Tag Archives: Social Media

Is Automation Your Friend?

August 15, 2014 Mitch Mitchell 17 Comments

When it comes to blogging, many people I know use some type of process to have their blog posts automatically go to different places when an article goes live. I used to use a plugin called Twitter Tools to get the job done, but when that bad boy was discontinued I was lucky enough to have someone recommend Twitterfeed to me, and that’s what I use to have my posts go directly to Twitter when they go live.

scumdogsteev via Compfight

It turns out there’s lots of different tools that can handle that, but it’s also true that there are sites where those tools aren’t needed, and they can handle more than just blog posts For instance, if you set your account up properly on LinkedIn, it will not only share your most recent blog posts but any updates you make to your website will automatically show as well, if you have the proper RSS settings taken care of(I know some people are saying RSS is going away; well, it hasn’t yet). Facebook supposedly has a way of finding new things on your website or blog as well, but I haven’t fully explored it after they took away the original process I was using there.

There’s always this question about whether automation online is a good thing or not. In one way it’s good because it can allow you to put things out when you’re not around that you want people to see. In another it’s horrid, at least to someone like me, because some people set up their automation to post multiple times a day, and I mean like once an hour for a 24-hour period. Who wants to be connected with anyone doing that?

There should always be a balance in how and when to use automation for anything. For me, I have my initial blog posts automated because I like them all to go out between 9 and 10:30 AM EST, and I’m not always around when they go live. However, subsequent postings of anything, if I do them, are done live and in the evenings so that if someone wants to comment or say anything to me they know that I’m online at that time. I think it helps with engagement and branding and lets people know when you’re available to donate time to them.

Overdoing anything isn’t good, and that’s important if you’re going to automate processes. Learning how to engage your potential customers and audience while balancing your time is important. As someone who has a tendency to stay up real late, I tend to “call” some posts I see from people I know are asleep. They’ll have to deal with me the next morning; just the cost of doing business. 🙂

Do you think automation is important in your marketing efforts? Are you presently using it in some fashion or thinking about it?

Social Media

5 Takeaways From My Video Project

July 2, 2014 Mitch Mitchell 10 Comments

On Monday I finally ended my video project. That project was first mentioned when I wrote my post about creating content.

Sunset Over Lake Ontario

The main idea was that I needed more videos on my business YouTube channel. I had fewer than 30 videos overall, and now I have 58 on that channel because I did a video every single day for the month of June. I shared a couple on that other post, and during this month I celebrated my 13th year of having my own business with a video post giving 13 business lessons for those 13 years, the longest video of the series coming in around 29 minutes. I’m sharing that one now:

http://youtu.be/roOzb1sdqYA

One doesn’t undertake such a project without having some ideas and beliefs of what’s going to happen and what the goals are.

My first goal was to see if I could do 30 videos in a row, and that was only challenged once, when I knew I’d be on the road coming home and wouldn’t get in until after midnight, and since I’d be working all day I wouldn’t have the opportunity to do a video unless I did it beforehand and uploaded it just after midnight, which I did. Other than that… I did one every single day.

My second goal was to see if I could get more viewers to that YouTube page and possibly increase my subscribers in some fashion. I had a few viewers but overall I’m not sure it was more than what I’d had before. As for subscribers, I only got 2; I’ll take what I can get. 🙂

The third goal of course was to increase the number of videos that not only helped enhance what I tell people I do, but also to have some videos in reserve that I can go back to and embed in blog posts whenever I touch upon those subjects. That’s something that not all that many people do who create videos, but it’s also one of the reasons why I tell people all the time that they should create more videos.

With that said I did learn some things, and I’m going to share 5 of them with you here. I’m not sure you’ll be able to use them all but hey, I think lessons can be learned in many different ways, in many different formats. Let’s see if you get anything from what I’m going to share; after all, this IS I’m Just Sharing lol:

1. You don’t have to plan every step way in advance for anything. For this series, the only video I actually planned was #24, the one I’ve shared above. In a way, that’s how I write most of my blog posts; I come up with an idea, then I write about it. I put this out there because so many bloggers tell people they have to come up with a blogging schedule to help them figure out what they want to write about; nah.

2. Almost every subject has a lot of different things you can talk about. I concentrate a part of my main business on leadership and topics surrounding that. Except for the last video and the one above all the other videos were on some type of leadership topic, which includes motivation. Truthfully, I could have probably done 30 more, but I think I made my point.

3. Marketing is a bear when doing that much content producing. Other than weekends, I worked or traveled every single day in June. I created the videos, but since they’re on my business channel they automatically go to my second Google Plus channel but no others, and I only have 4 people I’m connected to there. Also, if you create a video via Google Hangout you have to share the video links on your own, which is different than if you create a video and upload it.

Because I did a video every day, sometimes around 11PM Central time, I’d do the video, wait about 15 minutes for it to show up, and then post the title and link to my main G+ account and Twitter. I only posted two videos to my Facebook page, and neither got 20 views; cursed Facebook. lol And because it was daily I only posted each link once except for the video above, which I felt had a chance to reach a much larger audience.

The marketing of videos, along with the time period for trying to let people know when I was going to do one, wasn’t great and I think I suffered in that manner. This taught me two things.

One, I need to put out a message asking people to let me know if they want to be informed when I’m going to do a live video on certain topics and base it on those channels so I can add those people to their own circle.

Two, for the most part it’s better to do videos at a time when people are actually awake and not about to go to bed. It a way it’s not enough just to have the content. If I did a video around 7PM instead of 11PM and only got to share it with people afterwards, they were more apt to see the link while they were still on Twitter or G+ instead of being asleep and possibly seeing it when they awoke (yeah, like that happens for most people). I don’t think the pre-notification would have done much but posting afterwards much earlier in the evening or during the day on the weekends… way smarter thing to do.

4. Don’t do videos if you have a mirror in front of you. In the second hotel room I was in there was this large mirror in front of the desk. Sometimes I start moving my arms when I talk, and most of the time you don’t see that in the video because I have the camera mainly on my face. However, I’d keep distracting myself because I’d see something moving, which of course was me. I could have covered up the mirror or gone out to the living room / dining room area to do the videos but I was too lazy. Still, trying to avoid as many distractions as possible is smart.

5. Sometimes you have to go with the flow. When I did the video above, which was long, I had multiple times where I had to scratch my nose or face. Initially I was fighting it like a boxer but eventually I had to succumb because there was no way I was going to make it through without scratching. If I knew how to edit videos I could have stopped and then come back, but that would have looked choppy and I’m not sure that would have made the video look better.

So I announced it the first time, and every other time I had to scratch or rub my face I just did it. Hey, it was hot, and I didn’t want to turn the fan on because I didn’t want the noise messing up my audio.

Sure, you want to look as professional as possible, but there’s a thing about live, that being that, well, it’s live! When I do live speaking engagements, sometimes I get an itch, or need to cough, or will pause and drink some water. When I interact with people in person, sometimes that happens as well. I don’t think that was an issue on any of the short videos because I pretty much spoke on my message and got out. But 29 1/2 minutes? Wasn’t going to happen.

There 5 takeaways that you may or may not be able to use. In any case I hope some of you watch the video above, especially if you’re thinking about starting your own business or have your own business and might feel you’re missing a few things.

Social Media

10 Social Media/Networking Don’ts In 2 Minutes

March 4, 2014 Mitch Mitchell 30 Comments

I have a series of these posts where I believe, if you read well, you can polish off the post in about 2 minutes. I’m doing it this time because that previous post was so long. It was so long that I’m giving it an extra day as well, and I’m once again on an airplane as you read this.

Greg Nissen via Compfight

Once again these are my opinion, but I tend to believe that the majority of people who read these will agree with me. Those other folks… well, they just ain’t no good! 🙂 Here we go:

1. Don’t steal someone else’s stuff. Don’t plagiarize or use without attribution. That’s content or images.

2. Don’t be a nuisance. I could have said don’t spam but I wanted to reach a broader spectrum. Don’t overdo advertising, contacting people, etc.

3. Don’t be a troll. This is worse than being a nuisance because you’re probably just trying to cause trouble for no reason other than your own pleasure.

4. Don’t be too sensitive. Just because you feel you can identify with something doesn’t mean it’s for or about you.

5. Don’t wuss out on your morals or principles. I get it, peer pressure can be strong. Truth be told, standing up for your principles and the rights of others is a lot easier than living with guilt.

6. Don’t bully others. Sometimes you might feel like you have to call someone out. That’s fine, but know where and when to draw the line; words can kill.

7. Don’t ramble. If you have something to say just say it and move on. Don’t spend 10 minutes repeating one thing over and over, whether it’s blogging or on social media.

8. Don’t stalk. Yes, there are some attractive people out there, or some famous people you enjoy. Sometimes people go too far and they don’t know they’re doing it; self control is always a good thing.

9. Don’t forget you’re in public. How do you want people to perceive you? Always think of that before you say or put anything on the internet.

10. Don’t forget that once it’s out there, it’s out there forever. If you think you can do something stupid now & in 10 years it’ll be forgotten, please! Notice how fewer people are putting those drunken party photos of themselves on Facebook now?

If you couldn’t read this in 2 minutes… well, that’s on you. 🙂

Social Media

“Thank You”; Is It Really That Hard To Say?

November 2, 2013 Mitch Mitchell 26 Comments

You know what irks me? When I hold open the door for someone because I was taught courtesy and the person walking through it acts as if I was supposed to do it and doesn’t even acknowledge that I was there. What’s that about? Is it a privilege thing? Or is it just rude?

jesuscm.com via Compfight

I tend to say “thank you” a lot. Probably way too often if my wife has anything to say about it but I always figure that there’s nothing wrong with being policy. Truthfully, I’ve even written about it a couple of times on my business blog over the years, though we’re going back some time. One was called The Lost Art Of Thank You, the other called Gotta Love Thank You’s Both of those are related more to business than personal lives but let’s face it, if you didn’t learn it before you went into business you’re probably not thinking about it at work.

I thank people in restaurants whenever they bring me something, including the bill if I’m paying attention, and if I’m still sitting there when payment is made and they thank me I thank them for the attention they gave me. Even though I’m sincere about it, I find that if I go back to that restaurant and I’m recognized I get extra special service from that point on; nothing wrong with that if you ask me. At one restaurant out of town, a Japanese restaurant, they even give me free samples of things as they try to expand my palate; it’s worked slightly but I’m a tough nut to crack. lol

It’s not just in one’s personal or business life where “thank you” is a good thing. On social media, there’s a lot of opportunities to thank people for something they’ve done for you. I don’t do it on all comments but many a time I thank someone for something they said in the comment before a response. On Twitter I try to remember to thank people who share my posts, and I’m much better at it than I used to be, something else I learned from my buddy Adrienne. Oh, as a sidebar one day this month I’ll be the featured guest writer on her blog and I hope you’ll check it out when it goes live; I’ll probably mention it somewhere around here and I thanked her for asking me and she thanked me for writing it; see how that works? 🙂

If you’re a regular visitor you know I always talk about the need to be social on social media. At the very least one should think about ways of thanking people for something when there’s a personal interaction that could potentially benefit you. Heck, sometimes I thank someone for sharing something that I really like like a motivational quote or intriguing and cool images.

I just don’t think there’s enough courtesy these days, and saying “thank you” has to be one of the easiest things for people to do. But maybe I’m being too sensitive, or maybe my generation has it wrong. What do you think? And I thank you in advance for your comments.

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