Karen Jones, Personal Trainer and Author of Happy You, Happy Body
By Cheval John
November 29th, 2017
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Karen Jones.
Karen is a personal trainer and fitness instructor for Happy You, Happy Body bootcamp, which helps many to achieve their fitness goals and have a healthy lifestyle.
She is the author of the book, “Happy You, Happy Body.”
You will hear:
-What led her to participate in her first fitness competition in her 40s
-How her facebook group by the same name, “Happy You, Happy Body” helped her business
-How she has used live streaming to show her audience different exercise routines
-What led her to write her book “Happy You, Happy Body”
Instagram: Happy You, Happy Body
Facebook Group: Happy You, Happy Body with Karen Jones
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode here on BlogTalkRadio
Had some technical difficulties, so please bare with us.
Quotes from Karen Jones on:
USING LIVE STREAMING TO SHOW DIFFERENT TYPES OF EXCERCISE
I had a meeting with Lucy Hall and she said to me, “Karen, you need to get on Facebook Live. You need to do live streaming because that’s going to open up a bigger audience for you.
I was a little bit shy of this.
I have done a bit of live streaming, but it was quite structured.
I needed the live streaming to be more natural and be really authentic and just bring me.
I am doing what I know.
ON HAVING A GO-GETTER MINDSET
It’s about taking manageable steps.
As long as you keep moving forward and you do not stop, you will eventually get to the end of that marathon.
That’s the mindset I’ve had when I trained for seven and a half months to get my body contest ready.
That’s what I did when I wrote my book.
ON BUSINESSES EMBRACING SOCIAL MEDIA
You can reach a bigger audience.
My vision is to create a world full of healthy and fit people.
The most easiest way for me to achieve it is through social media.
Here I am in England. How is it I am talking to somebody in America and reaching an audience I want to help worldwide.
People get to see who you are.
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Julia McCoy, Founder and CEO of Express Writers
By Cheval John
November 22nd, 2017
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Julia McCoy, founder of Express Writers.
Express Writers provides content for different types of business industries around the world.
Julia is also the host of “The Write Podcast” and the popular twitter chat, #contentwritingchat.
She is a best-selling author of the book, “So You Think You Can Write? The Definitive Guide To Successful Online Writing,” and “Practical Content Strategy and Marketing” set to be released on November 30th.
In this episode, you will hear
-What led Julia to start Express Writers
-How her company achieved over four million dollars in revenue with limited advertising
-Why she started #contentwritingchat
-Her favorite social media platform
-The person (past or present) she would like to interview on her podcast
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.expresswriters.com
Twitter: @expwriters
Quotes from Julia on:
BUILDING EXPRESS WRITERS
Jumping into something I did not know how to do and then figuring it out along the way was definitely one of my methods to success.
That kind of opens the door for you to learn by failure when you really do not know what you are doing.
You jump into it and you figure it out.
BOOTSTRAPPING YOUR BUSINESS
That really depends on the circumstance.
It is really hard for me to say you should do one or you shouldn’t do the other because everything I have learned has been without funding.
I have talked to many business owners and what they tell me about funding is if you do not have a clear plan on what you are doing with, let’s say a couple million you are going to get, it really won’t do you any good because you learn how to kind of just sit back and not work really hard to be the leader in your industry.
Whereas, if you are fighting for a paycheck, which I have been all of my six years of running the company, that kind of drives you to create the best product and be the best authority in your niche.
So I feel like that drive really comes from, “I have to make money and I have to figure this out.”
CONTENT MARKETING
I think content marketing is a huge channel, especially if you do not have a lot of capital.
There are big brands testing with their ad budget directly against their content marketing.
They found that content marketing returns four times on investment versus footing a traditional paid ad.
The basis of really making that return when you set up your content marketing is you want to find the right audience and you really want to grab their attention because if you are speaking to everyone in front of you, the return is so low.
So you really have to speak to the right people and go from there when it comes to your content.
A lot of content marketers drop off too early because they do not see the return overnight.
We kind of look for that return immediately and when it does not happen, we get discouraged.
With content marketing, you have to hang in there.
I have been doing this for six years and it is still hard for me to wait around and see the return.
You have to consistently put out the right content.
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Dr. Karen Freberg, Associate Professor at University of Louisville
By Cheval John
November 15th, 2017
Today’s episode features Dr. Karen Freberg, associate professor at the University of Louisville.
She is one of the most innovative professors in higher education due to being a pioneer in the teaching of social media.
Dr. Freberg has spoken at conferences around the world.
She has build her online presence via social media which gave her insights into preparing her students for the real world.
Her #freberg17 class created and implemented a social media marketing plan for the Louisville Bats.
This episode was recorded on Facebook Live via Blue Jeans Network.
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.karenfreberg.com
Twitter: @kfreberg
Quotes from Dr. Karen Freberg on:
Being Active On Social Media
I feel like social media is a passion of mine and I absolutely love it.
I also feel like for college students, if I am asking them to do certain strategies on social media, I have to do them as well just to kind of show them like, “okay, here’s kind of the strategies that I have been able to learn through the process.
I feel like instead of being like a top-down model for my classes, I am more of a participant too.
So there is definitely strategies I can definitely articulate, share and teach my students.
I am constantly learning each and everyday new things, new trends, new ways of approaching certain softwares for social media.
ON CREATING THE SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNITY PROFESSORS FACEBOOK GROUP
I would say it actually came from a research project I was working on this past year.
I was talking to one professor who was teaching social media at a university in Utah.
He was talking about how he really wish there was a place where professors who were teaching social media could come together and share some ideas.
He said, “I go to these other conferences, but they are really just advertising conferences or public relations conferences.”
“There was really no central place where we could all share our thoughts on certain trends in social or what are things that we are facing in terms of expectations from employers about our students skills and books we were using to teach social media.”
So I got the idea of creating a group where we just came together and share our ideas.
The group started last year in October and we have over 360 members (my update: the group is now over 450 members) from around the world.
We are all struggling with some of the same questions and same concepts.
We talked earlier before the show about this perception of professors who teach social media.
We get criticized all the time with “We don’t know what we are talking about, higher education is a waste of time. We are not ahead of the trends or we don’t know what we are doing.”
So it is nice to come together as a group and say, “Okay, here’s what we are doing. Here’s how we are going to show future employers our students are getting the necessary skills and education.”
It is a very great community and I have been really happy to see everyone sharing their ideas.
I also wanted to create a place I wish I had when I started out as a professor.
ON COVERING THE BEHIND THE SCENES OF COLLEGE GAMEDAY IN LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
I got approached from Front Office Sports about taking over their instagram account for college gameday.
I’m like, “Great, this is so exciting”
I realized, “Oh, I have to do what I have been preaching to my students and making sure I was basically following the same guidelines and best practices.
It was a lot of fun.
It was a different mindset where you have to think about what would the audience for front office sports want to see.
I had a lot of people that were really excited to see the clemson social media team.
So I made sure I got some coverage there and then the behind the scenes of college gameday.
Always make sure you have extra battery backs for your phone.
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Deirdre Breakenridge, Owner of Pure Performance Communications
By Cheval John
November 8th, 2017
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Deirdre Breakenridge, founder of Pure Performance Communications.
Deirdre has written many books on public relations and social media.
Her recent book “Answers for Modern Communicators: A Guide to Effective Business Communication” deals with how professionals and college students can be successful communicators in a business environment.
She is also the host of #prstudchat, a twitter chat which speaks about how college students can learn more about the public relations field and how they can prepare themselves once they graduate from college.
In this episode, you will hear:
-Deirdre’s process in writing her first book
-The importance of live streaming
-On why she started the podcast, “Women Worldwide”
-On hosting “The PR Influencer Show” on Nasdaq
This episode was recorded on Facebook Live via Blue Jeans Network before airing on BlogTalkRadio.
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full Episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.deirdrebreakenridge.com
Twitter: @dbreakenridge
Quotes from Deirdre on:
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Public relations has changed so much because of social media and the way businesses have to be more flexible.
People would go online at any time and if they wanted something, we had to be there.
If you are going to support a business, you have to be ten steps ahead and to understand and listen and know where the pain points are in the market and with the customers to be able to help that business.
NEW MEDIA
I knew we had to embrace new media.
It was a different way of communication and how we approached, not just traditional journalists, but different types of media and where people wanted to receive their news.
In 2003, I had a huge wake-up call.
My team went in to pitch a CEO and his team on a tech product and we were probably a little over-confident.
We thought we knew exactly where we could get the message out through what channels.
After we pitched on how we were going to launch this load balancer product, he kind of looked at me and said, “Okay, that was good, but where’s all the new stuff that’s really going to excite our end users? Where are they going to embrace things?”
What he was saying was why aren’t you talking about blogs.
I had written about that in my second book, which is really ironic that I was writing about blogs, but not pitching that.
I went back to my agency that day and said, “No matter how ahead we think we are, we are not.”
“We are now going to start opening up technology for our public relations professionals. They need to be hands-on in the back end of websites and content management systems.”
“I want public relations people to upload news releases and photos. I want them hands-on with technology.”
They thought I was crazy.
That was the start of “We have to be flexible, we have to move, there’s new things out there.”
Public relations people have to embrace and move forward.
BRANDS BEING MEDIA COMPANIES
They are content machines and they are not just sharing content for the sake of getting their messages across.
They are educating and becoming thought leaders.
They are having other people come in, be correspondents and share news and information and do interviews.
It is a whole new dynamic.
I was sitting with a financial services company recently.
They now have an in-house studio for video production because they are thought leaders in their space and they are going to be doing interviews.
We see this a lot more.
That is the kind of storytelling and brand journalism you want to bring to the table to be a media company.
LIVE STREAMING
I think it is a great opportunity.
It is almost the no bull crap way of getting out some really good transparent information.
You are talking to a person who grew up in the agency world where we would not put out anything.
This is a new way of being able to tell stories and to share who you are and what you do.
To give a piece of yourself as an entrepreneur and to show your passion through a live stream is really important.
If you enjoy this episode, you can share via the social media icons below.
Also, who would you like to be a guest on the show?
Give Your Audience Access To Your Creative Process
By Cheval John
Today’s post is a case study of former ABBA member, Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s, “Frida”, solo album, “Something Going On” and what we as entrepreneurs can learn.
ABBA was on top of the charts consistently during their time together (Agnetha Faltskog was married to Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson was married to Frida prior to the group forming of course).
Many were drawn to their acapella sound.
The success of the band led to the strain on their marriages.
Frida wanted to do a solo English album which would have a different sound from ABBA.
So she choose Phil Collins, who is a drummer as well, to produce her first solo english album.
She listened to Collins’ first solo album “Face Value” for eight months.
The record label, Polar Music, sent out messages to major publishers around the world about Frida’s solo project.
In an overwhelming answer, they got 500 songs.
They then listened to all of them and choose the eleven songs for her album.
Collins and the session players flew into Stockholm and recorded the album tracks.
They added the trumpets from Earth, Wind and Fire’s Phenix Horns to some of the tracks.
They also added the orchestra sound recorded at Air Studios in London, England.
It took them a month and a half to put the album together.
As a result, “Something Going On” was a huge hit worldwide.
The single,”I Know There’s Something Going On” hit number one in Switzerland, Belgium, Costa Rica and France.
It was also number fourteen on the Billboard 100 and became one of the best selling singles in the United States in 1983.
Before the advent of social media, publicists would book musicians on major media leading up to the launch of their album because those outlets have the largest audience.
What made Frida’s success different?
She gave Sveriges Television (SVT), a national Swedish broadcaster, access to the making from start to finish of the album, “Something Going On.”
SVT edited the recordings to make it into a one-hour television special.
It is safe to say Frida understood her audience very well.
She knew it was history in the making because she was venturing into the unknown from her association with ABBA.
That is why it is important to showcase the behind the scenes of your business and share the “secrets” to your success.
It is not like someone will go and knock you out of business due to sharing your secrets.
Your audience will appreciate you because of your willingness to take them on your journey to success with your business.
They will even go out of their way to share your finished product with their friends and family.
For example, you can allow your listeners to see the entire recording process of your podcast via live streaming.
In the same manner of television shows which records in front of a live studio audience, you can be that business or person which live streams your recordings to your audience.
You can let them know in advance that this live stream recording will last about 30 minutes while encouraging them to leave comments.
Once the live stream part of the recording is over, you can answer their questions as part of the post-production show.
If your podcast is interview based, this can allow your audience exclusive access to ask your guest questions in the comments section during the post-production.
This strategy can help you boost your podcast which is part of your business.
With third party applications like Blue Jeans Network, Zoom, and Crowdcast.io, you can simulcast your podcast recordings to either facebook live, periscope or YouTube Live.
So go out and allow your audience access to your creative process in the same manner as Frida did 35 years ago.
What are your thoughts on the case study?
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