Fiona Birch, Founder of Pro Athletes Online
By Cheval John
December 27th, 2017
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Fiona Birch.
Fiona is the founder of Pro Athletes Online, a company which helps athletes to be aware of how they present themselves on social media the right way.
She has spoken at conferences including Social Media Marketing World 2016 and is set to speak there again next year.
Fiona has also given presentations for brands and business schools including Air Zealand.
The show was recorded on Blue Jeans Network and simulcast to Facebook Live
In this episode, you will hear:
-why she decided to found Pro Athletes Online
-why college athletes should take control of their brand
-the importance of social media
-the one hero she would spend one day with past or present
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full Episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.proathleteonline.com
Twitter: @fi_birch
Quotes from Fiona Birch on:
FAILURE AND SUCCESS
We grow up with every cliche your can imagine.
One of my father’s cliche was “The world is your oyester.”
The other one was, “It’s easy to be the same as everybody else.”
One of the things that I ask people is “Are you scared of failure or are you scared of success because I think a lot of people assume that they are scared of messing up.
For me, I would say, “I’m probably more afraid of success than I am of failure.”
I’m very good at picking myself up the ground and just doing it again.
Sometimes when it’s all about to happen and you feel it and know it’s about to go crazy.
It’s all about really being honest about what it is that freaking you out at any point in time.
You have to go into the next unknown phase.
Sometimes we get so comfortable and it’s been a struggle and getting knocked back and hitting your head against the wall.
ATHLETES USING SOCIAL MEDIA
When it comes to social media and somebody is building a brand for themselves, “it’s do not do this, do not do that, do not be an idiot.”
If you are not building your brand, then the only two people who are building your brand are the media and the trolls.
They will come after you.
They are not looking for a good story at all.
So that’s one thing we face a lot with athletes is the agenda of other people.
LAS VEGAS KNIGHTS STANDING OUT ON SOCIAL MEDIA
What they have actually created is what I think is an amazing feat for branding.
What summed up from a brand point of view is who is going to take VEGAS seriously.
They never had a pro team before.
They were very honest of what they were.
They are a city of entertainment.
They are a city of secrets.
They are a city that sort of everybody visits and have fun.
They got a great sense of humor.
There is actually a sense of community in Vegas when you live there.
For the rest of us, the perception is not they had to create this community.
The person that runs the golden knights social media account is hilarious.
He kind of looked at what the Kings did.
The National Hockey League (NHL) was pretty robotic in how they handle digital media to say it lightly.
So the Kings are the first to sort of went out there.
But Vegas went a bit further.
Jessika Phillips: Founder and President of Now Marketing Group
By Cheval John
December 6th, 2017
Disclaimer: This Is A Sponsored Post
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Jessika Phillips, who is the founder and president of Now Marketing Group.
Her Ohio based company is a Forbes agency which serves about 200 clients nationally and worldwide.
This podcast episode was recorded on facebook Live using Blue Jeans Network months prior.
The reason for the disclaimer: Two weeks prior to the airing of this episode, Now Marketing Group became a client for my company to promote their upcoming conference, “Social Media Week Lima 2018” and this blog post is one of the ways I am promoting the conference.
Even if they were not paying me, I would still promote social media week lima because I spoke there as a panelist earlier this year and I saw first hand how well run the conference is.
I saw first hand how Jessika worked alongside her Now Marketing Group team and the university student volunteers from the University of Northern Ohio.
This is one of the reasons why I would recommend attending Now Marketing Group’s conference.
In this episode, you will hear:
-How Jessika decided to start Social Media Week Lima
-How she got the opportunity to speak at Social Media Marketing World 2018
-The difference between a magnet and bullhorn (her terms)
-The one person (past or present) who she would spend time with
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website For Social Media Week Lima 2018: www.nowmarketinggroup.com
Facebook Page: Now Marketing Group
Twitter: @jessikaphillips
Quotes from Jessika Phillips on:
OVERCOMING DOUBTS
The doubts came before I started the business.
You get super comfortable and the biggest obstacle you have to overcome is just getting started.
If you can get started, you’ve built up enough momentum to keep you going.
You just have to feed that momentum.
Whether that’s through training, getting connected with other people or hosting things on your own, you just have to keep that momentum going.
I sat with my computer for five to six hours with the same screen up before I hit enter to submit for my business name.
I was so paronoid because I had a good job, a company car, the whole thing.
It was like, “do I really want this or do I not?”
Sometimes your family and your friends, God love them, they are not always going to tell you that you can go after that thing.
It’s something you have to do within yourself.
It’s something that you have to say, “I’m willing to take this chance. I know that I am capable and I know what I want to do is going to serve someone else.”
Your family and friends are there to try and protect you and they may be afraid for you.
But you literally have to put blinders on and just be in your own lane and keep your momentum going.
ON BEING A MAGNET THAN A BULLHORN
They have been trained that marketing is having to spend money and broadcast your message out.
They preaching the same message that everybody cares what you have to say and all you need to do is say it to them.
I attribute that to being the same as you only calling someone every time you need something.
They are gonna get pretty annoyed with you and not want to pick up the phone.
So you have to think, “How can I offer value. How can I work as a magnet and draw people in to me” because they have more options.
Now you are competing with a larger audience and there’s so many pools for our attention.
Customers don’t want to be bullhorn.
That’s why DVRs exists.
That’s why Pandora exists.
That’s why YouTube is out there.
You can get news on Twitter.
People do not want to be interrupted in their day.
They just want to be in their own lane and be around things that are serving to them.
So you have to think of ways you can attract people to you.
We as marketers need to do a better job of working with our clients to tell them the same thing like “Yes, people will care about what you have to say, but they have to know you care first about what they are struggling with or what they are trying to find an answer to or why they’d be coming to you” because if not, then you are just an interruption and a part of the noise.
Listen more. Know who you are trying to talk to and how you can help them along the way.
ON LIVE VIDEO
When podcasting was becoming big, I just could not see myself podcasting.
So I was like, “how can I do this in another way?”
I was comfortable with video at the time.
I worked with our videographer to actually shoot videos to keep people up to date on what was happening in social media and what new things clients could try out.
I just knew I could help more people if they had instant access to it and did not have to come to me or sign up for a webinar.
They could just find it online.
Then live video rolled out.
Now we don’t have to produce this and wait for it to be edited.
We can go live in the moment.
So it was a very easy decision at that point to say, “Let’s double down and do this, make it consistent every tuesday at 4 p.m. eastern, we’re going live and we’re gonna have a show concept all about how you can be a magnet versus a bullhorn with your marketing.
ON CHOOSING THE LIVE VIDEO PLATFORMS
It depends on their goals.
If their goals are to be found, then I honestly would say YouTube because I do see a huge potential on YouTube Live right now in the moment, having your video there, building up a community especially if they already have subscribers.
Facebook right now seems to be the one that’s kind of holding the trump card as far as live video.
I’m excited to see where that goes and how they are going to be building this creator community of people that are going to be going live.
It truly does depend on who you are trying to target and who you are as a brand.
I still see value in instagram.
I still see value in snapchat.
I have seen several people that have done really, really well on snapchat as an influencer. They are building up a community and some of the millennials are still there.
If you have a super niche, periscope (twitter’s live video app) works for so many brands.
So literally, this answer could change depending on what company you are and who you are trying to attract.
You can leave a comment below and share this post if you enjoyed this article.
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.
You can leave a comment if you like or dislike this post.
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.
You can leave your comments below if you like or disliked this post
Top 10 Livestreamers To Follow In 2018
By Cheval John
As we are coming close to the end of 2017, we can see the rapid changes in social media.
Facebook continues to be the dominant social media platform with over two billion monthly users.
YouTube is second with one billion monthly users this year
The biggest shocker was YouTube TV being the official sponsor of the 2017 World Series in which the Houston Astros won (yeah for my friends here)
Instagram (a subsidiary of Facebook) achieved 800 million monthly users and is on pace to reach one billion monthly users next year.
Snapchat has 178 million monthly users by the third quarter of this year according to Statista.
Though it is less than facebook, snapchat seem to be the dark horse in social media because they are more focused on dominating the iPhone market.
Which leads to video.
It has been the driving force for 78% of all internet activity this year.
It is set to be at 82% by 2021 according to Cisco.
Snapchat is leading the way with ten billion video views a day.
YouTube is second with five billion video views a day.
Facebook has 500 million video views a day.
It is a different story in the case of live video.
According to the state of live streaming by Go-Globe.com
17% of video views is on Facebook Live
16% of video views is on YouTube Live
12% of video views is on Snapchat
And more live streaming shows have become more professional looking thank to third party video platforms like Blue Jeans Network, Zoom and Crowdcast.io.
We can expect to see more businesses invest in live video next year due to personalizing their message to their target market.
We also will see more post cable networks created next year and become a force like Cheddar.
Businesses can take a look at the people who made the top ten livestreamers to follow in 2018 list.
They use a variety of social media platforms like facebook live, youtube, periscope and snapchat to put out quality content on a weekly basis and grow their audience.
So without further ado, here are the top ten live streamers to follow in 2018 (not ranked in any particular order).
1. Vicki Fitch
Vicki’s shows are business related topics since she is a direct sales expert.
She hosted Vicki Fitch Live, A Fresh Perspective which she interviews highly successful entrepreneurs.
You can catch her shows on Periscope and Facebook Live.
2. Jessika Phillips and Mike Gingrich
Jessika and Mike co-host Magnet Marketers, a weekly training which give the viewers advice on social media tactics and the latest trends in social media.
Sometimes, they interview guests who are highly regarded as the leading experts in their particular social media niche.
The show airs on Tuesdays at 4 p.m. eastern, 3 p.m. central on facebook live.
3. Chelsea Peitz
Chelsea is regarded as one of the leading experts on Snapchat.
She written a book on the social platform called “Talking In Pictures: How Snapchat Changed Cameras, Communication and Communities.
She is the host of ChelsChat, a morning weekly show which talks about marketing and the latest tools for social media.
The show is only on Snapchat and you would have to see them within the 24 hour time frame.
4. Kat Macauley and Chris McManamy
They are the host of “Simply Social Live”
The show dives into the world of social media, content marketing and other related topics.
What is really cool is Chris is based in St. Louis, Missouri while Kat is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
They just completed their second season and will be back on Facebook Live next year.
5. Ross Brand
Ross is the founder of Livestream Universe.
Under the company, he hosts Livestream Stars, a weekly show which interviews live streamers who have made a dent in social media.
Ross recently branched out into hosting Livestream Deals, a show which showcases deals on products and services for livestreamers.
The shows airs on Facebook Live.
6. Stacy Harp
Stacy is the host of Bible News Radio, an interview based show which has grown a loyal listener base.
The show is now available on Spreaker and Periscope.
7. Jennifer Quinn
Jennifer host the JennyQTips, a show where she interviews experts on livestreaming and social media.
Her show airs on Facebook Live
Jennifer has been live streaming since 2015.
8. Winnie Sun
Winnie is the founder of Sun Group Wealth Partners and hosts a weekly twitter chat called #winniesun
She gives advice on finance and managing your money on facebook live.
This week, she has been sharing tips on smart spending during the holiday season.
9. Madalyn Sklar
Madalyn is a well known expert on growing your audience using twitter.
She is the host of two popular twitter chats called #twittersmarter and ManageFlitter‘s #socialroi.
Madalyn host a live streaming show recap with the guests of those twitter chats to dive deeper into the questions.
Both of those shows airs on Facebook Live.
10. Dr. Ai Zhang.
Dr. Zhang is a digital consultant.
She served as a professor at Stockton University in the Philadelphia area before moving to South Korea.
Dr. Zhang was recognized as top social media blogger at Medium and host “Classroom Without Walls.”
The show features experts in higher education and how they use social media to incorporate in their classes.
It airs Wednesdays at 5 p.m. eastern time on Facebook Live
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Lindsey Henry
Lindsey is a reporter at Fox 26 Houston where she covered events like the Super Bowl and the World Series.
She gives her audience a preview on Facebook Live on stories she is working on for the station.
Sometimes, you will see random singing especially during the holiday season.
Meisha Johnson
Meisha is an anchor/reporter for CBS Philadelphia.
She is also the host of #askmeisha.
The show talks about motivation to overcome all the obstacles thrown into a person’s live and learning to have an attitude of gratitude.
It airs every Monday at 2 p.m. eastern time on facebook live.
Cynthia Bazin
She is the founder of Smart Chic, a company which helps business owners stay laser focused on their goals.
Cynthia shares tips on how people can eliminate distractions from their lives and have a question and answer day.
It airs on Periscope.
Kami Huyse
Kami is the host of Social Media Breakfast Houston, a “seminar” where she interviews experts on different trends like livestreaming.
It is held at the Canopy Houston the second friday of each month and is filled to capacity.
The “show” airs on Facebook Live
Do you agree or disagree with this list? You can leave a comment below.
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