Chelsea Peitz, Snapchat Expert and Author of “Talking In Pictures”
By Cheval John
January 31st, 2018
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Chelsea Peitz, who is a snapchat influencer and author.
Chelsea works in the real estate industry and has built her brand using snapchat.
Many have thought that a business can’t see the return on investment (roi) with using snapchat because of the content disappearing in 24 hours.
Chelsea basically saw different as she formed a deep friendship with people who are now business partners via the snapchat app.
This has inspired Chelsea to write her book, “Talking In Pictures.”
She also hosts, “Chelschat,” a show about the latest third party apps and softwares to better improve your social media experience.
Chelsea has taken that same concept and launched her YouTube channel by the same name earlier this year.
In this episode, you will hear:
-what led her to join snapchat
-if snapchat will make it through this year
-the process of writing her book
-taking the leap into entrepreneurship
The show was recorded on Facebook Live via Blue Jeans Network
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full Episode on BlogTalkRadio
Chelsea’s LinkedIn Account
Snapchat: Chelsea.Peitz
Quotes from Chelsea Peitz on:
JOINING SNAPCHAT
My personality is kind of an all in personality.
So I committed to using it every single day for an entire year.
And I found some people that were in my industry.
Those four people turned out to be my closest friends in life and business partners now.
We have done so many things together.
We have created a community online.
We have created conferences.
If I would have told my mom two years ago that I was getting on a plane to meet strangers that I had never actually met in person, she would have said, “What are you doing, that’s unsafe. What are you thinking?”
There is something to communicating and building relationship with the camera that made me really think about how the landscape of social media and marketing was really changing and how we were creating these very close intimate relationships with people through the cameras in our smartphones that always had with us.
I started using snapchat and I didn’t know what to do.
So I said, “I’ll just make a show and I’ll share marketing tips everyday.”
As I kind of got into that, I kind of became known as the marketing person, the social media person.
Then I started doing a little bit more of my personal life and kind of my hilarious sense of humor.
I started to see an exponential change in the relationships that I had with people and I realized that you can’t do business all the time on snapchat, instagram stories and facebook stories because people really want relatability and relatability is the most underutilized marketing tactic today.
Going into this new adventure, I almost unknowingly built this global virtual board of directors and I can now reach out and collaborate with them and say, “I need somebody to teach me how to do YouTube.”
I have a great snapchat friend who is a YouTube expert.
Or I need somebody to teach me how to do SEO.
I have a great snapchat friend who’s an SEO expert.
The cool thing is that we’ll help each other and it’s like nothing I’ve never experienced before.
For me, snapchat is gonna have a very special place in my heart forever.
I’ll be very sad one day if they don’t exist.
There is something about holding someone in your hand everyday and watching their life.
You can’t fake who you are every single day all day forever.
So people really get to know who you are.
WRITING THE BOOK “TALKING IN PICTURES”
When I sat down with those people, “those strangers” if you will that I had never met before, we went to Salt Lake City and spent the weekend there and I brought my closest friend.
We were sitting in a Starbucks and my closest friend said to me “It’s really weird that it seems like you’ve known each other for years and I’m watching y’all talk and it’s just like you just saw each other yesterday.”
So that made me start to really think “What is different about snapchat” at the time because this was right when facebook live starte coming out before instagram stories.
It wasn’t specifically the platform itself.
It was the key elements that app brought to people which now other apps have.
It was really about the intimacy of the camera and showing your face because neuroscience we can’t help but connect with somebody when we see them eye-to-eye.
It was the psychological triggers of us going in there and getting feedback and wanting more.
It really changed from something that had happened in the past where we post something on facebook or twitter that had already happened to being this real-time visual communication which was a really fundamental shift in how we were creating communities and communication.
I didn’t rally know that when I started writing the book but I knew there was something that I wanted to do.
I documented that entire experience (writing the book) through snapchat and I will tell you that people sent me snaps of them holding my book and said, “I’m so excited. I watched you for a year writing this book on snapchat.”
That was really cool and that’s something very different about what you can do with these camera first platforms.
You can bring people into your story and become part of your journey.
You can document what you are doing and you never have to sell or give a sales pitch.
You don’t have any sales objections to overcome.
People will come to you and ask you to buy your product or sign up for whatever.
It’s the greatest experience ever and everything I do from here on out is camera first.
I also interviewed people for the book because I wanted to share the community and those people were really part of that journey with me because they saw the different pieces that were happening.
TRADEMARKING CHELSCHAT
You see all these big names and what-have-you and people say, “How did you come up with the name?”
Nine times out of ten, it’s completely accidental.
I was trying to rebrand a couple of months ago and I called my snapchat people that I talk to everyday.
I said, “I just need to come up with a brand name. I’m gonna do a YouTube channel.”
All of them were like, “When I think of you, I think of Chelschat”
It just came out.
It wasn’t anything that I had specifically planned.
People on the street call me that.
Bobbie Byrd and Lisa Stauber, Co-Host of Twitter Chat #BlogElevated
By Cheval John
January 24th, 2017
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Bobbie Byrd and Lisa Stauber, Co-Founders of the Blog Elevated conference.
The conference evolved from the houston bloggers association which was started in 2010 to connect fellow bloggers in the houston area on growing their online presence.
They later created Quirky Owl Media, which became the parent company of the blog elevated conference and the twitter chat.
In this episode, you will hear:
-what led them to form the conference
-should businesses embrace live video
-their thoughts on snapchat
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full Episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.blogelevated.com
Twitter: @BlogElevated
Quotes from Bobbie Byrd and Lisa Stauber on
INFLUENCER MARKETING
Lisa: I think because the opportunity is just there.
It’s one of the ways that you can monetize your instagram channel or your snaps or your tweets or your blog by doing partnerships with brands.
Their biggest asset is their reader’s trust.
So when you become an influencer, you are basically able to leverage that trust into an income.
Now some people will just show anything for any money and they quickly lose that trust and find that their business flames out.
So the smart influencers are authentic and were already sharing everything they do anyway.
If we really love an appliance, we share it.
If we really love a meal at a restaurant, we already sharing it.
So it’s just a way to make an income stream from things we are already doing.
Bobbie: As far as influencers, many of us already have the followings built up behind us.
If it’s something you want to promote, there is nothing wrong with making money of of that.
From the business side, it’s genius for these companies to be using them.
This past weekend, I went on a sponsored trip out of town and I just shared it on my social media accounts.
I had several personal friends, not even people are outside of my immediate friend group, asking questions and saying, “We Want To Do That.”
It’s just because of what they saw me doing.
I can take that same message I’m sharing with my personal friends and share it with my fans which are over 50,000.
I think for the bloggers perspective, it’s something that’s easy to monetize if you truly love it.
If you are a brand and you are not doing that, I think you are missing out on a huge opportunity.
TWITTER CHAT #BLOGELEVATED
Lisa: The chat has really kind of changed over the years which originally started as houston bloggers chat.
During our meetups, we would tweet using houston bloggers as a hashtag.
Then people would say, “Oh, I can not come to the meeting or I missed it or can I follow the hashtag.”
So it kind of grew from there.
We would do our meetings once a month and the other three weekdays of that month to keep the connection strong.
We kind of tweet about what was in the news or if some big new thing happens.
We would just tweet back and forth.
It was a really small group of people.
But the chat became more popular and we started having people from other cities joining.
So we had Dallas saying, “I’m not in houston, can I come to houston bloggers chat” which obviously it’s on Twitter.
We had people in Austin and in San Antonio and people who did not live near a city, but really crave that connection with bloggers.
Maybe they lived in a small town and did not know one other single blogger around.
So we morphed into Texas blogger chat and found that we were doing it three weeks that we did not meet and a lot of people missed out on the fourth week because it was a bigger chat.
So we moved it to a different night and we’re chatting every week.
From there, we created the conference and changed the hashtag to blog elevated so we could encompass everybody interested in the conference and everyone attending the conference because we have a pretty heavy Texas group at our conference.
We also have people from other countries attend.
We are an international conference at this point.
DIGITAL MARKETING
Lisa: If there’s one area of digital marketing that’s over-saturated, it’s the coach of the coaches.
The people that will have a webinar to teach you how to do webinars, but only ever had a successful webinar about webinars.
It becomes an echo chamber.
So our Twitter chat gives us the opportunity to show that we’re not just people who talk about blogging, we really have actionable things that will move your blog forward.
One of the hearts and soul of blog elevated is we are trying to avoid cliques and welcome everybody.
We are also helpers.
We try to always be serving our audience at all times.
It also because it’s the opportunity to reach out to bloggers one-on-one a lot of times during the chat or after the chat asking a more specific question.
We can help them right then and there because again, we’re all about education and helping bloggers.
Whether they come to our conference or not, we’re still gonna help you.
I think the conference is a great opportunity to get all in one area all at once to meet with brands and network with other people and hear from other speakers.
If you really want to blog, you do not have to go to a comprehensive e-course or buy an ebook.
You an figure it out just by having other bloggers help you.
From a business perspective, it’s also given us cold hard numbers that we can share.
I do not think a lot of attendees know that we do not make any money off the ticket sales.
We have the ticket sales to confirm that you are attending and to cover things like coffee and your lunch.
We do not make a profit off of the conference.
What help us run the conference as a business is getting outside sponsors.
BLOGGERS PITCHING TO BRANDS
Lisa: We get between five and thirty million impressions in a single hour on the blog elevated twitter chat.
We usually trend in houston and at times nationally.
Those are numbers that the people who want to work with us can take to their bosses and say, “They are not just shooting in the dark or hoping to get results.”
We can show exactly how many people saw it, how many people retweeted, how many people stuck around.
It is really helpful to give us proof of concept.
Bobbie: Our numbers are proof.
They need to know without a doubt that you can provide value to them.
If you want to sell $100 course to twenty people and yet you do not have any proof that shows you can do what you are trying to sell, it’s gonna be hard.
You gonna have to work quadruple the amount of time that you would if you just simply went out and offer your services for free for a little bit.
We’re big of don’t work for free.
But there is a big difference between working and serving others.
That’s where you kind of have to figure it out.
Are you working for them or are you serving and helping them?
If you are serving them, it’s gonna come back to you and you will see a payout in that as well.
Lisa: It also helps you build your portfolio.
If you are new to an area, maybe you have never run facebook ads before and you help somebody and you are not charging them because you are learning yourself.
Plus, you help the other person and you can build your portfolio and show concrete results.
Chris Strub, Author of “50 States, 100 Days: The Book”
By Cheval John
January 17th, 2018
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Chris Strub, author of “50 States, 100 Days: The Book.”
The live streaming revolution officially started in early 2015 when Meerkat, now defunct, and Periscope was introduced at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
This led to many small business owners joining the live streaming community and building a strong personal brand.
People like Cynthia Bazin, Brian Fanzo and Sabrina Cadini.
Mr. Strub set a goal of live streaming from all 50 states of the United States while volunteering at non-profit organizations.
From the accomplishment of live streaming from every state, he got the opportunity to work with brands in the non-profit sector and was the good will ambassador for The Salvation Army late last year.
In this episode, you will hear:
-what led him to live stream from all 50 states
-the importance of businesses embracing social media
-the relevance of snapchat
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.teamstrub.com
Twitter: @chrisstrub
Quotes from Chris Strub on:
FUNDING THE TRIP TO LIVE STREAM IN ALL 50 STATES
At Binghamton, I studied English and Economics.
From the economics perspective, when you think about the value of your life, when you think about opportunity costs, which is if I don’t do this today.
What is the cost of not taking action?
What is the cost of not starting my own business?
What is the cost of just sitting there and do nothing?
For me, the cost of visiting 50 states in 100 days was somewhere around $11,000 to $12,000, which is a lot of money.
In the grand scheme of things in life, $12,000 is not the end of the world.
Certainly when you are comparing that to the cost of college, when you are comparing it to the cost of a graduate degree, it’s nothing.
It can be a drop in the bucket especially if you go to a State University of New York (SUNY) institution like Binghamton.
I’ve been reading this book by Chris Guillebeau, the first person to visit all 193 countries around the world, called “The Art of Non-Conformity,” where he talks about the alternative college experience and the way that the world has changed over these last few decades.
You can really gain so much valuable experience at so much less of a cost than going to obtain a traditional master’s degree just by reading certain books, connecting with certain influencers or download an app that will teach you a new language for free.
That is the philosophy I took with 50 states in 100 days.
I believe that I earned a master’s degree in the United States of travel, live streaming and social media.
That’s very special to think about.
I do not have a piece of paper on the wall to mark it down.
I think that having the chance to speak at conferences around the country, being entrusted with brands like The Salvation Army and working with Humana last year.
These are enormous opportunities that did not require me to get a master’s degree.
I went out and did all of this on my own.
You can make more money, but you can not make more time.
When you are thinking about what you are doing with your time, where are you investing your time, where you are living and who you are spending time with.
Even now in 2018, I have been thinking more and more about where I am spending my time, who I am speaking to, what stories I am watching on Instagram, what am I watching on YouTube, because your time is your most valuable asset.
It’s the one thing that we can not make more of.
When you invest your time in big idea and reading books and learning.
Reading books like “Talking In Pictures” by Chelsea Peitz.
You can learn so much just from taking action on what some of these influencers are recommending.
It is not rocket science to get a Gary Vaynerchuk book.
SETTING GOALS
The more you define your goals, the more you understand what success looks like for you, the better you can understand the importance of taking these steps along your journey.
For me, I think I have been a victim almost of not setting goals high enough.
In 2015, my goal was to visit 50 states in 100 days, that was it.
Know what happened, I visited 50 states in 100 days and then I looked around and said, “Now what happens?”
You almost expect the universe to deliver you something if you achieve your goal.
You are not promised the next step up.
You have to know what’s next.
BUILDING A STRONG NETWORK
If you are podcasting, if you are writing a book or going to a social media conference, what do you want to get out of it?
I’m blessed to have a lot of people from houston deep in my tribe like Rebecca Councill, Kristy Gillentine and Kristyna Torres-Cruz.
They are all such incredible special people.
I want to leave each conference with at least person who is in my circle.
BUSINESSES EMBRACING SOCIAL MEDIA
I would say that the biggest change we are seeing is good customer service being the new marketing.
We as customers come to expect, maybe not necessarily this great institutional social media strategy.
If I send them a treet, if I send them a facebook message, am I going to get a response?
What is the value of that response?
This one person said at Wendy’s, “how many retweets for free chicken nuggets for a year?”
Wendy’s said, “Eighteen million retweets”
So this person went out and get eighteen million retweets.
This was not a planned campaign.
It was a customer service representative at Wendy’s intelligently replying on-the-fly and that turned into one of the most brilliant social media marketing campaign of all of 2017.
What did it cost Wendy’s?
A couple hundred dollars of free chicken nuggets?
So I think that businesses need to be able to listen better.
They need to be able to understand the conversation that is taking place around their brand.
I would start with focusing on the micro-level.
Making sure that if someone is looking for a response from your brand, that you are answering it.
I think you are going to get a lot more return on investment (ROI) from starting there than you might get from trying to envision this enormous awesome social media strategy that only promotional.
Michelle Muenzler, Author and Nicknamed “The Cookie Lady”
By Cheval John
January 10th, 2018
Today’s episode features Michelle Muenzler, who is an author of many books and a speaker.
She has spoken at many conventions around the state of Texas including the Houston Comicpalooza.
The backstory of how I met Michelle happened when I was a last minute substitute to moderate a panel about how writers use social media to build brand awareness for a self-published author at Comicpalooza last year.
I had always heard a lot about Comicpalooza and how it was filled with celebrities who build their status with past shows.
Living here in Houston the last couple of years, I knew this was my opportunity to attend the famed event, so I was happy to moderate the panel.
While preparing for the writer’s panel in the meeting room, Michelle walked in asked if anyone wanted cookies she made.
I gladly accepted and I got to hear her presentation at comicpalooza.
In this episode, you will hear:
-what led Michelle to become a fiction author full time
-the importance of social media
-her favorite sports team
-why she left Twitter
-why she brings cookies at every convention she attends
This episode was recorded on Facebook Live via Blue Jeans Network late last year.
Snippet on Vallano Media TV (I had dropped my bag which had the computer and my screen had turned green. Thankful the computer is o.k.)
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.michellenmuenzler.com
Quotes from Michelle Muenzler on:
SPEAKING AT CONVENTIONS
Conventions are a lot of fun.
They are a lot of work, but a lot of fun.
I’m naturally kind of an introvert, so extroverting for a weekend takes a lot of work and mental preparation and a little body armor.
There’s something about just being able to go in and be on a panel with a bunch of other writers and just kind of talk shop that I know is really enjoyable.
The fact that comicpalooza (houston) invited me back two years in a row has been awesome.
I’m hoping to go again this next year (this year).
I do a lot of the Dallas area conventions, the small library conferences up at Roanoke (Texas).
Austin (Texas) has armadillo con which is always a lot of fun.
So it’s a great way to connect with people and hang out with other writers.
You get to hang out with fans and booksellers.
It’s like a giant happy family.
SOCIAL MEDIA
It can be a terrible distraction, but also a wonderful way to connect.
I tend to mostly hang out on Facebook because I can control a bit better how much I’m interacting.
I used to do a whole lot of Twitter, but I found myself obsessing too much over reading every single thing that every single person on my feed posted and it just got to be way too much.
I can’t shut my brain down enough to kind of let it be for the day and interact whenever I happen to cross over.
It’s been really great for getting writer news like information on markets.
Information on what’s going on in the industry.
Get to chat with fans and hear about everyone’s cats.
It’s allowed me to kind of get in touch with a lot more people.
FACEBOOK BEING HER FAVORITE PLATFORM
I think I like it because it’s a slightly longer format, but not too long.
It’s happening somewhat real time, well Facebook algorithms aside from how they keep screwing with the order we see everything.
People are posting whenever they feel like it.
They can post longer things about what’s going on in their lives.
You have a little bit of a chance to kind of react to it and talk about it.
It’s all consolidated in one space.
So it’s not quite as lengthy or like thrown out as a blog is.
I keep track of a number of blogs.
But I have a little bit of trouble just connecting with them on that same personal level.
There’s just something about being able to instantly interact on Facebook, but with it not being too short.
Like a comfort medium.
BRINGING COOKIES TO EVERY CONVENTION
What I found at conventions as a short story author is it’s a little bit easy to kind of disappear.
Even a lot of novelists kind of struggle with standing out.
It’s a very highly competitive industry full of fantastic writers.
So you want to stand out a little bit.
I found number one, the cookies kind of helped people remember me based off of that.
In addition, I also am rather the introvert and I found the cookies kind of helped give me a safety net or a magical shield a la Captain America minus flinging it at people.
When in doubt, pass out the cookies.
I can meet people and just randomly walk around and be like, “greeting stranger, have a cookie.”
It’s made it a lot easier actually to meet people and to break ice and to not get all caught up in my own head.
It’s been very useful for that and people actually recognize me.
At armadillo con this year (last year), someone came up and they’re like, “oh my gosh, you’re the cookie lady from comicpalooza.”
It works.
I spend the entire day before every convention baking those 700 cookies.
So it’s a lot of work, but a lot of fun and everyone loves cookies.
Kerry Gorgone, Host of The MarketingProfs Podcast
By Cheval John
January 3rd, 2018
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Kerry Gorgone.
Kerry is the host of The MarketingProfs podcast, a show which interviews thought leaders in the marketing industry.
The show recently celebrated it 300th episode late last year.
Kerry also is a returning guest as she made an appearance on the 250th episode of my podcast.
In this episode, you will hear:
-How she celebrated their milestone of 300th episodes of the Marketing Profs
-Choosing Between Live Streaming and Podcasting
-The first concert Kerry ever attended
-If Kerry and Ann Handley released their “Christmas album”
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Kerry Gorgone’s Website: www.kerrygorgone.com
Twitter: @kerrygorgone
Quotes from Kerry Gorgone on:
300TH EPISODE OF MARKETING PROFS
What’s interesting about what Lou Imbriano had to say was it’s not just about X plus Y equals Z.
You can’t just do the same thing no matter what type of business you are.
Every customer segment is a little bit different.
Every business is a little bit different.
You can not give a formula about how to build a relationship.
You have to just be prepared to go the extra mile for your customers and know what it is you know or anticipate.
What it is that certain segments need and really genuinely express I think empathy and interest in helping them get the most out of your product or service.
It is a lot more human and it’s much more of an art than a science sometimes.
Sure there’s data behind how often those people renew because you put in the extra effort.
But can you draw a straight line between opening after hours so that somebody can get their work done because they are on a deadline and extra revenue through renewal?
That would be difficult, but the relationship is there nonetheless.
That’s what was interesting about Lou.
He works a lot now.
He was with the (New England) Patriots before.
So it’s very different kind of marketing.
But you still had your super fans and then you’re more casual fans and then people who maybe come to a game now and then and people who just don’t care about sports at all.
So who are you going to focus on?
Obviously, the people who cares and spend money with you.
LIVE STREAMING
Depends on your business.
It can always help you.
If you are talking about driving real specific business objectives, I think if you do events, even a user conference, then live streaming would be very beneficial to you because you are going to create kind of a fear of missing out among the people who did not attend the event and they’re going want to come next time.
So there’s a lot to be said for featuring users, customers, clients, employees, etc.
Live streaming gives you a look at someone literally that you could not get any other way from a glossy headshot and a well-written piece or even an audio podcast to a point.
I think that’s always gonna benefit you.
If you are selling Lamborghinis, then live stream, not while driving because it would be irresponsible.
I think it’s very valuable.
So the more you can do something different, the better your results are going to be for gaining some initial exposure.
Live streaming that way can be good too.
PODCASTING
You have seen an incredible renaissance in podcasting because it is so much easier for people to produce them and publish them.
It’s so much easier for people to find and listen to them.
Edison Research does this great series year after year called “The Infinite Dial”
It talks about the podcast listening audience.
It’s growing and is really valuable.
The people that listen to a podcast on average make more money.
They are more inclined to interact with brands online.
So if you are in marketing, you should be podcasting because the people who listen to podcasts, they are the people you want.
It’s better than a lot of other marketing channels we invest a lot in and do not think twice about.
From a qualitative perspective, it literally gives you your customers ear.
There is an intimacy to that.
I’ve had people recognize me at marketing profs events just from my voice which is hysterical to me.
There’s something very personal about it as well.
I just think it’s a medium unlike any other.
Not only is the research there to support that it’s growing, but anecdotally, people seem to gravitate towards it.
CHOOSING BETWEEN LIVE STREAMING AND PODCASTING
You can consider a live stream a podcast if you do it regularly.
It’s not audio only.
I mean you could have a video podcast.
For one thing, you must have effective live stream if you are video podcasting because it’s really hard to edit video.
So if you stutter or something and try to fix that, you will be like a jump out in the video.
If you’re a little skittish of post-production, then live streaming might be preferable for you.
If on the other hand, you’re afraid of saying something wrong, then maybe start out with an audio podcast because you can fix that.
So it’s really a question of your goals and your preferences.
There are times that watching a video is not convenient.
Going to the gym comes to mind.
You should not be watching a video while sitting in the car.
It’s just different.
You are reaching people at a different time.
The only thing is a lot of people watch videos with the volume off because they don’t want to get caught at work.
Unless they have close captioning or something, they’re not going to know what you are saying.
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