Your Time Is Your Greatest Asset
By Cheval John
You want to learn something from a very successful entrepreneur you admire.
You see that they are going to be at an major conference and you decide to spend the money to attend that conference in order to hear from them.
You arrived and hear that entrepreneur speak.
You finally have the opportunity to meet up with that person and chat for a bit.
You exchange business cards and decide to keep in touch.
A few months later after correspondence, you reach out to that same successful entrepreneur to let them know that you will be in town and want to set a time to where you can “pick their brain over coffee.”
When you get a response with “sorry I have to decline your invitation for coffee” you might feel disappointed.
You might believe the person is not very nice and you will want to disassociate with them.
Before you think the above response, consider this:
That certain entrepreneur you admire is focused on finding new ways to deliver value to their customers and in the process, make money.
When you want to “pick their brain” by offering them coffee, that is in reality an insult because they have a family to feed and in their mind, time is money.
The above is why Wendy McClelland decline coffee invitations.
You might be wondering, “If I can’t offer to buy them coffee to learn from them, how can I grow my business and even my personal brand?”
Here is an alternative to the above question.
If you host a live stream show or a podcast, you can invite them to be a guest on your show.
The reason is because you have built an audience that they might want to get their business or product exposed to.
You will have an opportunity to learn from entrepreneurs who overcame doubts and fears to be where they are at in their business.
And you can invite that same entrepreneur who you respect and admire to your show because you build that friendship over the last few months after chatting at that conference.
If I were to ask Winnie Sun to share how she became successful as a financial planner, she would have charge me money because she would have spent her valuable time in sharing her “secrets” to success.
Since I host my show, What’s The Word?, I can interview Winnie and other successful entrepreneurs like Sarah K. Burgess, writer of “Dry Powder”, to share their story of attaining their success in their respective careers.
That is in itself a win-win.
The next question is should you host a live stream show or podcast?
You see that by 2020, 80% of all internet activity will have a video component.
And 57 million Americans are listening to podcasts each month according to Edison Research.
To answer the question, you can do both.
You might think that you don’t have the time to do both a live stream show and a podcast because you have a business to run.
You can record your show using video platforms like Blue Jeans Network to simulcast to Facebook Live and then convert them into a podcast format to air at a later date.
If you are looking for inspiration to start your journey in hosting a show, here are a list of live streamers who are turning their shows into podcasts
Vicky Lashenko
Vicky hosts the Mompreneur Show that air Mondays at 1 p.m. eastern, 10 a.m. pacific on Facebook Live
Jennifer Hoverstad and Mitch Jackson
Jennifer and Mitch co-hosts The Show.Live which airs at 4 p.m. eastern, 1 p.m. pacific on Facebook Live. They have grown the show to popularity over a two year span despite changing live streaming platforms (blab abruptly shut down in August of 2016 and huzza.io, which was sold to kickstarter in February 1st of this year and shut down on March 1st.)
Both Mitch and Jennifer are the true examples of perseverance.
Heather Ann Havenwood
Heather is an entrepreneur and is the host of “The Win” podcast.
I already knew about Heather due to her appearance on blab.
However, I found out that she recorded her podcast episode on Blue Jeans Network when Mrs. Sun shared her podcast appearance on Twitter.
Those are the few who are recording their podcasts using Facebook Live.
They are among those who understands that successful entrepreneurs time are valuable and have found a way to learn their “secrets” of success by interviewing them on their shows.
You can leave your comments below if you know of anyone else who are recording their podcasts using live streaming platforms?
The Art of Converting Live Stream Shows To A Podcast
By Cheval John
You might be thinking about how you can convert your live stream shows to a podcast format.
Before I get into the step-by-step guide, here are some observations as to converting a show to a podcast.
Remember when I mentioned about blab in my last post?
Blab had the technology to save your live streams in both audio and video format if the show was recorded.
They made it easy for anyone to become a podcaster.
Granted, you might have to edit some of the shows due to their instability because most of the time, some type of technological glitch happened that would interrupt your show.
Once Blab officially went away, platforms like BeLive.tv, Crowdcast and Blue Jeans Network filled the vacuum that was left.
It seemed like there was not a way to convert your live stream shows from the above platforms to a podcast.
And you might be wondering why should I convert my show into a podcast if live video is the wave of the future?
Because podcasts are still important due to the “lack of competition.”
Though YouTube is the second largest website in the world according to Alexa, it is very difficult to stand out from the competition due to the fact that they is a channel for every single topic from how to build an online business to how to find the correct customers for your business.
Podcasts have a much smaller niche because not many people are hosting a podcast.
According to Edison Research, 57 million Americans listens to a podcast each month.
And the competition is much easier due to the fact that the majority of podcasts are not well done.
If you are still not convinced about converting your live stream shows to a podcast, here are some examples of major media outlets who are converting their television programming into a podcast:
First Take is a morning sports debate show that airs weekday mornings on ESPN.
Once they are finished with their live show, the person in charge of the engineering for the network converts it into a podcast for the people who could not watch the show on television.
Mike and Mike is a weekly morning show that is aired on ESPN 2 and ESPN Radio.
The engineers then convert segments of the show to a podcast format so that the fans can listen at their own time.
Update: The show ended their 18 year run in November
Around The Horn airs weekday afternoons on ESPN. They too have their show as a podcast.
Now that you have seen some examples of major media converting their shows to a podcast, you might be thinking that they have the money and the people to convert their shows to a podcast.
The good news is that you don’t need a large budget to repurpose your live stream shows to a podcast.
So you might be wondering, “How can I convert my live stream shows to a podcast if the live streaming platforms only have the technology to save your shows as a video format?”
I will show you how people like Vicky Lashenko, who host her Mompreneur Show on Facebook Live every Monday at 1 p.m. eastern, convert their shows into a podcast.
I use the YouTube To MP3 Converter to turn this episode of What’s The Word? featuring Jessica Rhodes of Interview Connections, which was recorded on Blue Jeans Network and simulcast on Facebook Live, to a podcast
Update: That platform is no longer in service and I discovered the mp3converter.net for converting youtube videos to podcast format
First, I download the recording from Blue Jeans Network to my folder
Then, I upload the video to my YouTube channel
Once the video is done processing, I hit publish to make the video public and then copy it to the youtube to mp3 converter
You want to make sure that you don’t have the video set to private because the conversion to mp3 will not happen.
Once the conversion is complete, you can then upload your mp3 version of the show to your podcast feed, which for me is blogtalkradio.
After that, your podcast is ready to air at the scheduled time.
On a side note, you can change the settings back to private to make edits to turn your video to a snippet that will lead your audience to listen to the entire episode of your show and at the same time, build your YouTube Channel.
Podcast Version of What’s The Word?
In conclusion, you have seen how to convert your live stream show to a podcast.
If you still believe that your content is only suited for one platform like live video, then you are missing an opportunity to diversify your knowledge on different media platforms while building your business.
You can leave your comments below if you agree or disagree with the article above.
Providing Value To Your Community
By Cheval John
December 11th, 2016
I had the honor of interviewing Rachel Miller on What’s The Word? about a month ago as she shared her story about becoming a social media strategist.
It was a dream come true because Ms. Miller has played an important role in my journey to become more proficient as a social media specialist and running my business, Vallano Media, LLC.
She was also the co-host with Brian Fanzo and Christin Kardos serving as the moderator of one of the most popular Twitter Chats at the time, #sbizhour.
I had interviewed Mr. Fanzo on the show early last year.
A few months later, I had interviewed Mrs. Kardos about her career as a community manager.
The story of how I discovered the awesome trio of #sbizhour happened in 2014 after I had quit a large retail chain I worked at for about four years while I was building my business (I submitted my two week notice to the human resource department there).
I was at the tail end of finishing my time as a freelance sports writer for the Huntsville Item as I was about to move to the Houston area at the end of July of 2014.
I heard about Twitter chats from people I was following on the social media platforms.
One of the Twitter chats I had discovered was #sbizhour, which was called #sshour in it’s first year of existence.
I saw how they ran the show as a Twitter chat and a Google Hangout and was really impressed by their multi-tasking skills.
As they changed the name from #sshour to #sbizhour in 2015, the Twitter chat got even more popular and was always trending on Twitter.
At the same time, live video was starting to get more popular thanks to Meerkat and Periscope.
I had no idea that they had moved their show to the live streaming platform called Blab later that year.
And when I got use to #sbizhour being streamed live on blab, I found out that the social media platform saved the audio and video of the live stream show if it was recorded.
That opened my eyes to the possibility of letting my audience see the live recording of What’s The Word? and even interact with the guest after the show was over.
It was because of Ms. Miller, Mr. Fanzo and Mrs. Kardos that I am now recording most of the shows on my business page on facebook live via huzza.io.
As #sbizhour continued to grow in popularity, each of the co-hosts has gotten more business opportunies for themselves.
Ms. Miller became a community manager for Pure Matter, a company co-founded by Bryan and Courtney Kramer.
Mr. Fanzo had gotten more speaking opportunities at major conferences including Social Media Marketing World.
And Mrs. Kardos became the community manager for Jay Baer
As the workload got extra for the trio, they decided that it was best to shut down #sbizhour after almost two years of providing value to their community.
What I can tell you is that Ms. Miller, Mr. Fanzo and Mrs. Kardos accomplished a lot in the short time of hosting #sbizhour than many businesses have done in their entire existence because:
1. They listened to the needs of their community
2. They were transparent with their community
What would happen if many businesses followed the example of Ms. Miller, Mr Fanzo and Mrs. Kardos in providing value to their potential customers?
You can leave your comment below
The Basics of Blogging
by Cheval John
I want to tell everyone that I will be accepting guest post to be featured here for the first Saturday of every month starting today.
So if you are interested in guest posting, you can send an e-mail to cheval@vallanomedia.com.
Today’s guest post is from Sarah Smith, who is a blogger and is the promoter for Karen Evans of startbloggingonline.com.
Sarah put together this infographic about the basics of blogging
You can follow them on Twitter @startblog101.
Without further ado, here is Sarah
No matter how easy blogging seems to be for many, the journey to coming up with your own can actually be a challenge. In fact, you will realize the demands and blockades arise when you actually begin doing your blog. In short, blogging surely has its own birth pains and every blogger learns from his or her mistakes.
As you learn along the way you will realize that it is also important to minimize the mistakes you commit as much as you can. Hence, it can be helpful to know the most common mistakes that beginning bloggers are prone to commit. Besides it can be so helpful and time-saving to take advice from those who have gone through the same beginner path as you plan to do.
Some of these mistakes you can avoid ahead of time as you start your blogging journey include trying to be perfect and failing to promote your site. Others also commit the misstep of wanting to save money by getting a free website without realizing that you would still end up getting a domain and host account in the near future.
It is about time to show the world what you are capable of writing and sharing through a blog. Besides, if you are not going to start now, then when? Decide to be consistent with your own comfortable blog work schedule and begin today.
Check out this practically made infographic that will help you get started as a blogger without getting to commit the most common mistakes you are most likely to encounter along the way:
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Quality Is Much Better Than Quantity
By Cheval John
You know that you are great at a skill that can help your industry(social media, business, etc.) to thrive.
You put on your website of the skills and services you offer to gain potential customers.
Though you promote yourself until you turn blue, your hear crickets.
The prospective customers are hesistant to buy from you because they probably were tricked into buying from someone else with their self-promotion.
If you have a third party endorsement, there is a better chance of making a sale.
The third party endorsement is much more powerful because the message of your greatness is being told by someone else.
Third party endorsements can come from national or regional (traditional) media organizations in the form of television, radio or newspapers.
If you get in front of a national or regional media, you have achieved your ultimate endorsement of your business.
That is why sports professionals are getting a boat load of money to compete in their respective leagues because they are being covered on a daily basis by national, international or regional media.
And some collegiate athletes are getting their training in university sports because professional leagues are watching them compete on major media outlets.
In this day and age, everyone are considered media due to blogs (about 450 million), podcasts (250,000), live streaming shows on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, etc.
And each blogger, podcaster or live streamer will probably have some sort of lists of the top influencers in social media, technology, or even the best interior designer.
I definitely have put together lists here regarding to social media on many occasions.
Which leads me to chat about the recent blog post by Brand 24 on their “Top 100 Social Media Influencers”
That list featured the well known influencers in social media.
I believed that they earned the recognition for their hard work in social media.
However, one of the influencers on that list said “they” believed the influencers ahead of them had cheated to get there.
Cheating means buying followers.
I know for a fact that the majority of the people who are on the Brand 24 list have earned that recognition because I have seen them put in the hard work with sharing valuable content and interacting with their audience on a daily basis.
So I was thinking I should create my own list of those influencers who have earned their audience the correct way.
I was convinced by friends on social media that it would be a waste of time.
So I was going to write a post for today related to social media.
Until I saw an excellent article by Dr. Karen Freberg regarding Brand 24’s list.
Then on the first day of spring, the topic of true influencers came up in a meeting with a fellow entrepreneur at Toutsuite that made me realized I had to address this topic.
So I will tell you about what I believe about true influencers.
-People who buy followers don’t deserve to be regarded as authorities in any industry because it shows that they don’t truly understand the meaning of social media.
-Everyone are influencers whether they have 50, 100, 500, 1,000, 10,000 or even 20,000 followers because they have an active audience.
To think more about it, an engaged audience is much better than a casual audience with millions of followers.
So if you cheating your way to gaining influence by buying followers, I would warn you that you are deceiving the masses and even robbing the brands of their money due to them wanting to work with you.
They will find out on their own that you are using deception to make a living and will warn their colleagues to stay away from you.
The true influencers who have put in the hard work consistently and correctly to build a loyal audience will overtime be rewarded for life.
In fact, they have already achieved their reward because they are doing the work they love and also understand that quality is much better than quantity.
Have anything to add to this blog post? You can leave your comment below
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