A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce.

The idea is that these True Fans will not only financially support you but act as influencers to attract and convert Lesser Fans (people who do not purchase everything you sell, and may not seek out direct contact, but they will buy much of what you produce). By purposefully seeking out and nurturing those 1,000 customers (fans) you can maintain your income stream. Honestly it’s a great concept but it isn’t much of a business plan by itself.

I use this concept frequently when refining Buyer Personas for clients. By considering the type of person that would plunk down cash for any piece of content (or product) you produce not only helps you find customers but helps you tighten your product offerings. While the “1,000” number may fluctuate depending on the size of the company (this model was designed for a solo person or business) the ideas behind finding your “1,000 True Fans” is consistent. Starting from zero and attempting to find those 1,000 rabid fans is daunting. How do you start smaller?

100 True Friends

Every journey starts with the first step, right? So start this journey by finding what I call your “100 True Friends.” Dunbar’s Number states that people can reasonable only maintain close relationships with 150 people and that once groups increase past this number they self-select into smaller groups to maintain the 150 headcount. These 100 True Friends should be people that know you well enough to know that any business you are involved with is worth taking a serious look at. These folks should be willing to learn enough about your offering to keep you top-of-mind when networking with a potential client. (To clarify, I’m not talking about social media “friends” but rather people you would have in your home for dinner – not all at once of course.) Honestly, they don’t even have to be actual friends, but rather clients, customers, or professional associates that don’t necessarily align with your product, but rather have access and clout with your potential sales base.

Direct sales organizations often coach new associates to call up friends and family to start building their professional customer network. Why? Because the people closest to you are the easiest to manipulate for favors. People you have contact with in your day-to-day life are more likely to trust you and be easy to follow up with over the course of time – or guilted into compliance because of the close contact. Personally I’m not a fan of this heavy-handed sales tactic, but it does (as a manager of a downline) easily identify those people with strong “100 True Friends” networks and the ability to influence those closest to them.

Now I should mention I’m not looking for you to turn those “100 True Friends” into customers. These are your trusted influencers. Your megaphone. Your ear to the track. Your long tail. They are not to be exploited merely for a business transaction. Relationship marketing is not about making a sale out the gate but rather growing and feeding your network to help them to the best of your abilities (via your business, services, and/or products) as well as being the great connector between them.

10,000 Casual Fans

On the other side of the pie chart, and greatly guesstimating the numbers, let’s assume you would need “10,000 Casual Fans” (also in my opinion known as Facebook Fans) to whittle down to those “1,000 True Fans” Kelly talks about. You tell me… how difficult is it to build a Facebook page to 10,000 followers? Exactly. You are starting at the wrong end of the funnel. Why spend time and money to attract 10,000 people just to have to cycle through the process all over again to narrow it down to 1,000 True Fans? In other words, you can spend your effort trying to win people who don’t care or you can spend your time nurturing relationships and people who thrive to help you in return.

Let’s be honest – 100 is a pretty big number to start with. Why not start with a list of 10 people you can contact TODAY and invite them to help you find your “1,000 True Fans?” Every week, 10 more people. Once you hit 100, go back to the beginning and keep in touch. Relationship marketing and maintenance is a cycle, not a goal.

The post 100 True Friends Lead to 1000 True Fans appeared first on Purple Stripe Productions.

There was an announcement that the head of Google+ Vic Gundotra is leaving Google effective immediately. The Internet has since commenced setting themselves on fire. Of course they are. Let me ponder setting myself on fire here as well…

Being that I’m a fan of the platform and somewhat of a power user – as well as some other items listed below – I, in the spirit of everyone on the Internet having an equally passionate and irrelevant opinion, wanted to talk about a few things:

1. Congratulations Vic for all your work with Google and Google+. Enjoy whatever comes next for you. Enjoy your family. Enjoy your future. Thank you.
2. Thank you to the entire past, present, and future Google+ team. I realize it wasn’t just Vic pushing all the buttons and typing code behind the scenes.
3. I still find immense professional and personal benefits from the tool and the community there. So thank you to everyone I’ve met in Google+.

Next, let me address some of the crazy (CRAZY) stuff I’ve been pulled into over the last 16 hours:

1. I have gotten 14 Skypes from people thinking Google+ has ALREADY SHUT DOWN. No, my Internet is just spotty (Comcast is on that for me – thanks).
2. I have gotten 2 (edit: 13) messages from people wondering what I’m going to do with my company Purple Stripe since Google+ is “imminently” shutting down. Well, golly, I’ve been a tech professional since 1989 and in digital marketing since 1997. I guess my entire livelihood is based on one tool and experience set?
3. I’ve gotten a handful of requests on how to quickly export all a company/brand’s work because Google+ is shutting down over the weekend (!!!) and they need all their data. For the record, that tool is Google Takeout, and you are welcome to export and delete all your content.
4. ONE person (a high ranking person) leaves a company and you think a major project is going to get scrapped overnight?

And some last general commentary on the concern trolls wearing tin foil hats…

1. “Journalists” under popular mastheads spout off without references or sources do not make facts. They spew opinions on products they have not used and make money from trashing by increasing their page views. Amanda Blain has a great open letter to Google+ haters that addresses this phenomenon and she is well worth a read. Also: Amanda is like the 20th most followed person in the world on the platform and knows a thing about how to best use the tool and platform. I trust HER opinion from in the trenches more so than a writer for hire paid (most likely) based on page views.
2. Maybe Google is shuffling deck chairs, maybe they are just being smart and taking talent from social (Google+) and putting it into mobile (Android) and multimedia (YouTube and Photos). Maybe they are just a global monster of a company and need to rearrange and evolve. Google has always, in my opinion, shipped MVPs (minimum viable products) – they have the money and resources to do so. See what works, what sticks, what the public wants, where the backlash is, where corrections and pivots need to be applied… In the end, they are an enormous global company that needs to evolve or die. Yet when they do things we don’t understand, we accuse them of not following OUR plan.
3. Find me a journalist that is well entrenched in Google+ (or any other platform they write about) and lives in the tools and community and let THEM write about the (speculated) future of Google and Google+. If you don’t actively use the product you have zero right to trash or condemn the platform. Well, of course you are allowed to have an opinion, but don’t form your uneducated opinion to influence people for the sake of sensationalism. And page views.
4. Maybe Google+ is shutting down Monday and firing everyone. Maybe they listened to all the concerned journalists that cried about ghost towns and the walking dead. Maybe they listened to you whine about how the tool is too hard, you can’t dump links and receive an onslaught of traffic, or how you aren’t comfortable on video. Or maybe they are doing whatever the hell they have on their roadmap (twisty as it is). Speculation does no one any good.

I’m begging, stop being stupid people.

A video would be easier. I have so much to say on this. In the end, Google+ will be around in some form (probably evolved), I still will be in business (and evolved myself, as I have been doing professionally for 28 years), and YOU will still have a job to get done.

The post Setting Google+ on Fire appeared first on Purple Stripe Productions.

My plan at New Media Expo is to share stories and what experience I have about working in new/digital media for 25 years, what it takes (and means) to be an “overnight success” … and why that idea is complete bunk.

While some might know me for my Google/+ knowledge, many of you have known me longer than the past 2.5 years. Maybe you remember my work Mar/Tech with MySpace, Second Life, Blogging, Podcasting… or maybe even enterprise technology. Maybe you’ve seen me talk at any of the nearly 100 events I’ve attended in the past two years alone. But let’s be completely honest, you probably have never heard of me and never seen me speak. But you know what? That’s okay. I work under the waterline, in the trenches, behind the scenes. With you. Gettin’ it done.

Want to connect at New Media Expo? Email me at media@purplestripe.com or find me on Twitter. Find my New Media Expo schedule online: http://newmediaexpo2014.sched.org/LynetteRadio (subject to change, of course!)

Keynote Description

The Myth of the “Overnight Success” : How to Build an Iceberg in 25 Years or Less

There is a myth in the online space about lucky people that become an “overnight success” out of nowhere. It’s bunk. Or more specifically, an iceberg. However you look at it, it takes a lot more than showing up to the party to achieve success. Lynette Young has been a technology and marketing professional for 25 years, one of the earliest bloggers and podcasters, and now a huge Google+ fan. Find out how it took her so long to become an “overnight success” – including how to dig deep and find your own version of instant stardom.

UPDATE: Seen.co has a great compliation of the Twitter stream of content around the keynote. Thank you again to New Media Expo’s amazing team and to every person that attended. You are all my 90%.

The post Keynote Speaker at New Media Expo Vegas 2014 appeared first on Purple Stripe Productions.

Right now my social stream is FILLED with all sorts of cool pictures from other people’s company holiday parties. It honestly makes me a bit sad. While I have plans for a dinner out with girlfriends after Christmas, it’s not the same. The idea of being in a casual and festive environment with co-workers has a completely different vibe – and purpose. Just like the crazy “team building” white water rafting weekends anyone that worked in Big Corporate in the 80s and 90s survived, you generally come out of something like an office holiday party with a (renewed) personal connection for the people you spend an equal amount of time with as your family.

This is my home-office where I spend a great deal of my working hours. Because my office-office is HUGE and ECHOS like mad I can’t really record video or have a peaceful conversation there.

Years ago, when I first met my husband, we were working on lateral teams at a Wall Street financial company and the holiday party was outrageous. (I completely credit that year’s holiday party for me meeting my husband.) It’s where bosses got to let their guard down a bit so their employees could see that they were really human and not whip-cracking deadline freaks. It gave employees the chance to mingle with other department to see about other career opportunities. Come the following March, there were always job moves within the company mostly based on the relationships and conversations that were happening at the company holiday party. People could TALK to each other without their workload pressing down and not feel pressured to ‘get back to work’ and break away from water cooler chit-chat. To me, what the holiday party allowed the company to do was exercise people’s personalities and feel a bit more connected to their 9-to-5. (Drunken hookups and butts-on-copiers aside, of course.)

While most solopreneurs go through the year fully engaged with our clients and office co-inhabitants, when the clock strikes twelve we are left standing on the steps with only one shoe on. What’s a single business owner to do around the holidays?

The post Office Holiday Party for One Please! appeared first on Purple Stripe Productions.

Purple Stripe works and trains company teams in digital communications and networking and on occasion someone from the C-Suite slips in. It mucks up the entire process. The article pegs it right when it is mentioned that exec’s need their OWN training.

The article mentions that some companies charge upwards of $60,000 for a two-day course to teach executives the lingo. We can’t help but notice there is a large gap in what is charged for executives to learn and what companies are willing to pay for their team in the trenches to learn.

And, no, “interwebs” is not a skill you can mention in an interview.

The post Social Media Lingo Training for C-Suite Executives appeared first on Purple Stripe Productions.

Wait? Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of ANY of these new digital communication technologies? This is why you need to actively stay up to date and informed about every type of offering we the major (and some minor) social media platforms have cooked up for our use. (This is what Purple Stripe does for our clients, in case you didn’t know.) Today’s public relations, advertising, marketing and communications professional agencies have ZERO choice but to become well-versed in the tech that runs the social web today and in the future. Gone are the days where you can blindly feel your way through the tech and hope that you ‘do it right’. If you do the tech aspect of digital and social media wrong all of your work is for naught.

To be honest, not only do you need to stay ahead of the tech curve when it comes to expanding your business, you need to MAKE the curve. For example, Weber Shandwick recently introduced wpForGlass – a custom developed software that allows Google Glass users to directly publish content to a self-hosted WordPress platform. Think about that. Agencies are actually BUILDING products to allow them to serve their clients in a highly-competitive digital market. So what if you are a not a global agency? What can you do to keep up? You find an expert that can help you help your clients. We aren’t saying you have to fund the creation of a software platform, but we are suggesting that you should be looking for the ‘next thing’ and be smart enough to realize when the ‘current thing’ isn’t working any longer.

Gone are the days you can hire a ‘webmaster’ (oh please don’t ever actually USE that term, I’m using it more to show how outdated it is) to build a website and maybe hire a social media manager to create content for a blog, Twitter account or Facebook page. You need to invest in finding a social technology PARTNER that can work with you, your agency, and your clients. Working with a partner allows you to best work with your clients – and land new ones – while leaving the bits and bytes of digital to a firm that has the subject matter expertise and dedication to bring the very best solutions to the table. If that partner isn’t Purple Stripe, chances are we can help you find the right partnership fit for your company, brand and clients.

Better move quick, next week there will be even more new technology solutions that your competitors are using – and you are NOT.

Find the complete infographic and stats this was taken from here:

by Digital Insights

The post Technology Expertise is Part of a Well-Balanced Digital Media Outreach Plan for 2014 appeared first on Purple Stripe Productions.

Saturday January 11, 2013

8:30am – 4:30pm

Riverside NJ (16 miles from Philadelphia PA)

If you are a blogger in the Philadelphia, New Jersey or Delaware area and are interested in mastering the next evolution of social media communication then Google+ is where you need to be!

This live, hands-on (so long as you bring a laptop!) training event is presented by Lynette Young, one of the top Google+ professionals in the country with over 1.5 million followers on the platform. She has been helping companies with their digital communication strategy and tactical implementation since 1997. Lynette has spoken about Google+ at some of the industry’s largest and most prestigious conferences – Bloggy Boot Camp, BlogHer, New Media Expo and Book Expo America (as well as almost 100 other events in the past two years).

What you will learn

• WHY using Google+ can open the doors to the Internet and get you found faster online
• Content and cross-posting strategies to help you present your very best content on Google+
• The best tools, dashboards, WordPress plugins and Chrome extensions to manage your Google+ outreach
• The definitive explanation and setup for Google Authorship, Rich Snippets and Search Plus Your World (honestly worth the price of the event ticket alone!!)
• How to properly configure your Google+ Profile for maximum results
• Help you make the decision between using your Google+ Profile or creating a Google+ Page for your blog – and the pros / cons of each
• How, when and why to use Google+ Circles to best listen and publish your content
• “Deep dives” on Google+ Communities, Local, Events, and Photos / Albums and my top tips on using these to drive traffic to your blog
• Hangouts and Hangout on Air. Video on the web is HOT HOT HOT and we will spend a good deal of time discovering how you can transform your blog content into amazing traffic generating channels
• Tips and creative ideas for using Google+ with multi-author blogs

The post Training: Google+ for Professional Bloggers & Content Creators appeared first on Purple Stripe Productions.

Facebook is a referral community.
Twitter is an amplified community.
Pinterest is a visual community.
LinkedIn is a reputation community.
YouTube is an attention community.

Google+ is an Internet community.

I’ve worked in the digital media arena since 1997 and this is my professional opinion on the space via my 17 years of experience. Your experience may be different. That’s the beauty of the Internet.

The post Google+ is an Internet Community appeared first on Purple Stripe Productions.

The problem, of course, is that some people and companies take these rankings as the end-all-be-all authority. When I hear stories of people being fired or not hired based on their Klout score steam comes out of my ears.

Now it seems there is a new player on the scene, PeerIndex (thanks for the heads-up Marcy Massura). According to Wikipedia “PeerIndex measures influence by measuring Activity, Audience and Authority.”

Apparently I joined the PeerIndex system around February 2011 (I just searched my email and found that to be the case). So rather than label PeerIndex ‘new’, I’ll say it’s the newest major player in the game.

As far as how I’m being graded in PeerIndex, I can’t find any explanation outside of the Wikipedia entry. What I am being shown as an influencer on are things that are fairly accurate, so hats off for that. One thing that struck me as odd is my listing for ‘horse racing’. I attended ONE event last week and sent out some Tweets and maybe a Google+ and Facebook update. I’ve never really talked about it before, and probably won’t from this point forward (this post notwithstanding).

Of course somehow Marcy is also ranked on “horse racing” same as me. Even though she is West Coast and I’m East Coast, apparently we have a mutual love of horse betting and bookies. Or something like that.

The biggest road test of PeerIndex will be when I need to use it for work. The data is pretty useless to businesses unless we can search and aggregate it to find the people we need to work with in the industries and genres we need to focus on. I’ve got a doozy of a niche client looking for influencers nationwide so I’ll be putting PeerIndex to the test really soon.

Now, what do people really need to be highly and popularly ranked in platforms like PeerIndex and Klout? For the perks of course! PeerIndex’s perks look pretty foreign to me, mostly because their perks are listed in £ pounds. Also, they really aren’t perks but more like discounts. This either means all of my ‘work’ online has gained me a certain level of discounts on stuff I probably don’t want. It also means (to me) I also don’t have a high enough PI (PeerIndex) level or I’d be offered free loot. All of the true (free) perks I’ve seen on the site are closed out and nothing new seems to be filling in.

PeerIndex is UK-based which I like (hey, all of digital media does not revolve around North America). I’m US-based, but am ALL for an exclusive Doctor Who Experience or Warner Bros Harry Potter Tour perk (I would pick up my own airfare for those two). At this point I’d even be happy with an Android tablet (since I’ve got some PI with Android and Google). I don’t even own an Android device. How I’m an authoritative person on this topic is beyond me. Maybe my audience are big Android fans? Again, clueless.

When it comes right down to it, services like PeerIndex, Klout and Kred are starting points. The are marketing machines. They are data collectors. Please use them responsibly.

If you are an ‘influencer’ you have a few things to learn from your profiles on these services:

1. Don’t let your ‘influence’ go to your head. If you are listed as an influencer on Google Inc. for example, chances are you can’t walk into the Googleplex and head to a corner office.
2. If your points of interest aren’t what you think they should be (or want them to be) you need to stop talking, sharing, and interacting with those things and start chattin’ it up about the things you do want to be known for. In the end, people and computer algorithms only know about what you the things you type.

If you are a business looking to work with people that fall in your genre of interest this is what you need to know:

1. People are more than the sum of their online communications. Treat them as people if you reach out to them and not a commodity.
2. Research research research! Read their social platforms, read their blogs, read how they portray themselves on Twitter vs. Facebook vs. LinkedIn. Look for clues they are receptive to talking (or working) with you.

NOTE: Years ago I publicly professed my hatred for Klout. At the time they were the only game in town for automating online influence. I rage quit. Then a friend-that-shall-be-named (Marcy again) convinced me that I should jump back in the game if only for the sake of my work. To be honest, it was because of my work with digital media that I soured to the entire idea of having some computer program read through my content online and make a flat determination about me. Klout, in its first generation of algorithms, declared me an expert in mullets, and refused to let me change the identification (Klout has now gone on to greatly improve their service, even if they still don’t offer me any interesting Perks for my score of 77). I can tell you the ONLY reason my Klout score looks anywhere decent is my reach and activity on Google+.

The post How Do You Measure Reputation and Influence Online? appeared first on Purple Stripe Productions.

The general consensus is that approximately 12% of the people following your Page’s content will ever have the chance to view it. In other words, a Facebook Page with 1,000 followers is only getting their messaging out in front of 120 people at any one time. How do you ‘beat the system’? By consistently publishing quality content that users Like, share or comment on.

The longer a piece of content exists in Facebook, the less likely it is that it will be seen (or socially interacted with). (Click to Tweet)

Facebook content has the highest probability of being seen when it is first published. Sadly, after that the views are all ‘downhill’ unless you hit on the extremely rare piece of viral content (meaning more ‘friends of friends’ vs. first connections have Liked, shared,  or commented on the content). While you can increase your odds of having EdgeRank display your message to more people with Promoted Posts or Facebook Ads, non-paid organic content has little chance being seen – or found – weeks, months, or years later .

On the flip side, publishing content on Google+ keeps that content active and online for as long as you choose to keep the content online. The content published on Google+ is never archived off and remains viable in search indexes.

Example: The very first piece of content I ever published ‘public’ in Google+ still receives comments, +1’s and shares over two years later. The post still shows up via Search Plus Your World in Google Search for relevant keywords. Above all else, I am able to EDIT that content over two years later to make that ‘hot’ piece of content stays accurate and evergreen.

Not only is this holding true for that first piece of content, but it surfaces every year for content I’ve published that is time-dated (such as a holiday or recurring event such as a conference). Content I published last year about BlogHer is being searched for, found, and socially interacted with a year after I published it on Google+.

The longer your content exists in Google+ the higher the chance you have of it being found. (Click to Tweet)

Both Facebook and Google+ are vital tools to include in any full-faceted digital media outreach tactical plan. Armed with the difference in how content ‘lives’ – you can hopefully make better decisions on how to build your plan!

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