Building Your Audience Through Twitter Chats
By Cheval John
Carrie Morgan
Professional sports teams have used traditional advertising through television and radio in order to build a loyal fan base.
If you are an entrepreneur and are thinking of writing your first book, you should focus on having a loyal audience first.
Most publishers will not take you on as an newbie author if you don’t have that audience because they are in the business of making money.
And even if you are a self-published author, you must market in order to have a lot of book sales.
You might be thinking, “How do I build a loyal audience?”
One tactic that you can try is hosting a twitter chat.
When you host a twitter chat on a particular topic like public relations, you will be interacting with a lot of like-minded professionals who want to help each other to succeed.
Carrie Morgan built her audience through her #prprochat, got a publisher and launched her first book, “Above The Noise” which was endorsed by social media influencers like Gini Dietrich, Jay Baer and Ann Handley.
Ms. Morgan chatted with me on “What’s The Word?” about how she came up with the idea for her book and also why she went the entrepreneurial route.
Here is the interview below:
Everyone “Benefits” From Oil And Gas
By Cheval John
February 23rd, 2016
Photo Courtesy of Art Institute.edu
Houston has it advantages and disadvantages of being the energy capital of the world.
One of the advantages is being the location of 26 Fortune 500 companies behind New York City.
The other advantage is being the host of the 35th annual IHS CERA Week at the Hilton-Americas Houston hotel in downtown Houston.
The conference brings together executives, policymakers and government officials from around the world to discuss about the future of energy and the inconsistencies of the oil and gas industry.
One could say that this conference was timely because of the drop in price for oil in recent months.
Some quotes from the conference on Twitter includes:
Al-Qahtani: @Saudi_Aramco has Increased R&D funding by 60% in last 3 years #CERAWeek #IHSCERAWeek
— Valerie Jones (@rz_careernews) February 23, 2016
Energy Quote of the Day, 23 February 2016 https://t.co/elsnIid1UO @IEABirol #OilMarkets #CERAWeek pic.twitter.com/EisjuK7wA9
— IEA (@IEA) February 23, 2016
BP’s Lamar McKay: we must adapt rapidly and aggressively. We can do it, we will do it, we’ve done it before #CERAWeek #oilandgas
— Nikki Bishop (@_NikkiBishop) February 23, 2016
For the ordinary consumer, this would be seem to be like great news because of the low cost of gasoline in most of the USA.
They would believe that they deserve a huge break after the years of paying high prices for gasoline.
What they fail to understand is that the recession in the oil and gas industry have an indirect effect on other industries as well.
Case in point, Houston.
The Bayou City had grown over the years due to the oil and gas industry.
Marcellius Foster, a former resident of Huntsville, Texas, became wealthy due to his investment in the discovery of oil at Spindletop and founded the Houston Chronicle in 1901.
And when the recession hit most of the country, Houston was able to offset the recession because the oil and gas was able to boost up their local economy.
And over those years, those who become millionaires due to the oil and gas industry gave the city of Houston their own respective sports teams like the Houston Astros (1962), the Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans,) the Houston Rockets (1971) and the Houston Texans (2002).
But when the oil bust happened in the late 80s, Houston felt the worst of that failure because the majority of their economy was in the oil and gas.
‘
And though Houston has diversified their economy since the oil bust, businesses will still experience the sting of the oil and gas industry indirectly.
An example would be the restaurants and coffee shops.
And when most of the employees gets laid off from most of the Fortune 500 companies due to the current recession in the oil and gas, it affects them because they cater to these same employees.
So in the long run, everyone is affected by the oil and gas industry.
And if they want to avoid the affects of the oil and gas industry, they will have to build a strong online presence by sharing valuable content through their blogs, podcasts, video etc. about their expertise in the oil and gas industry.
They will also have to be as transparent as possible and participate in group chats on social media platforms.
Because when they have a strong network that they built while they were working in the oil and gas industry and have a loyal audience through social media, they will have a 80% chance of gaining work whether as an employee or an entrepreneur when the layoffs happened to them.
Working The Second Shift
By Cheval John
Most entrepreneurs begin their businesses while they are working full time for their respective companies.
When they finish their duties for the day as an employee, they go to work on their business for the better.
Dr. Harold Arnold describes these part-time entrepreneurs who are building their businesses in the term of working the second shift.
He came out with the book, Second Shift, and shared about how he wrote the book on “Starve The Doubts,” with host Jared Easley, where I served as one of the co-host of the show along with fellow co-host Renee Groskreutz for this episode.
Professional athletes are in a lot of ways like part-time entrepreneurs because they are competing on a daily basis compete in their respective sports.
Everyday on national media outlets like ESPN, NBC, we hear from pundits on what these athletes did or did not do to help their team win.
Their identity are immediately connected to the sports they play.
And most of these athletes are working in their second shift when they are building their very own businesses during their off season.
They understand that they have to do something different once they retire from their respective sports.
So in a lot of ways, part-time entrepreneurs can relate to professional athletes.
And there is nothing wrong with starting your business on the side while you are an employee.
As long as that businesses does not conflict with your place of work either in the sports industry, public relations industry, etc.
Celebrating 3 Years In Podcasting
By Cheval John
Courtesy of www.hfmatretrony.org
As SuperBowl 50 is about to begin in about two hours, national media outlets from CBS, the NFL Network, ESPN, USA Today, the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle etc. are providing a whole lot of attention and buzz around the different strategies that lead either the Carolina Panthers or the Denver Broncos to winning the championship.
A new wave of media is making the national media to take notice and even adapt to how they broadcast events like the SuperBowl.
Live streaming applications like Periscope and Blab have allowed people who are not with the official media to broadcast their expertise in entrepreneuership, social media and even sports.
In the case of blab, their application makes it easier for someone who is a podcaster to record their shows in front of a “live audience” and overtime build their fanbase for their shows.
I can say that I am one of the podcasters who have started to record my show, What’s The Word? on blab from September of 2015 and have been putting the show’s recordings on BlogTalkRadio to come out at a later time.
BlogTalkRadio was where I started my show three years ago on this very day.
I never thought I would still be podcasting even now because most podcasters don’t make it past the seventh episode because they don’t see the immediate results of getting rich from their podcasts in the same way that John Lee Dumas has become rich from his “Entrepreneur On Fire” podcast.
Dumas is the exception because he was the first to have a 7-day a week podcast and that is the reason why he is extremely successful with his podcast.
Many don’t understand that podcasting takes hard work and dedication and that you will not achieve a million downloads overnight according to this article on Libsyn’s blog.
I know that I was blessed to have begun my podcast which is an extension of Vallano Media from Huntsville, Texas, a small city which is an hour north of Houston and that the guests from the early episodes of my show were faculty and sports coaches from my alma mater, Sam Houston State University.
The very first guest for my show was Peter Roussel, former White House spokesperson and current adjunct professor in the Mass Communication Department.
Even though my first episode did not start out well, I have learned how to become a better podcaster over time.
I am still learning to this day of how to be a great podcaster for the better.
Plus, I am not going after the A-listers as much to be on my show as I did before (even though my intention was to lift them up to another level of success) because I want to treat everyone the same and not give special treatment just because they are a well-known name for the better.
Also, you will get a whole lot of value from a guest who is not a well-known celebrity and will uplift your audience and even yourself to be better people.
A couple of my favorite episodes showcases that example of not too well known guests who have uplifted me and my audience for the better.
Christin Kardos, who is now a community manager for Convince and Convert
Kelly Hungerford, Digital Strategist
Greg Walker, Author And Entrepreneur
Jackie Bernardi: Entrepreneur And Beauty Industry Business Catalyst
Tamara McCleary, Creator of RelationShift
So the most important message that you can take away from this post is to always be consistent with putting out uplifting messages on your podcasts, blogs, YouTube videos, etc. and don’t ever look for the “overnight success” because overtime, you will achieve important milestones that will make you appreciate the hard work that you put into creating quality shows for the better.
The Explosive Growth Of Podcasts
By Cheval John
It was during the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) National Championship matchup between Sam Houston State and North Dakota State that I had a true idea of what podcasting was all about.
I was covering the matchup for the blog of the school newspaper and a colleague who was working for the Huntsville Item at the time chatted about the beginning stages for his podcast.
Before the matchup, we did a podcast along with the sports editor of the school newspaper about the keys that both teams needed to win the national championship.
I did not think more about podcasting for a while until I saw an article by Eventual Millionaire host Jaime Masters on Social Media Examiner about why a person should start a podcast
That was when I realized that I needed to begin a podcast.
The problem was that I did not have enough money for podcast equipment.
Then when I saw about hosting your very own radio show on BlogTalkRadio with just a computer and a phone courtesy of Chelsea Krost‘s show, I knew that was where I was going to launch my podcast.
Since then I have been growing my show steadily and using blab to record my show which later appears on BlogTalkRadio.
And many entrepreneurs are now reaching potential customers via podcast.
This infographic below by CopyBlogger explains the rise of podcasts and why now is the time to have your very own podcast.
Like this infographic? Get content marketing advice that works from Copyblogger.
And to finish this article, here are a couple of podcast episodes from What’s The Word? featuring guests Janette Speyer of Web Success Team and Natasha Davis of Impact Branding Consulting.
Janette Speyer
Natasha Davis
Have you thought about podcasting? If so, how has podcasting helped your business? You can leave a comment below.
Share this: