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.
Julia McCoy, Founder and CEO of Express Writers
By Cheval John
November 22nd, 2017
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Julia McCoy, founder of Express Writers.
Express Writers provides content for different types of business industries around the world.
Julia is also the host of “The Write Podcast” and the popular twitter chat, #contentwritingchat.
She is a best-selling author of the book, “So You Think You Can Write? The Definitive Guide To Successful Online Writing,” and “Practical Content Strategy and Marketing” set to be released on November 30th.
In this episode, you will hear
-What led Julia to start Express Writers
-How her company achieved over four million dollars in revenue with limited advertising
-Why she started #contentwritingchat
-Her favorite social media platform
-The person (past or present) she would like to interview on her podcast
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.expresswriters.com
Twitter: @expwriters
Quotes from Julia on:
BUILDING EXPRESS WRITERS
Jumping into something I did not know how to do and then figuring it out along the way was definitely one of my methods to success.
That kind of opens the door for you to learn by failure when you really do not know what you are doing.
You jump into it and you figure it out.
BOOTSTRAPPING YOUR BUSINESS
That really depends on the circumstance.
It is really hard for me to say you should do one or you shouldn’t do the other because everything I have learned has been without funding.
I have talked to many business owners and what they tell me about funding is if you do not have a clear plan on what you are doing with, let’s say a couple million you are going to get, it really won’t do you any good because you learn how to kind of just sit back and not work really hard to be the leader in your industry.
Whereas, if you are fighting for a paycheck, which I have been all of my six years of running the company, that kind of drives you to create the best product and be the best authority in your niche.
So I feel like that drive really comes from, “I have to make money and I have to figure this out.”
CONTENT MARKETING
I think content marketing is a huge channel, especially if you do not have a lot of capital.
There are big brands testing with their ad budget directly against their content marketing.
They found that content marketing returns four times on investment versus footing a traditional paid ad.
The basis of really making that return when you set up your content marketing is you want to find the right audience and you really want to grab their attention because if you are speaking to everyone in front of you, the return is so low.
So you really have to speak to the right people and go from there when it comes to your content.
A lot of content marketers drop off too early because they do not see the return overnight.
We kind of look for that return immediately and when it does not happen, we get discouraged.
With content marketing, you have to hang in there.
I have been doing this for six years and it is still hard for me to wait around and see the return.
You have to consistently put out the right content.
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Cendrine Marrouat: Author and Photographer
By Cheval John
Cendrine Marrouat made an appearance on What’s The Word? to chat about her career as a photographer and social media consultant.
Cendrine moved to Canada from her native France years ago and have built her business.
She has written ten books including two on social media.
One of those books, “The Little Big eBook on Social Media Audiences” earned Cendrine an award for the 2015 Small Business Awards in the community voice vote in social media.
In this episode, you will hear:
What led Cendrine to move to Canada
Why she does not focus too much on the number of followers she earned on social media
Why she decided to become an author
Snippet of the interview on Vallano Media TV
Entire episode on BlogTalkRadio
The show was recorded on Facebook Live via Blue Jeans Network
Website for Cendrine Marrouat: http://cendrinemarrouat.com/
Twitter: @cendrinemedia
Elena Rahrig: Author of Eleven Books and Entrepreneur
By Cheval John
Elena Rahrig stopped by What’s The Word? to share about how she became an author of eleven books.
She is an international speaker and also founded Otto Publishing New York, a company which publishes books and work books nationwide.
In this episode, you will hear:
What led her to write eleven books
Why potential authors should aim to write a full length book
How social media helped her to be very successful in her business
The importance of live streaming
This episode was recorded on Facebook Live via Blue Jeans Network
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: http://www.elenaspeaks.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ERTransform/
Upcoming Podcast Recording on Facebook Live:
Julia McCoy, Founder of Express Writers– October 3rd at 3 p.m. eastern, 2 p.m. central
Give Your Audience Access To Your Creative Process
By Cheval John
Today’s post is a case study of former ABBA member, Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s, “Frida”, solo album, “Something Going On” and what we as entrepreneurs can learn.
ABBA was on top of the charts consistently during their time together (Agnetha Faltskog was married to Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson was married to Frida prior to the group forming of course).
Many were drawn to their acapella sound.
The success of the band led to the strain on their marriages.
Frida wanted to do a solo English album which would have a different sound from ABBA.
So she choose Phil Collins, who is a drummer as well, to produce her first solo english album.
She listened to Collins’ first solo album “Face Value” for eight months.
The record label, Polar Music, sent out messages to major publishers around the world about Frida’s solo project.
In an overwhelming answer, they got 500 songs.
They then listened to all of them and choose the eleven songs for her album.
Collins and the session players flew into Stockholm and recorded the album tracks.
They added the trumpets from Earth, Wind and Fire’s Phenix Horns to some of the tracks.
They also added the orchestra sound recorded at Air Studios in London, England.
It took them a month and a half to put the album together.
As a result, “Something Going On” was a huge hit worldwide.
The single,”I Know There’s Something Going On” hit number one in Switzerland, Belgium, Costa Rica and France.
It was also number fourteen on the Billboard 100 and became one of the best selling singles in the United States in 1983.
Before the advent of social media, publicists would book musicians on major media leading up to the launch of their album because those outlets have the largest audience.
What made Frida’s success different?
She gave Sveriges Television (SVT), a national Swedish broadcaster, access to the making from start to finish of the album, “Something Going On.”
SVT edited the recordings to make it into a one-hour television special.
It is safe to say Frida understood her audience very well.
She knew it was history in the making because she was venturing into the unknown from her association with ABBA.
That is why it is important to showcase the behind the scenes of your business and share the “secrets” to your success.
It is not like someone will go and knock you out of business due to sharing your secrets.
Your audience will appreciate you because of your willingness to take them on your journey to success with your business.
They will even go out of their way to share your finished product with their friends and family.
For example, you can allow your listeners to see the entire recording process of your podcast via live streaming.
In the same manner of television shows which records in front of a live studio audience, you can be that business or person which live streams your recordings to your audience.
You can let them know in advance that this live stream recording will last about 30 minutes while encouraging them to leave comments.
Once the live stream part of the recording is over, you can answer their questions as part of the post-production show.
If your podcast is interview based, this can allow your audience exclusive access to ask your guest questions in the comments section during the post-production.
This strategy can help you boost your podcast which is part of your business.
With third party applications like Blue Jeans Network, Zoom, and Crowdcast.io, you can simulcast your podcast recordings to either facebook live, periscope or YouTube Live.
So go out and allow your audience access to your creative process in the same manner as Frida did 35 years ago.
What are your thoughts on the case study?
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