monday so here’s a video!

So today on Video Monday I want to very quickly talk about, kind of a related conversation I had with a friend of mine who’s been to some degree tasked with being on Twitter without being able to have the resources, whether it’s money or human, to do it the best (or what I would suggest to be the best way possible) so what do you do?

And I think if you’re in a small business, or really any organization, you might have been tasked with this before. A higher-up may have told you okay, we need to be on social media, we need to be on Twitter. Go. But it’s just you, and also you have to do all your other jobs.

So basically don’t be on there all day, you don’t have time to be engaging with people, just put out promotions, just tell people what the discounts are and why they should come to us. Just kind of do that regularly. Of course you probably know that maybe that’s not the best way to approach it. Maybe that’s going to be just kind of annoying to people and not really valuable, so what do you do?

So I suggest that if that’s the task that you’ve been commissioned with the first thing you should do is explain to the person who’s told you to do that, explain to them in terms they can relate to a little easier.

Explain that that’s a little like saying we need to do an email marketing campaign. We need to contact everyone we’ve ever met and have their email addresses for. We need to send to them all, we don’t have time to specialize emails to each individual person, or even kind of demographic. We need to send everyone the same email. It’s going to be the same kind of specials and discounts, but none of them are really that interesting. We need to do that probably every day or every week. We need to send these people emails over and over and over again. Just to make sure that they’re up to date with what we’re talking about. Even if it’s really not that interesting.

So explain to them that it’s kind of like that. Which if you didn’t catch the meaning there, that’s spam. Even if you signed up for that kind of update it’s still spammy. That’s not what you want. You may have signed up for it, but it’s not what you want.

So explain to them if you’ve been tasked with updating Twitter that way, or your Facebook fan page that way, even if someone signed up for that, that’s not what they signed up for. They may have signed up for the account but they didn’t sign up for that sort of update. They kind of… they expected something better than that.

They may have followed your Twitter account because you announced a contest, so they felt that they had to sign up because they wanted updates on the contest. And now they’ve been suckered into getting these annoying pointless updates.

Same with Facebook. Maybe a friend invited them to the fan page because the friend was part of the contest that they had to sign up other people to become fans. So they just signed up out of obligation to someone else and now they’re getting your spammy updates? That’s unfair to everybody involved. So explain it to them in those terms. Someone may have signed up to become a fan, but they may not want that sort of update.

So, I think the general rule is, if you don’t have the staff or the resources or the money or anything to make really really engaging connections with people on Facebook or Twitter and you are forced, for whatever reason, whether that’s time, or because someone has told you you have to do this, assume that every single update you send out is someone’s first update from something they never signed up for.

Assume it’s a cold call. Do something really, really interesting. Make it worth their time. Assume they never asked for this in the first place. So you should always be assuming that everyone’s update is the first update they’ve ever gotten from you. Which means you’re going to have to be really interesting, you’re going to have to be really engaging, and you’re going to have to try really hard to make it worth that persons time.

Thanks everybody, bye.

My first Thursday Video! Hope you like it.

A few things you might want to have on your to-do list if you want to market your art:

Related:
Video Monday 14: Press Releases and Blog Strategies

A quick post about timing your posts and your promotion based on who your target is.

Transcript:
Sings: Video Monday, video Monday, it’s a Monday so here’s a video!

So today on Video Monday I just wanted to very briefly talk about well, Video Mondays. I’ve been thinking a lot about who I’m reaching with these, who really my target is for them, and maybe some more interesting things that can be done.

So I’ve been having this conversation with another marketing/social media colleague in Halifax, about who video posts are really for. People in office jobs 9-5 seem to be the people reading the most of them right now, because that’s that’s when I post them. They go up on Monday mornings, and I promote them on Twitter mostly Monday morning. When people like me are there on Twitter, reading blogs to kind of start the week.

But if my suggested target is more small businesses or artists who don’t kind of maintain that same schedule or frankly have the ability to just take 4 minutes out of their work day or out of their time in the morning to sit down and watch a post, what’s some more interesting stuff I could do?

So what I’m thinking about first of all is what I’m going to do is promote later at night, and then I’m really thinking what I might do is have a Thursday video post. I’m thinking that it’s going to go live Thursday at around 10:00 pm. I might not be able to do it as regularly, but that’s what I’m gonna, I’m going to give it a shot.

Because the people who seem most engaged and have, who I’m really looking for to be reading Video Mondays, are the people who find out about them later in the day. The people who post a comment at like 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon and come back and keep responding and seem the most engaged with it.

And so if I’m going to be able to provide interesting stuff for that kind of people, I’ve got to kind of mix it up with what I’m doing for Video Monday. So I just kind of wanted to talk about why things might be a little different, and hopefully if you’re trying to, you know, identify who your target market is for your work or your blog, give some thought about when you’re posting things and whether it’s the best time.

Thanks everybody, bye.

For my Blog Action Day post I wanted to, very briefly, discuss my thoughts on the marketing of the climate change crisis.

I think my biggest issue with the marketing thus far (whether it’s from Gore, the media, or most others) is that it focuses way too much on Earth. It focuses way too much on this enormous thing, the size of which is difficult to comprehend, let alone all the complex ecosystems and organisms that inhabit it.

But here’s the thing. This isn’t about Earth. This planet will be just fine thankyouverymuch.

Earth will be a-okay once we’re all dead.

Stop trying to save the planet, that’s not the problem. We’re screwed.

Maybe this whole issue might get some more general support if we stopped focusing on the polar bears and started thinking about the human beings who are going to die, lose their homes, lose their livlihoods, lose their… everything.

Where I think social media’s real power and interesting bits are.

Of course, shout out to Carman for coming up with much of the initial strategies for the two projects mentioned.

And make sure you check out Jeff’s great post about social media and real life connections.

Transcript:
Sings: Video Monday, video Monday, it’s a Monday so here’s a video!

So today on Video Monday I just wanted to very briefly talk about social media in real life. Basically what I find most interesting about all the social media stuff we talk about all the time.

And the reason I bring these up is the projects I’ve been working on the most at my day job these days have been Going To The Max, which you know, to market a new lotto game, we decided that you should have a bunch of people come out, use social tools to get people out at events around Atlantic Canada, to roll down a giant ramp in a huge plastic ball. To share in that experience together. To have fun, and it makes that association with the new lotto game and just Going To The Max.

The other thing I’ve been working on is marketing the Peggy’s Cove Area. One of the biggest things we did with that was to use social tools, so Twitter, blogs that we read and a Facebook contest, to get people out to experience the Peggy’s Cove Area. For a jam packed day of fun, photo taking, wine tasting, just everything that the area has to offer, and to share in that experience together and to have shared conversations about it.

So I wanted to say that I think social media’s true power, or I think social media really only gets interesting when you’re able to move people off of the tools and into a conversation somewhere else. Whether that is, ideally that is in real life, in the same room, on the same boat, doing something together, being people together. Not Twitter user names.

But even if you’re just moving them off of that platform into something else more engaging where people are sharing something they experience together. That’s where things get interesting, for me at least. You give people a new experience to talk about. Something that really brings them together there. They’re not just a mass of people on a social media platform, now they’re doing something special. They’re doing something together, and they’ll have something to talk about.

And you know if you’re doing your marketing right, that conversation is going to include whatever it was you wanted them to be talking about. You wanted to give them an experience. So if you were thinking about your new social media marketing program, give some careful thought about how do we move this off of the tool? How do we give them something interesting enough to do that they’ll want to move off of their tool? Not just try to shove them somewhere else. Not just try to link them to a new website. Give them a reason that they’ll actually want to move from Twitter to something that will actually be a little more interesting.

That’s Video Monday everyone, bye.

This post came out of my discussions with Kathryn about her artist clients’ needs for social media promotion. I talk about a few key things artists and small businesses should have at the ready: Press releases and blogging guidelines and content plans. Well written releases are a crucial part of getting word of mouth attention, and your blog guides will help you maintain consistency with your overall blog story.

I expand on all of this in my guest post over at KathrynJennex.com. Please check it out!

Transcript:
Sings: Video Monday, video Monday, it’s a Monday so here’s a video!

So today on Video Monday I thought I’d talk a little bit more about how artists and small businesses can do their marketing online. I group those two together, I guess I should explain why I’m often talking about artists and small businesses in the same sentence. I know there are huge differences between those two in most cases, or at least in many. But I do think there are a lot of very similar things about each of those groups that makes their marketing a little bit similar.

They’re small production, or at least limited production, usually targeted at niche markets, and word of mouth is their bread and butter. That’s what’s going to make their business successful at least when they’re starting out. so that’s why I think a lot of the same marketing techniques apply between both artists and just small businesses.

So what I want to talk about today is the few things that I’ve been working on. My friend Kathryn has a few artist clients and small businesses that she’s helping out, and we’ve had a lot of discussions together about you know what, what these people need right off the bat to get that word of mouth going. So I wanted to talk about two of those key things.

And the first one you know, it sounds simple, but it’s press releases. And I just want to talk about what you should be doing if you have a new product, or if you have a new piece that’s been commissioned or is being announced, make sure you have a press release for that. So write a press release, write the formal press release or have someone do it for you, and make sure you include high res images (links) and put that release, send it out to any media outlets that you have the contact information for, that you think it would be relevant for. Blogs as well, not just the traditional ones, and post that press release as a blog post. Make sure again, hi-res images (as links, not attachments).

Not only that, include also a second document or a second post that just breaks out the basic facts, figures, quotes, and just the images. That way if the blog or the other media outlet wants to write the article themselves, not just copy and paste your press release, just give them what they need so that they do that without having to dig through the press release.

Of course if the press release is written well than that very important information should be surfaced you know, close to the top, so they can just get it, the meat of it. But it’s always good to include both those options for them. And again, high res images. That’s very important.

The second thing is you know, make sure that you have a really good blogging outline. Like guidelines for content coming up and guidelines for just how each post should be written. Because lets face it, if you’re an artist or you’re running a small business you don’t have time, or at least if your business is going well at all you probably don’t have time to be sitting down, every week figuring out, okay, I’m going to take a couple hours on my Monday morning to figure out what the blog post should be today. You probably don’t have that kind of time.

Again, either take the time, or have someone do it for you, which might be the better solution in a lot of cases, and figure out what your content plan is going to be. So ten weeks in advance I know what each post is going to be about. Of course things can come up, of course new product releases etc, other news that might work themselves in there, but figure out if you’re, if you need a post every Monday, every Tuesday, if that’s what you’ve decided, you should be able to look at your content plan and say okay. ‘I’ve got five to ten bullet points of what this post needs to cover, how it’s going to relate to my overall story of my blog, what the content should be, and what offer, you know, what value I’m providing to my readers.’

That way you’re never stuck. You’re never spending so much time trying to figure it out. And what the guidelines do is tell you okay, every post needs to tick off these points.
-This is how it relates to the overall story and explain what the overall story of the blog is.
-This is what the content should be, how is this going to relate to the story, and the offer is every post should, you know, relate back to this general offer. So my blog is about helping people do XYZ, my blog is about teaching people this, or it’s sending people this type of information so make sure that everything has that.

And again just other guidelines for consistency so that you can have multiple authors. That’s something you’re allowed to do. If you’re running a small business, you’re allowed, other employees can be writing the blog, it doesn’t have to be all on you. And if you’ve got a content plan and you’ve got guidelines, you allow for other people’s unique perspectives, but you’re always maintaining the important bits of consistency, so that your readers are always wanting to come back, even if it’s a different author next week.

So that’s Video Monday everyone, thanks bye.