Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .
IN OUR WORLD
Talk about a busy week, geez! It’s funny how on Sunday you look at what needs to get done and develop a plan, then things start to happen. Open gaps of time begin to fill up with calls and meetings. Before you know it you’re heading to the airport and boom, you’re in NY. WOW. Now those of you who know me are aware that I am a huge proponent of planning. It’s a foundation of everything I do. At the same time I am fully aware of the impact randomness has on any model. Things happen, I adjust. It doesn’t mean I stop planning, it means I add the element of flexibility. The plan remains and provides direction.
I had a great meeting in NY where I was positioning new ideas for a client that may be interested in my involvement in their 2010 plans.
Tonight Pete Sampras and Todd Martin are in town to play an exhibition. What a fantastic treat for a tennis geek like me!
Next week I am off to St. Louis to introduce my Repeatable Successful Acts platform. More momentum on a platform that took me two years to develop.
HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE
AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
I am often asked about the impact of social media on business. Not the “everybody is doing it” kind of impact, but instead clients want to know, what is the real reason for me taking valuable time, energy and resources to enter this confusing community of interaction? LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, MySpace, youtube, Flickr, where do I begin?
Let’s start from an unusual position; here is what social media CAN NOT DO FOR YOU:
• Substitute for a Marketing Plan: Social Media is not the end all, be all, it is simply a part of a marketing plan.
• Succeed Without Top Leadership Engagement: Social Media needs high level engagement to get going, because traction is difficult to define in the early stages. With leadership support you can leverage the time needed without constantly needing to defend your efforts to everyone.
• Viewed as a Short Term Project: See above.
• Provide Meaningful Measurable Results Quickly: See above and above.
• Guarantee Sales of Influence: Social Media leverages these two key goals through a very strategic plan.
Now, what can social media DO FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
• Your Web Site: Do you think because you have a web site you are connected to the web world? Wrong. Your web site is mostly static. Social media strategies are in motion. Your business needs to be “in-motion.”
• Create Brand Ambassadors: Where do the people that love your business go to talk your praises and where do they go to bitch and moan? Both are critical to your growth. Your Social Media strategy can develop both.
• Grow Your Sphere of Influence: I can not tell you how important this is. Your impact on the world is a part of your business success.
• Give Your Brand Personality: A static website is not what people will be talking about. Create wow through social media.
• The Backbone of the Future: You may not get all this connected stuff or the desire of people to become part of your community, but every expert on the web is in agreement, Social Media and the desire to connect have become the backbone of a world wide community and will continue to grow exponentially.
Do NOT just jump in and figure out what to do. The positive impact to your company comes from REAL, STRATEGIC planning around social media.
Just think, my tiny, little weekly blog is read by thousands of people around the world every week. Not a bad sphere of influence.
ENTERTAINMENT
MOVIES: Paranormal Activity: This is a cultural phenomenon. Made for about $10,000 and already grossing over $32 million this very scary thriller is the talk of the movie industry. It has a very limited release but I’ll bet you can find it. Said to be as scary as anything you have seen, it is not my “tub of popcorn” but I wanted it on the table for your weekend choices.
NetFlix Fans: Be Cool: The sequel to Get Shorty. Two wonderful little bookend movies.
TV: The new NCIS spin off; NCIS Los Angeles has risen to #1 in the new fall release TV season. It’s pretty good in the typical cop genre.
BOOKS: The Fury – By Pinter: A new writer for me. A newspaper reporter is the main character. Should be great!
MUSIC: I love the Indigo Girls. This is an interesting video.
WEB SITES: If you need to find a simple way to track your Twitter feeds this is the place:
www.monitter.com
SOUTH OF NORMAL
If you are a fan of the all the police and procedure dramas that fill the TV airways (I swear to you that somewhere, right now, as you are reading this, there is an episode of Law and Order running) you see a lot of dead bodies. Ever wonder who those actors are? I mean what kind of agent call is that; “Mary, I have an opportunity for you. How good are you as a battered rape victim who has been stabbed 20 times?”
Believe it or not there are actors that specialize in being covered in red colored corn syrup and hanging out sprawled on the floor.
50 year old computer programmer Chuck Lamb was watching a Law and Order marathon and thought, I can do that, and I could be a dead guy. So he launched the web site – DeadBodyGuy.com. Boom, he was an overnight point of interest. The Today Show, BBC News called and the Los Angeles Film Festival honored him with a Special Achievement Award for Self Promotion. He’s been “dead as a doornail” on two different shows so far.
There are niches everywhere just dying to be filled! Find yours.
What made me think I could start clean slated? The hardest to do was the least complicated.
Indigo Girls
Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com
Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.
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