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English Soccer Met Texans Cheerleaders

By Cheval John

Houston sports fans had the opportunity to witness one of the most historic rivalries in the English Premier League.

As part of their tour for the International Champions Cup, Manchester United and Manchester City faced off at NRG Stadium, home of the Houston Texans, to a sell out crowd on Thursday night.

Manchester United treated the pre-season match as a regular season game in which they won 2-0.

As a result, they have bragging rights until they face off again in the 2017-18 season.

Apart of the promotion were visits from the Texans’ football players with some of the players from Manchester City.

And the coverage of the Texans Cheerleaders on their respective clubs’ media outlet.

Like this tweet here from united

And this report from Kelly O’Donnell of Manchester City

It really not a surprise to see Texans Cheer get this media coverage from both Manchester United and Manchester City.

There is a strong possibility both clubs saw the reputation of the texans cheerleaders due to coverage of their recent #htcpicnic from major media outlets from around the world.

You are thinking, “They represent a National Football League (NFL) franchise, so whatever they put out will automatically get mention in the news.”

It goes a bit deeper than that.

The texans cheerleaders did not expect to get a lot of media attention from their #htcpicnic.

One of the members from texans cheer mentioned they were showing their fans a glimpse of having a good time at their picnic on their social media channels and were not seeking media attention. #paraphrased.

I totally believe them because the texans cheer are very active on all of their social media channels.

People have seen the texans cheerleaders twitter stream buzzing because each of the members interact with their fans on a daily basis.

In addition, they share a behind the scenes of their events on snapchat.

That is why the texans cheerleaders have earned the attention from major media outlets and the soccer clubs of Manchester United and Manchester City.

The lesson businesses can learn from the Texans Cheerleaders is focus on providing value to your customers and not look for a transaction.

Even if you don’t see immediate returns on your labor, you must have a mindset of serving your audience because over time, the revenue will come to you.

Plus, abundance of business will flow because you will continue to get referrals from people who trust your brand.

Just like the continuous media attention the texans cheer are receiving.

Cinnabon Shocked The World With A Simple Response

By Cheval John

Recently, I saw a post on Twitter which captured my attention.

This post mentioned about a major brand, Cinnabon, responding to someone who had mentioned them on Twitter.

What was more interesting is the post about Cinnabon responding to a person came from a well known journalist who covers one of the major professional sports in North America.

I would expect someone to have that reaction when a celebrity or an influencer answer them in a tweet.

For a well-known media personality in sports to be in shock when a major brand answers them is surprising.

It should not be a surprise because it shows even well known major media personalities are human too.

If a celebrity or media personality is shocked by a major brand answering them, it shows most major companies as a whole are not great on social media.

It is disheartening to see how major brands are treating social media like another broadcasting platform.

The only time you will see them on social media is when they have something to sell or a major event they want to promote.

They fail to understand people (mostly the millennial generation) are much more savvy than ever.

They can sniff out a person or a brand who are trying to sell to them.

Here are some stats to back up this point:

Only 22% of brands are trusted-Search Engine Watch via (Havas Media)

43% of millennials rank authenticity over content when consuming news-Search Engine Watch via (Forbes)

32% of millennials find today’s brand communications helpful-News Cred

So if you want to be successful on social media and have a strong impact on reaching this generation, you have to meet them where they are at.

And follow the examples of companies who are communicating with this generation on a daily basis via blogs, podcasts, live streaming, Twitter chats, etc.

You might gain some creative ideas of building a loyal fan base and save a boat load of money on your marketing budget.

As a bonus, here is a list of twitter chats hosted by these brands who connects with the millennial generation and are building a loyal audience in the process.

#ContentWritingChat

Hosted by Express Writers on Tuesdays at 11 a.m. eastern time

#SweetTalk

Hosted by Cinnabon on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. eastern time

#SEMRUSHChat

Hosted by SEMRush on Wednesdays at 11 a.m. eastern time

#BufferChat

Hosted by Buffer on Wednesdays at noon eastern time

#SproutChat

Hosted by Sprout Social on Wednesdays at 3 p.m. eastern time

#HootChat

Hosted by Hootsuite on Thursdays at 3 p.m. eastern time

#StartupChats

Hosted by Startup Canada on Wednesdays and Fridays at noon eastern time

Taking A “Break” From Work

By Cheval John

I normally would have a post today.

However, I decided to take a break to attend a major league baseball matchup for the first time this year.

I could have put together a fast post regarding social media.

I choose not to do the above because I wanted to be as detail as possible on providing value to you and also be consistent in publishing the blog post.

Later this week, you will see a quality post about how the Houston Texans Cheerleaders are dominating the NFL with social media and what we can learn from them as business professionals.

As for right now, I will enjoy this baseball matchup and see how the sport applies to businesses across the world.

Is Blogging Still Worth It?

By Cheval John

May 24th, 2017

You might be wondering if it’s worth it to have a blog after seeing these stats

There are over a billion websites in the world- Internet Live Stats

About 2.7 million blog posts are published everyday-Hosting Facts.com

The answer is yes because your blog is the home base for your website

Here are more stats about blogs:

Websites with a blog have tend to have 434% more indexed pages-Impact

43% of marketers who work for business to business tells everyone that blogging is very important for their companies-Social Media Examiner

81% of businesses consider their blogs to be an important asset to their businesses.-Search Engine Journal

Out of the millions and millions of blogs, the top hosting sites for blogs are Tumblir and WordPress (WP).

Though Tumblir host 175 million blogs, I am honestly not a fan of the platform.

WP hosts 75.8 million blogs in the world.

You might not know that WordPress has two different platforms for blogs.

There is WordPress.com, the free hosting site, and WordPress.org, the self-hosting software.

Before we get into the details of WordPress.com and WordPress.org, I want to chat about another hosting site that emerged over the last few years: Medium.

Medium was created in 2012 by Evan Williams, one of the co-founders of Twitter.

The vision for Medium was to create long form content in the manner people could express themselves more since Twitter has a 140 character limit.

People who creates an account on Medium via Twitter or Facebook will automatically increase their audience depending on the number of followers on either platform.

For example, Rachel Rofe, who is the author of 50 plus books, created her Twitter account in 2007 and built a strong community.

When Rachel started using Medium in 2014, almost 1/3 of her Twitter audience “followed” her to the blogging platform

This is an advantage for those who are looking to start blogging for the first time.

And you also keep the blog content according to the people at Medium.

With the above being said, here are the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

Pros of WordPress.com:

It is free

You can interact with fellow bloggers on the platform and build a community

Your blog could be discovered

Cons of WordPress.com:

You have limited features which can hinder you from expanding your blog

Pros of WordPress.org

You have access to the plugins which can improve your website

You can design the website which fits your business

The website is yours forever

Cons of WordPress.org

You have to pay a hosting company to run your website

In reality, it is not a con because they are hosting companies which are compatible with WordPress.org and are very affordable for small businesses.

The two hosting companies I highly recommend for hosting your website using WordPress.org are
Blue Host and Host Gator.

(Disclaimer: I use host gator for my business blog and I am not getting a commission at all.)

If you have to choose between wordpress.com and wordpress.org if you are planning to start a blog, I would select the latter.

When you built an audience over the years using wordpress.com and you want to switch to a self-hosted site using wordpress.org, you will end up “losing” the total number of views for your blog.

It will also cost you between $129-$200 to transfer your content from wordpress.com to wordpress.org.

I started this blog on wordpress.com in 2011 while simultaneously blogging for the collegiate newspaper and myself during my time in graduate school.

When I was placed on probation from graduate school, I decided to buy the domain name and upgrade the blog to vallanomedia.com using wordpress.com in January of 2012.

A couple days later, I formed the company as an llc and continued to blog about sports, travel and current events.

After looking at articles from experts like Nathalie Lussier regarding blogging platforms, I knew I had to switch my site over to wordpress.org.

So on October 1, 2012, I paid around $140 to switch my blog over to wordpress.org.

I had no idea at the time I was going to “lose” over 3,900 total viewership I built before switching from wordpress.com.

In conclusion, I want to add having a blog is important because it is your main real estate.

The social media platforms are just rented land.

If you want to build your business via blogging, you must do your research on which platform is right for you.

Here is a quote from Sonia Gregory, Owner and Creative Director of FreshSparks, which sums up the importance of having a blog:

“A blog is an opportunity to shake hands and introduce yourself. You can gain a reader’s trust through quality content.”

Are you planning on starting a blog? You can leave your comments below.

Does Not Hurt To Be Wrong

By Cheval John

I don’t have any posts this week about social media or live streaming.

However, I will chat about something else many people are afraid of.

Being wrong.

What I mean is many of us always want to be right.

We see a lot of predictions of where social media is going in the next couple of years.

Or which social media platform will be around.

Some thought that Vine would be around for a while because they were one of the first to jump start the live streaming revolution.

We even thought that Facebook was going to be a second class social media platform because they implemented their program to where you pay in order to boost your post.

Look at facebook now as they are continuing to dominate the social media scene especially with live video.

This leads to what I am chatting about in being wrong with predictions.

I made predictions over the years that turned out to be wrong.

People made fun of me for my wrong predictions that they called it the “Chevy Curse”

I keep on making some predictions surrounding a sporting event because sometimes they come to pass.

In this case, I have made a bet on myself on being a full time entrepreneur.

I am believing that things will be well with the business because I have learned a lot of valuable lessons along the way.

I understand that there is no such thing as over night success in building a business.

Yet many want to believe that when they start a business they will become profitable or even rich quickly.

The above will happen only if they experienced failure in their first business and learned valuable lessons.

Some might call us insane because we have not seen money rolling in despite years of hard work.

They will tell us to get a real work at a company.

They are the same ones who are miserable working at a 9-5 corporation.

I will tell that I am not afraid to be wrong in believing that my business will succeed because I know I am trying something new in being an entrepreneur.

I faced a situation when I started college late and wondered if I will ever graduate.

I worked hard in order to attain my college degrees from Lone Star College and Sam Houston State University.

That same tenacity will propel me towards achieving profitability this year which will take my business to the next level.

Even if people tell me I am crazy, I will continue to air my podcast every Tuesday, publish my blog on Wednesdays and participate in Twitter chats despite not seeing the positive results yet.

I rather be insane in doing the above than waste time in work that does not fulfill my destiny as a business owner.

Do you agree or disagree with this post? You can leave your comments below.