Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Simon Sinek [Tweet "Bookstores have entire "self help" sections and not a single "help others" book - Simon Sinek"] For this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast I had a visit with Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why and the more recent Leaders Eat Last. First off, if you've not read either of these books I suggest you get both. In Start With Why Sinek echoes many of themes surrounding purpose that I've been preaching for years. Leaders Eat Last is a bit of a follow up in that once you have your "why" you must go to work on attracting and leading with whom that why resonates. As Sinek explains, the title of the book is drawn from a long standing, yet undocumented, policy in military mess hall in which leaders by rank eat last. Perhaps the primary point in the book is that the true art of leadership isn't about ruling with power, it's about helping others get what they want. Sinek compares that act of parenting to leadership. In a perfect world, a parent wants what's best for a child, helps them reach their full potential and doesn't always get to be their best friend in the process. But the key here is trust. When we trust a leader, even if we don't actually like spending time with them, we will follow them. Sinek uses the success of the 12 Step Program widely used in Alcoholics Anonymous to make another point about true leadership. Over the years AA has found that if people successfully move through the first eleven steps, but fail to embrace the twelfth, they often fall back into old habits. The final step asks them to help another alcoholic find recovery. The message and perhaps paradox of leadership is that in the end it is simply the act of helping others get what they want.

Marketing Podcast with Ryan Holiday In mid July I'll be in Portland presenting at Chris Guillebeau's World Domination Summit. The title of my talk is "Make Good Choices" If the title to that presentation sounds a bit like well-worn advice from a dad to his teenage daughters, that's because it is. (But you'll have to be in Portland to hear the story behind that!) It's also something much bigger - our choices dictate every element of our day, our life and our work. When we become unaware of the choices we make in every moment we hand over the reins of our journey to someone or something else. One of the principles I've instilled in my business over the years is that in business, you get to choose who you want to attract, who you want to work with and how you want run, marketing and position everything you do. If you don't make intentional choices, the kind that feed your soul, you'll find yourself constantly on the run chasing the next big thing. In this week episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast I visit with Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph Holiday is a well-read man and it comes across is the ideas he espouses and the people he chooses to hang out with. We cover a lot of ground in this twenty minute interview and don't overtly focus on the idea of choice, but I think that's the main topic of his work when it really comes down to it. We have choices in every moment and we choose to take right action, get upset or be unmoved - but somewhere, for just a moment in time, there lies our freedom.

Marketing Podcast with Bill Hibbler Anyone who has read Napoleon Hill's often cited business classic, Think and Grow Rich will be familiar with the business use of something called a Mastermind Group. Hill's book recounts how many successful business people rely on a small, tight-knit group of advisors to help them build their businesses. I've long been an advocate of assembling some form of a group of peer advisors, board members or customer collaborators to help you grow your business. As an entrepreneur or CEO you often lack both the filter and the sounding board you need to see things bigger ways. The right mastermind group can provide these benefits: Accountability - Simply stating your goals and objectives to a group that intends to hold you accountable for your stated result can have the kind of pull that keeps you focused on meeting your goals Growth - Many mastermind group members form strategic business relationships that bring additional revenue streams and growth opportunities Specific knowledge - A group comprised of people from different backgrounds and industries can help you fill gaps in your own knowledge and provide very specific help Resources - Your group members may very well end up loaning and providing the kinds of resources and introductions that can help you get to the next level in your business New perspectives - Sometimes having someone from outside your industry question your long held beliefs or suggest innovations from a new point of view can prove very helpful Support - As a group forms a very close common bond this can be a great place to go for support when you have a troubling business issue Energy - Simply having a team that understands your objectives and helps you celebrate your wins can be very energizing There are any number of organizations formed specifically for the purpose of helping people join mastermind groups such as Convene, Vistage, The Alternative Board and EO to name a few. But, you may also find that assembling your own team based on common interests, beliefs, goals, expertise and chemistry is a great way to go as well. Most industry associations have some form of group opportunity for their members. Technology and global reach make this an even more desirable option today. There are many ways to form Mastermind Groups. You can stick the classic style of frequent meetings focused only on goal support or you can create looser, less formal groups that come together to offer routine advice or even collaboration on a common project. My guest for this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Bill Hibbler, co-author of Meet and Grow Rich: How to Easily Create and Operate Your Own "Mastermind" Group for Health, Wealth, and More On the show and in his book Hibbler shares his experiences as a participant in a number of Mastermind Groups over the years. Probably the best nugget I took from this interview was that if you are forming your own group you want to move slowly in the act of recruiting members because chemistry and long-term commitments are crucial for a tight group to form if that's is your goal. I believe that every small business owner should find or form their group or network and commit to using this resource as the significant growth tool it can be.

Marketing Podcast with Nick Morgan You've probably come upon some variation of the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote - "Your actions speak so loudly, I can not hear what you are saying."  When it comes to speaking in public, leading teams or even having a personal conversation, we communicate a great deal about how we are feeling and thinking through non-verbal cues. Most of the time we are not actually aware of the fact that, no matter our words, we may be sending a very strong message of confusion, fear, angst, doubt, self-importance or disinterest. Now, of course the good news is that we also be sending messages of authority, love, kindness, empathy and trust. It's one of the reasons why emails are often misinterpreted. We get so good at understanding through cues when someone is teasing, being sarcastic or genuinely trying to help. The key is to become aware of the non-verbal things we do, quite often out of habit and deeply engrained thought patterns, so that we choose cues that allow us to communicate our true intent. My guest for this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Dr. Nick Morgan, one of America’s top communication theorists and coaches and author of Give a Speech Change the World, Trust Me and Power Cues: The Subtle Science of Leading Groups, Persuading Others, and Maximizing Your Personal Impact Morgan has made a career out of helping speakers and executives break through some of their deeply held beliefs in an effort to more effectively lead, communicate and influence. Let me quickly point out that none of this work has anything to do with using non-verbal cues as a way to manipulate. Morgan's work and teachings are all about being your best self by bringing your words and actions together so that you are more clearly understood and heard. For example, if you're in a leadership position and it's not something you've always been comfortable with, you may be sending that signal to those you are charged to lead by the way you stand and speak. Once you become aware of the ways people send cues, you may also be more equipped to read cues sent by others. Imagine listening to a potential client's concerns through this filter. You may likely be able restart a conversation when you better appreciate what a prospect is really saying by reading visual clues along with words. Power Cues is a fascinating guide into the subtle and not so subtle things many people do to mix and confuse their message. Pick this book up today and start becoming much more aware of the message your body sends and you'll be much more prepared to be heard.

This post and podcast are drawn from Duct Tape Selling: Think Like a Marketer - Sell Like a Superstar on sale globally May 15th. Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch On a cold January morning in 2007, a hidden video camera captured thousands of commuters simply walking past violinist Joshua Bell as he played some of the most complex music ever written, on an extremely valuable Stradivarius violin. Most didn’t seem to notice the difference between Bell’s virtuosity and the skill of an everyday subway musician. Just days before, and then again after this experiment, Bell performed to sold-out theaters filled with ticket holders willing to pay top dollar and ready to deliver thunderous standing ovations. In the context of the subway station, ordinary people did not recognize Bell’s genius. We don’t live in a vacuum. Every idea we have, song we hear, or sales pitch we connect with is filtered through a number of elements, including our mood, the environment, and our unique understanding of the world and our place in it. All of these factors affect the value and importance we place on what we believe in, what we deem worthy of our time, and what we buy. In the same vein, while sales people’s mastery, skill, or point of view may be important and well thought-out, the context in which their ideas, introductions, and pitches are delivered is equally—or sometimes more— important. In many ways Duct Tape Selling is about changing the context of how you, as a salesperson, are received and perceived. So let me ask you this: Are you ready to hone your virtuosity as a sales- person and put it on display in the places where people willingly pay a premium to engage such work or are you content to hang around in the subway hoping for the scraps of interested passersby? Change Your Context, Change Your Results In Duct Tape Selling I show you, first, how to reframe your own mindset about what it means to sell in the world today. From there, we look at how to vastly alter the way prospects, customers, and competitors view your professional brand. To accomplish this, you need to think of yourself as a guide in the customer’s buying process rather than an information source, re- search data point, transaction catalyst, or whatever other trendy term people have assigned to the act of selling. Duct Tape Selling shows you how to change the context of selling by teaching you how to: Ask what you can give your clients instead of asking what they can give you Form and lead an industry group instead of mindlessly joining every one you find Make education-rich sales pitches to rooms packed with engaged potential clients instead of cold-calling prospects Get yourself invited to speak in front of audiences instead of simply attending events Earn the trust to be introduced to referral prospects instead of given leads?Interview industry luminaries instead of simply downloading their podcasts Build a strategic-partner network instead of waiting around to be asked to partner Write for respected industry publications instead of just putting them in your RSS reader When you reframe any relationship, you often change the way you are heard, received, and perceived. In sales, by reframing the selling process as a journey that you and the client are on together—and that you are guiding him through—you can become a valuable and necessary part of your client’s team.

Marketing podcast with Derek Coburn The simple answer to the question posed in the title of this post is - maybe. Networking is actually one of the most powerful strategic activities you can engage in if you do it right. In fact, when people ask me what they should do to market their business when they are just getting started I tell them to start networking. However, I don't simply mean print off a bunch of business cards and head out to the next wine and cheese Chamber event and start passing out your new cards. Effective networking today has taken on a vastly different look but one thing has not changed - networking is not about selling, it's about connecting people. Technology, social networks and our propensity to turn online for every need have greatly expanded the elements of networking but connecting is, and I suggest always will be, at the core. Today networking is the richest source of organic backlinks that still drive SEO. Today networking is building stakeholder maps as a way to shorten sales cycles. Today networking is how you make yourself more valuable to your existing clients. My guest for this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Derek Coburn. He and his wife Melanie have created a unique network in Washington DC called cadre. The network is based on the idea of people connecting people rather than people promoting themselves. [Tweet "The ironic thing about focusing on connecting rather than selling is that it's a crazy powerful way to sell."] You know of course the ironic thing about this idea of focusing on connecting and adding value rather than selling is that it's a crazy powerful way to sell. Derek is also the author of Networking Is Not Working: Stop Collecting Business Cards and Start Making Meaningful Connections, the best book I've read on the idea of connecting. As he shares in our interview this book and his Cadre community were born out of frustration with having spent thousands of fruitless hours attending traditional networking events. Coburn's book offers fresh, effective, unconventional strategies for growing and nurturing a powerful network. These strategies grew Coburn’s revenue by 300% in just 18 months and can have a major impact on your business. Some of the most ideas contained in the book include: How to become the Ultimate Connector How to become the Ultimate Resource How to identify and develop relationships with world-class professionals How to enhance the value you deliver for your best clients How to position yourself for more quality introductions to ideal prospective clients Connecting is the master skill no matter if you are a salesperson, business owner or someone starting a career.

Marketing podcast with John Lee Dumas Podcasts are back in fashion again, but my view of why you should be creating interview style audio content hasn’t changed since I started podcasting back in 2005 or so. Whether you ever plan to view your podcast as a show or publication or just another way to create a highly portable form of content, a podcast can open doors. I’ve interviewed hundreds of interesting, influential and downright famous folks on my show over the years and many of these guests had no idea who I was when I asked to interview them – but they were drawn to the age-old media request of an interview. I’ll be the first to admit that many of the guests I approached were people in my industry, authors, speakers and consultants, who I wanted to get to know. Instead of sending them a request to “pick their brain” sometime, I asked to interview them so I could promote their next big project or book. The net effect of this approach is that I became a journalist in their eyes rather than someone simply seeking their time. Don’t get me wrong; many influential people will give you their time, but why not start these relationships by giving them something they crave - exposure. I’ve written four books now and every single “big name” person I’ve convinced to write a blurb for my book jackets appeared on my podcast at some point. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in or what your long-term objective are, you can benefit by way of interviewing your customers, industry leaders and even prospects as a way to create better content while you gain access to those you want to be part of your network. My guest for this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is John Lee Dumas. John is a wealth of information on the subject of podcasting and in this episode he shares the tips, tricks and tools he’s used to not only create a wildly popular podcast, but make a living doing so and teaching others how to do so. If you’re thinking about getting your podcast game on, below are some of the major elements you’ll need to consider. First and foremost you have to decide why you are doing your show. Is it to gain access, grow and audience, get exposure, build authority or make money as a podcaster? The answers to these questions should dictate how you proceed. For more in depth coverage of each of these topics check out John’s course on podcasting. Editorial Theme - What will your show be about? What will the overarching objective of the show be? Style - Will your show be interview style, 2 host banter style or simply a roundup of ideas from around the web? Content - Will you have regular segments, guest appearances, or free flowing ideas and conversation? Program Format - How long? Co-hosted? Will you have music and advertising? Frequency - How often will you publish a show? Daily, weekly, monthly? Segments - What segments will appear over and over again? Production Microphone - Get a high quality microphone like the Blue Yetti USB Mic Recording Software - I use Skype for my interviews and Call Recorder Mac Plugin to record (Pamela on PC) Editing Software - Garage Band on Mac, Audacity on PC or Adobe Audition (I also use a free service called Auphonic for post production) Publication Hosting - You may end up needing lost of bandwidth. I use Libsyn to host my files Display - I run my podcast as you can on my existing WordPress blog as a category Podcast Plugin - I use the Blubrry Power Press plugin to handle some of the podcast specific details (PowerPress getting started guide has some useful information as well) Distribution iTunes - The Blubrry Press plugin will submit your show to iTunes, which is a must (How to from Apple) Sticher - Submit your show to other directories like Sticher Network - Don't forget to tell lots of people about your show and network with other podcasters

Marketing Podcast with Chris Brogan My guest for this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Chris Brogan, founder of Owner magazine and author of The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth: Entrepreneurship for Weirdos, Misfits, and World Dominators Chris Brogan has embarked on a bit of a mission. He's proudly telling his story and the story of many others who might not always end up on tidily scripted news shows. Brogan is calling them "freaks" but he's doing so as a badge of honor, not as a put down. One of the primary objectives of this mission is to provide some hope and encouragement for those who feel somehow they are different and are struggling to stay on that path as the world tries to push them back to its idea of normal. He is building a community or place where people can start to believe that maybe there is a place for them. Check out his #proudfreak hashtag to meet some of those people. (Ironically, people who don't feel like they fit in maybe aren't the best people to try to corral into a group of some sort, so community might not be the exact term.) But Freaks is also very much about turning your idea into something that has business value in your very unique way. In Freaks he also shows you how people have begun to find and serve a community and then how they have developed a marketplace around that. One of the most interesting points in the interview is when I ask Brogan if his treatise is autobiographical. He claims in fact that he wrote this book for his children who he affectionately calls weirdos. In that he means that he never sees them finding their passion in a cubicle and this book just might help them understand why. In Freaks you'll meet dozens of other "weirdos" in what amounts to a fun filled romp through what it can mean to own a business these days. If you feel like you're a little different, your idea is a little off beat, then dive into Brogan's new book and you just may find solid evidence that you're not only right, you're not alone.  

Marketing Podcast with Bill Caskey The game of selling has not really changed that much - the job is to build relationships, provide value and help people solve their problems - in the end, if you are to succeed, that means selling things. What has changed dramatically, however is the way you accomplish many of these things. The way you sell must change because the way people buy has certainly changed. My guest for this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, is Bill Caskey, founder of Caskey Sales Training and author of Same Game, New Rules. In this show Caskey contends that the way you show up and even how you as a seller are positioned must change. I start my upcoming book, Duct Tape Selling, off with the idea that in order for those who sell to succeed they must change the entire context of how a salesperson in viewed in the world. Listen to the interview and then grab this free report called 20 Rules for Modern Selling

Marketing Podcast with Paul Evans We live in an age where it seems everyone is an author, speaker, consultant and, yes, authority on something. Now, having said that I am fully aware that I happen to be an author, speaker, consultant and self anointed authority. I've been at this gig for twenty-five  years now and in the last few I've become somewhat of an overnight success. In case you're not a long time reader here I'm attempting sarcasm. Everyone wants to be an authority, but not everyone wants to do the work. Becoming an authority in your town, your field or your network means different things to different people, but in the context of business it often means more exposure, higher fees and a much smoother path to marketing your goods. The part that's often left out of that equation, however, is that it takes work, it takes vision, it takes a plan and it takes showing up every day for a long time and talking about the exact same thing. It takes a willingness to put yourself out there because you truly believe in a point of view, it takes writing even when no one is reading and speaking, even when no one is paying you to do so and, one more thing, it takes practice - lots of practice. My guest for this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Paul Evans. Paul has been teaching people how to be better speakers and performers for more than a decade. In fact, I purchased one of Paul's training courses almost fifteen years ago. Evans teaches people the skills to be better, more engaging speakers and in this session we talked about just what it takes to make speaking an essential tool in your authority building toolbox. It's easy to call yourself a speaker, it's a lot harder to be a speaker that moves people to action rather than boring them to tears. Among other things Evans shares his tips for how to avoid becoming a human tranquilizer! Practice, hard work, longevity - it all happens one day at a time.

Marketing Podcast with Phil Simon Visual thinking is one of the more recent trends in business that has now reached into every arena. Organizations are rushing to become more visual. You need look no farther than the popularity of sites like Pinterest and Instagram to realize that people are inherently drawn to pictures. Marketers have long realized that power of images to help illustrate a point, simplify a concept and evoke an emotion. Online surfers, particularly younger online surfers, have grown accustomed to scanning pages and sites to quickly assess, in a sea of data, if something merits a more focused bit of attention. A growing use of this visual trend is the visualization of data. Fueled by massive internal and external data sets organizations are turning to visual aids to help make and communicate meaning through pictures over spreadsheets. The use of Infographics, as they are often called, loosely created an entire marketing asset category as organizations rushed to create poster-like graphics that tell a story and hopefully go viral. Today, data visualization has grown up to the point that it's no longer simply a trendy way to create marketing graphics. Data visualization techniques and data driven organizations are starting to use visualization as a leadership and management tool. (To be fair many organizations have done this for years, it's just much more accessible in some of the new ways to analyze and communicate.) As data journalist David McCandless said in this TED talk: "By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map. And when you're lost in information, an information map is kind of useful." My guest for this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Phil Simon. Simon has written six books on management including his most recent - The Visual Organization: Data Visualization, Big Data, and the Quest for Better Decisions. As we discuss in this interview Amazon is, of course, the poster child for its use of data as a decision making tool. In many cases Amazon can offer next or same day shipping because they have a pretty good idea of who is going to order what and when. Simon is also quick to point out that "a company with a dysfunctional culture and no sense of innovation can't save itself via dataviz." Like many new things that's a key point. This is a tool and it's what you do with it that matters. Many organizations will use new data visualization tools to create pretty dashboards and little else. Simon points to an example of how Netflix uses data visualization to ask and answer questions. Instead of saying I bet people often do X when then do X, they simply ask as many seemingly odd and random questions of the data and make discoveries that help drive their business in ways that no competitor can. And that I think is the essence of this new era of visual data - data doesn't simply replace intuition, it helps make intuition smarter. If you're open to asking questions and becoming a data scientist you'll discover things you can't imagine from numbers on a page. Here are some data visualization tools worth checking out -  Visual.ly, Many Eyes, iCharts, and one from LinkedIn Labs that allows you to view your world connections.

Marketing Podcast with Carmine Gallo 2014 marks the 30th anniversary of the phenomenon knows simply as TED. At this point in time an entire generation has grown up feasting on TED Talks. In the world of communication TED Talks are the gold standard by which not only formal presentations are gauged, but most forms of communication are gauged. Within the thousands of successful TED Talks there runs a somewhat common thread, or formula perhaps, that has transformed the way presenters present, leaders lead and teachers teach. Mastering, or at least acknowledging, this art form has become required study for marketers, business leaders and communicators alike. My guest for this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Carmine Gallo, author of Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds. Gallo has made a career out of studying TED Talks and in his book he breaks down the elements of the most successful talks. The book is filled with example after example of real talks and, along with the TED repository, acts as a bit of a master's class in the art of great presenting. If you're not tapping the TED library to get better at speaking you're missing out on a tremendous free training resource. Gallo starts our interview by suggesting, as I have in the title of this post, that in business today your communication skills are likely being compared to the TED standard. Gallo's book breaks down the very specific elements you need to master, but in the end, there's one skill that will take you farther than any other and that's the ability to communicate with stories. I've always contended that the best leaders, the best marketers, are the best storytellers and at its very core the art of the TED Talk is framed in the art of storytelling.

Marketing podcast with Pat Flynn Transparency is a business concept that's been tossed around liberally these last few years. To some extent social media has forced organizations to be more transparent, because they no longer had the luxury of hiding behind press releases and company spokespersons. I believe first and foremost in transparency in all things, but how far is too far? I'm not offering a prescription or solid opinion on that. For this post I want to start a discussion as much as anything. I believe that transparency, sharing information, revealing the numbers, opening the books or whatever form it takes is a healthy core value and not a marketing play. Internet marketers have often misused the power of transparency by attempting to "prove" how much money their system makes through the display of large checks and bank statements. This is precisely the manipulative guise of transparency I'm not talking about. One of the truly innovative good guys in this space is my guest for this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, Smart Passive Income creator Pat Flynn. From the very beginning Pat has published his money making numbers in his monthly report as a way to validate the advice he is giving to others. Here's where Pat is totally different than most and why he's so immensely popular. Pat reports on how he does what he does, even when and as it doesn't work as often as when it does. He refers to himself as a human crash dummy taking all the lumps and sharing in an often open and sometimes humorous way. Don't get me wrong, Pats wins far outweigh his losses, but it's this level of openness that has created a large, loyal and trusting community. My interview with Pat is actually a ramble through a number of online topics, but I wanted to anchor it with the specific topic of transparency that has served him so well. If information is power then when you share the information you spread the power and that's one of the best ways to build a healthy internal culture. A healthy internal culture usually seeps out into the market and defines how the world sees your brand. When everyone in an organization knows how much everything costs, how profit is made and how to save money or make money for the organization, they are better equipped to make decisions like an owner. Have you ever wondered why nobody cares about your business like you do? Maybe it's because you know more about why you care, how you care and what difference you're trying to make - have you shared that information? I stared this post with a title that asked if you can share too much and I pose that question to you the reader really. Buffer, an organization I've written about in the past, takes public transparency to a place few have. In addition to publishing goals and business performance updates, Buffer recently published how their salaries are determined and who, by name, makes what. This move created a tremendous amount of buzz both from those that thought it was bold and innovative and from those that thought it was reckless and overboard. I believe that transparency along with consensus and autonomy are essential elements of any healthy business and wrestling with getting these elements just right is one of the greatest challenges that small business face. So, now your turn. How do you make transparency work?

Marketing podcast with Christina Daves The term “earned media” is pretty fashionable these days. While it’s certainly taken on expanding meaning of late, I’ve been using it for years. I’ve long felt that the blending of advertising, referrals and public relations (what I’ve always called earned media) is the recipe for effective lead generation. In today’s vernacular that might be stated as the convergence of paid media (advertising), owned media (content assets) and earned media (public relations combined with all manner of customer generated content and sharing.) So, let’s further define what earned media is. Earned media is the kind you, well, earn, you don’t create it or buy it, it comes about when you do something worth sharing. That sharing might come in the form of a feature in your local paper or it just might as likely come when your friends and fans tell their friends and fans about your upcoming webinar. Either way, it must be an essential leg of your lead generation efforts, and here’s why. In the information age the most effective form of advertising is advertising that creates awareness for valuable, educational, trust building content. That content may be in the form of an ebook, blog post or Google+ Hangout, but the intent of the paid media is to drive attention and engagement with an organization’s owned media. By adding earned media to this equation you potentially create leverage that can multiply and carry your paid and owned efforts to places you might never reach. So you see, it’s not just about numbers; it’s about access and trust. This week's guest on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Christina Daves, author of PR for Anyone and an inventor whose talent for generating earned media put her business on the map. In fact, she was so successful she started a business to teach others how to generate PR on a budget. Earned media, the process that enables and encourages media outlets and end users alike to create and promote messages that benefit your brand is the secret to marketing success. The pool of potential amplifiers now extends far beyond traditional media outlets. Every member of your community is a potential source of earned media. Anyone that retweets, reviews, embeds, shares, comments, likes and curates your paid and owned media elements generates earned media. If, in fact, we then proactively build campaigns and processes to turn these amplifiers into subscribers, attendees, participants and ultimately customers, we create the ultimate lead generation machine. The place where earned, owned and paid media converge, the place where community members can no longer tell the difference, is where the environment for ultimate customer loyalty exists. You earn market attention when you produce and promote something people want to talk about, but then earned media takes something and creates the kind of momentum that no amount of paid media can. Creating great content is about creating earned media. Optimizing your blog, website and brand assets is about creating earned media. Your email newsletter is about creating earned media. Your social networking activity is about creating earned media. Earned media is the ultimate amplification tool when used in conjunction with paid and owned media.

Marketing Podcast with Mike Stelzner The title of today's post is one that I could write on a monthly basis. What's next in social media is a topic that seems to create a great deal of angst in marketing circles. I suppose the reason is that in some fashion social media has changed the game of marketing in ways that feel foreign to most and it's not done changing. In fact, the only constant is change and evolution and that creates confusion. Seems like once a social media expert figures out how to tell people the best way to use Facebook, poof, it all changes. In back to back emails I received solicitations to learn a) Why Facebook is Dead and b) How to Make a Killing on the Coming Facebook Gold Rush. So, it's no wonder the future of social media seems confusing. For this week's episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast I visited with Social Media Examiner founder Mike Stelzner. We talked about how he's successfully promoted his big, live event Social Media Marketing World (disclosure: I'm speaking at the event) held in March in San Diego and we talked a bit about the future of social media. Frankly, I think Mike and I agree that the future of social media for the typical small business hasn't changed much at all. The big social networks are going public and answering to the cry of stockholders to show ever increasing profits by creating another promotional channel for big brands. Social media for the small to mid size firms, however, has always been and shall remain one of the best places to gain exposure for great content. If the social networks forget that completely there won't be any reason to use the network. Shares, likes, embeds and retweets are the currency of marketing in social media and always have been. Marketers like to call this earned media, but no matter what you call it, it doesn't happen without share worthy content. In fact, share worthy content makes your advertising or paid media more effective as well. So, the future of social media is integration! Social media drives convergence and in some ways makes all of your marketing efforts more effective when properly viewed as an integration and audience building tool set.