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
It just wouldn't be a proper match day in the States without cheerleaders – thanks for your support, @TexansCheer! pic.twitter.com/4Xjq0WF3y6
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 20, 2017
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.
Building Online Presence One Step At A Time
By Cheval John
The old days of having a career at one company is over.
This holds true for journalists too.
The sequence for every journalist back in the day were:
Spend a couple of years in a smaller media market in order to gain work experience before moving on to a top ten media market like New York City, Houston and Chicago.
Move on from the major media market and work for national media like ESPN, NBC, CBS or ABC.
In this environment where technology is changing the way how we consume content, major media and news stations are cutting back on staff to save money.
Sometimes though, people who work in journalism, decides to leave the profession because the work is demanding.
They might end up leaving for positions in media relations for a large company, a professional sports franchise or even the athletic department at a university.
They believe the transition to a media relations role is easy.
They get a rude awakening of how challenging being in media relations is.
Erica Holloway depicted the transition from journalism to public relations with her article here.
Though journalists stayed at one place their entire careers in the past, some still made a change in careers because they were led to.
Sabrina Cadini spent a couple of years as a television announcer in her native Italy before moving to the United States
She transitioned to event planning and is now the owner of La Dolce Idea Wedding and Soiree, a wedding planning company.
She explained to me how she made the transition to wedding planning
One thing to note.
Sabrina knew how important live streaming is for her business and is using Periscope on a weekly basis to share tips with her audience about social media.
Smart people like Sabrina understand the dynamic of live streaming, podcasting and blogging because it saves them a whole lot of money on their marketing budget.
People who are looking to make transitions in their careers should be building their online presence one step at a time because they never know when their department will shut down.
Are you building your online presence now through social media? Leave your comment below
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