Gary Ware on Building Something Uniquely You

By Kim Hanna

Welcome back to Let's Talk About Brand! This week's guest is Gary Ware of Breakthrough Play, which facilitates personal and professional breakthroughs through the power of play. As adults, we often forget how to do that; Gary rediscovered the power of play himself through comedic improv training, and figured out how to apply that to something new. 

Marketing is a creative application when you think about it. Gary very brilliantly made that twist from a marketing career into creating Breakthrough Play, where he works with corporations and teams and groups to rediscover the power of play to enhance their creativity, productivity, and facilitate team building.

How Breakthrough Play came to be 

Gary knew that he didn't want to do something that he didn't like. He explored web design, graphic design, and attended the Art Institute in Los Angeles. He also grew an interest in marketing, so he started a digital marketing agency. As a manager, he felt a little in over his head. 

When a friend suggested he try an improv class, Gary wasn’t very into the idea at first. But he tried it out and loved it. 

“It changed my life. For two hours I was completely present. I was playing these silly games with, like, 15 other people that I didn't even know and we connected. And I immediately saw the connection between those games and what I was learning to prepare me, to be able to think on my feet on the stage to be able to connect with other people.”

Fast forward a few years later, Gary connected the power of play with his experience in marketing to develop Breakthrough Play. 

What is the power of play?

Breakthrough Play provides a very unique service. Since that service is so unconventional, Gary sometimes encounters hesitance when proposing this idea to companies. Gary says, “the biggest thing that I get is 'oh, play? We got a lot going on, it's a global pandemic. We don't have time to play.'” 

Gary explains the importance of play and why businesses should incorporate it into the workplace. Breakthrough play is perfect for companies that are looking for unique and novel ways to help their employees improve in several ways. 

Gary points out that every year, LinkedIn releases a ranking of the top skills that employees need to be successful. Those attributes generally include creativity, the ability to be adaptable, and communication. All of those things are attributes that Breakthrough Play brings to companies. 

Not everyone is immediately on board. Gary says, “Through my training, in applied improvisation and communication training, I developed this curriculum that allows people to slowly edge into it. And that's the beauty with play. If you think about when you were a kid, and you would play, you would forget about time. You would feel so present with whatever is going on. And then by the end of it, you're like, 'I want more!' And so that is what I'm super excited to bring to companies.”

Unlocking your creativity

Gary talks about a study done by NASA where they followed a cohort from kindergarten through high school. They put them through a series of tests that were used to measure their level of creativity. And they found that 95% of those kindergarteners had genius levels of creativity. However, by the time they were 18, only 3% of that group had genius levels of creativity. What happened?

Gary goes on to explain that as children grow up, they’ll develop insecurities as they start to compare themselves to others. Gary says, “You’ll see someone that has an innate talent. And you're like, 'Well, they're good at that. I'm not. So I'm not creative.'”

Anyone can learn to be creative again through the power of play. Gary says, “Think about when you're playing a game, like a video game. You just play just for the sake of playing. But when you run into a challenge, whatever you're doing, whatever game that you're playing, you don't just throw in the towel. You get adaptive. You start to get creative, and so it's a muscle that you can cultivate.”

Gary advises people to set aside time every day and work out your brain. He calls it ‘going to the gym for your brain.’ Gary mentioned an exercise called Droodles to work out your brain. A Droodle is an abstract image that you look at and interpret however you want. The point is to work out your brain by thinking creatively. 

What’s so great about Droodle and other brain games? Gary says, “You have to allow yourself to be silly. You have to allow yourself to think about whatever you want, and that takes practice. So if you wanna get creative, it's all about being intentional. Plus, you're doing it in a low stakes environment, your brain.”

Find Gary

Where can you find Gary Ware? You can find him as @GaryWare on social media, or check out his website, breakthroughplay.com. He loves chatting with people, especially if you're interested in creativity and curiosity.

Thank you so much to Gary Ware of Breakthrough Play! Tune in next Friday at 12 noon Eastern on Facebook Live for the next episode of Let’s Talk About Brand. In addition to this Friday Livestream, you can also check out Let’s Chat About Brand, the Tuesday Twitter chat that’s on the same topic as the Friday Livestream. See you next week!

Mel Bridger on Branding Something Bigger Than Yourself

Welcome back to Let's Talk About Brand! This week's guest, Mel Bridger, is joining us today from the UK. Mel is a personal trainer, but she has three separate fitness brands! We're going to cover all of them, but basically, she has branded a partnership, a personal brand, and a franchise. She’s the perfect guest to be speaking with us about branding something bigger than yourself.

Mel’s Three Brands

Let’s dive into each of Mel’s brands, and why she chose to make three brands instead of combining them. Each of them has a clearly defined purpose to differentiate them.

Her first brand, Cardio Central, was designed to be all about community, inspiring other women, and getting people active who wouldn't necessarily be active. The organization started as ‘Zumba Central’, but Mel later rebranded to Cardio Central as she was teaching more than one type of class. 

Mel says, “Cardio Central was one of the first to launch in my area. I couldn't handle the number of students that we had coming through the door.” She expanded Cardio Central by training former students to become instructors. What a great way to initially draw from your audience to expand!

Mel realized the need for her second brand, The Mummy Trainer, after having her daughter. This brand is all about working with other moms, or people that may be intimidated by the gym. Mel’s goal for this brand is to offer a service for women that is relatable and effective.

She explains, “When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was looking for fitness activities that would help me as I got later on through my pregnancy and throughout recovery. There was nothing in my area. So I decided that I would train not only to be a personal trainer but also to specialize in pre and postnatal fitness. That's one of the things that I'm known for in the fitness industry.” 

The Beatz Fitness franchise was developed out of another gap Mel saw in the market. The main difference with Beatz Fitness is that it's not for students, it's for other instructors. It’s designed for other instructors to come and train to then go out into the world and deliver the program.

Mel says, “They train with us, and we develop them not only in how to deliver the program, but we teach them about all aspects of fitness marketing and everything else to help their business grow. As they became more successful, we became more successful, so I decided to move from working for other people and be able to bring my own ideas to the forefront without having to have somebody there telling what to do.”

Every brand that Mel has developed has been designed to fulfill a need in the fitness industry. While all three brands are different, they all contribute to creating a community in the fitness industry. Mel says, “The ethos around all three is community.” 

Digital Marketing in the Fitness Industry

Digital marketing and social media contributed greatly to The Mummy Trainer’s success. The brand started predominantly as a blog before the personal training aspect was added. 

The Mummy Trainer started to get noticed a lot more as the brand accumulated a large following in the fitness industry. As Mel became more interested in social media and digital marketing, she learned a lot about personal branding and started to be more consistent across all platforms. 

Furthermore, marketing three different brands can be tricky. How can you differentiate marketing three separate brands? Mel says, “The way that I market and grow those brands are very different. The community aspect where it's students, it's a support network. With Beatz, it's big. It's going to be exponential, we can spread it to far more people in the growth aspect. It's a completely different audience, and so I can't market both of them or treat both of them the same way.”

As far as implementing a strategy, Mel says it’s all about teamwork. “You have to have the right team around you to enable you to focus. You can't do it all on your own.”

Building a strong brand

What do all of Mel’s brands have in common? They all incorporate a strong sense of community. 

We asked Mel how she built such a strong brand that has resonated with so many people. She says it’s all about authenticity.  “I've always said the one thing that you have in this industry is your reputation.” 

Building a strong community also requires a great team. Mel says, “I always treat my team as if we're all on the same level because we are and everybody's contribution is valuable. So it's never been Mel Bridger and the Beatz Pro Team. And when that's been said about us before, I've gone in and asked people to correct it because I see us as one. We're all valuable, and that in itself has helped the brand to grow very quickly.”

Find Mel

Mel can be found as The Mummy Trainer on every platform. Of the three brands, that’s the one that ties it all together. 

Thank you so much to Mel Bridger for speaking with us today and to everyone that watched! You can catch the next episode of Let’s Talk About Brand on Facebook every Friday at 12 noon Eastern. See you next week!

Ryan Foland on Branding with Authenticity

By Kim Hanna

Welcome back to Let's Talk About Brand! Today’s guest Ryan Foland is all about ditching the act, keeping it real, and bringing his whole self to the table rather than playing some sort of part of what he should be, because what he should be is himself. 

He’s the perfect person to talk with us today about this week’s topic, branding with authenticity.

Being known as authentic

Since Ryan is known as the authenticity guy, we asked him how that came to be. How did he have that moment where he realized this is his niche?

Ryan’s answer: “I was sick of trying to flip flop between what I was thinking I should be doing.” This was when he ditched the act.

For example, Ryan wanted to be a speaker. He tried to emulate what other speakers were doing, write blogs and tell others what he wanted to do. He soon realized he needed to do more than that. 

He continues, “I had this moment I was like, You know what? I'm just so sick of having to rebrand myself. I was the guy who was running the entrepreneurship center at UCI. If I'm gonna get fired, I'm gonna have to come up with what I am next...and I realized at that moment that I need to build a brand that is who I am.”

How to Build an Authentic Brand

What happens if you’re not being authentic? Why is it important to be authentic? Check out what Ryan had to say on this.

“When I tried to build a brand that wasn't truly authentic, I sort of erased everything up until what I was now. And I think a lot of us do that where, when we build our bio or we're trying to take on a new profession, or even in this pandemic, we're trying to rebrand because whatever we did before maybe didn't work.”

“Sometimes we downplay or erase everything that's happened in the past and just get people to focus on what I'm doing now. But the problem with that is that you lose all of that experience that you can share. And I truly think that building an authentic brand is highlighting your experience and letting somebody else decide that you have expertise as opposed to just telling people you have expertise.”

“It’s a process, I sort of owned my whole story where I talk about not just the good shiny parts. I talked about how I was at a point to file bankruptcy and I actually mailed it in, and it got returned to me because I didn't have enough stamps on it. And for me, that was a change in my life.”

Why does he share those low points? He says, “It's about not trying to build a brand on your highlight reel. It's about trying to build a brand on your highlight REAL. And it gives you the opportunity to sort of be imperfect and to connect with people where they might find common ground.”

In summation, Ryan explains that we all have a lot to share. And you can talk about more than just the shiny parts, even though it’s not always easy. Ryan says he was fearful about sharing his bankruptcy, but now it’s something he’s proud of as it’s changed the way he looks at the world and who he is a person. As per the name of Ryan’s book, it’s okay to ditch the act!

How to discover your personal brand

Ryan has a process called the Rapid Reflection Discovery process. This is a way to discover how people currently perceive your brand. We have control over the content that we create, so a personal brand is the intersection between what people know about you and what you want to be known for. 

How do you duplicate this as an experiment? 

• Ask your friends, family, coworkers, or followers to give you words and phrases that come to mind when they think about you. It's best if this is done anonymously. Have somebody collect the answers. 

• Then, gather that data but don't look at it yet. Take post-it notes on your own and decide all the things that you want to be known for. Think about in an ideal world, what do you want to be known for?

• Next, look at these pieces of data. Ryan likes to put them up on a wall. 

• Then, group the post-it notes into groups. The outliers you get rid of, and you will have chunks of post-it notes that have a theme to it. The challenge is to pick three of those clusters. This is how you start. 

Now, you have three things to start your personal brand on. Maybe it’s something professional, something personal and something that you do as a hobby. 

Ryan says, “This process allows you to start with this common ground, and then you have the chance to evolve your content to then create digital breadcrumbs. People evolve to see you on your journey, so that that's where I hope people start.”

Find Ryan Foland

You can find Ryan at ryan.online. That’s it! There you can find his podcast, his four TEDx talks, and how to work with him. Also, check out his book, Ditch The Act!

Thank you so much to Ryan Foland for ditching the act, keeping it real and being here with us today to help all of us do the same. Make sure to tune into the live show, Let’s Talk About Brand, every Friday at 12 noon eastern on Facebook. See you there!

Chocolate Johnny on Personalizing a Brand

By Kim Hanna

Today’s guest joins us all the way from Sydney, Australia: the fabulous Chocolate Johnny, talking with us about personalizing a brand. 

John Kapos is a-third generation chocolatier. His family business, Perfection Chocolates, was founded in 1939 and they still hand-make their chocolates and confections in Sydney, Australia. Years ago, John realized the power of social media, especially video, for small businesses. Today, he spreads that message to small businesses all over the world, as well as continuing to put it to use for Perfection Chocolates.

Social media wasn’t around yet when John first took over the family business. However, John is an early adopter, so it didn’t take long to hop on all the social media platforms. He used social media to grow his business and to become well-known through his personal brand, Chocolate Johnny, as well.

How did you become Chocolate Johnny?

Forming a personal brand doesn’t happen overnight. The name ‘Chocolate Johnny’ had already been a nickname of John’s for many years. It wasn’t until he got involved with social media that he was able to turn this fun nickname into a personal brand. 

“I took over the business more than 30 years ago. Back then, we didn't have social media. We had the newspaper, radio, and TV. Then, up came a thing called a website and a web page.”

Chocolate Johnny was an early adopter to all social media platforms. He made a Facebook business page, then a Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Now he’s even on TikTok!

He says, “I'm an early adopter. Give me an app, and I'll make sure I rip it apart and make sure I put it back to use it for my branding, for my business.” 

Chocolate Johnny, Perfection Chocolates, and John Kapos

John manages three brands online: John Kapos, Chocolate Johnny, and of course Perfection Chocolates. To separate the three brands, he made sure to secure social media handles for each. 

“I made sure that when Instagram came on, I got all three. Twitter, I got all three. Facebook. I got all three. For any app that came on, I just made sure I went straight into it.”

Managing three brands could sound a little overwhelming, right? We asked John about how he manages all of these accounts. He responds, “Some of the accounts suffer. Where I make my money is where I look. The truth is, we're here to make money, and Perfection Chocolates makes us money.” 

One of his strategies is keeping a spare iPhone in the Perfection Chocolates retail store. It’s used by John and the employees to post about the day-to-day activity in the store. He calls it the ‘social media phone.’

This strategy allows people to get to know the Perfection Chocolates employees and get a behind-the-scenes look at the business each day. 

“It's funny. When I interview new staff for the team, the first thing I say is, ‘show me your social media.’ And they go ‘okay, here it is.’ I said, ‘great. One of the first things you're gonna to do is at lunch, you get 35 minutes for lunch. 30 is to eat  and five minutes is to do a post. If you're doing anything with chocolate, if you're making anything, If you're weighing up stuff, just pick up the phone, and you're allowed to video record it. As long as it's in the parameters of Perfection Chocolates, go for it. You want to put yourself on there? Do it. And it's funny, when we go live all the people who watch it know our team!”

Is there a right way to brand?

John’s answer: “Brand recognizably.”

“I always say this, people built a relationship with me. People built trust with me, and then they bought from me. I tell everyone, don't sell. Never sell. Just show me. And if you show someone, they will buy.”

What goes well with each type of chocolate? 

We couldn't talk to the one and only Chocolate Johnny without asking about chocolate! 

He said, “We're starting to make our own Nutella! We just bought a new machine from Europe that's gonna make its own peanut butter and our own Nutella.” 

He also has a new creation in the works. It’s something that involves a layer of milk chocolate, peanut butter, white chocolate, salted caramel, and dark chocolate! 

Find John

You can find Perfection Chocolates and Chocolate Johnny on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook @PerfectionChocolates and @ChocolateJohnny.

Thank you so much to John for talking to us today about personalizing a brand! Tune in for our next episode of Let’s Talk About Brand every Friday at 12 noon Eastern time on Facebook Live. You can also check out the Let’s Chat About Brand Twitter chat on Tuesdays at 12 noon Eastern time. See you next week!

360 Marketing Squad on Branding a Collaboration

Today is really exciting because we have four guests on today: the 360 Marketing Squad, four incredibly well accomplished professionals in their own right, talking about branding a collaboration! 

Content and blogging expert Mike Allton blogs as the Blogging Brute and The Social Media Hat. He's also the brand evangelist for Agorapulse.

Instagram expert Jenn Herman goes by Jenn's Trends. She has literally written the book on Instagram many times over. 

We also have Facebook live expert Stephanie Liu, who is the reason I'm on Ecamm! She's known for her Lights, Camera, Live training programs, blog, and livestream. She's also an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) trainer. 

We also have Facebook ads, chat box and analytics expert Amanda Robinson, a.k.a. The Digital Gal. 

Together they are the 360 Marketing Squad, running an incredible private membership group full of trainings, tips, and incredible strategies. 

Their most recent collaboration - along with co-author Eric Butow - is “Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing,” published by Entrepreneur Press. 

The Origin Story:

MIKE:

Jenn introduced me to Stephanie at Social Media Marketing World 2018. I had met Stephanie online about a year prior to that, but we hadn't met in person yet. A month later, Steph and I were both speaking at MDMC here in St. Louis, where we got to hang out and get to know each other a lot better. In our conversations, we both came to the conclusion that we needed a personal mastermind group. I'd been part of some mastermind groups that had recently fallen apart, just stopped meeting. We wanted that support group, that mechanism to connect with other people, other colleagues and professionals in the space that we could relate to. We both knew Jenn very well, and all three of us had young daughters. So the three of us formed what was initially just a personal group where we could share the challenges and things that we were going through and start to collaborate. That's what spawned the idea of the 360 Marketing Squad. 

JENN:

We started talking about doing a membership - all of us had wanted to do one, but the idea of running our own memberships by ourselves, with all of the work and all of the management that goes into a membership, was overwhelming. So we partnered up: it would be a lot less work for each individual to have to manage, and we could give more value to each of our audiences because we have our own individual, unique areas of expertise. As we started thinking about it, we realized we wanted to do something along the lines of “360 degrees,” which would mean we would probably want a fourth person to cover that other component which the three of us weren't necessarily experts at - and that was the paid advertising and analytics side. We all agreed that Amanda would be the perfect fit to do that. So we roped her into the chaos that was our lives, and that was how we formed 360. 

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You're four very accomplished people with your own distinct personal brands.

How have you joined them together In a way that doesn't water any of them down, but also doesn't have any one star standing out?

How did you figure out how to brand 360 Marketing squad? 

AMANDA:

We always say that Mike is the glue that holds us together. He's the one that keeps us all sane. 

Each of us has our own superpowers in our own arena of digital marketing and social media. So everything just interlays and play so nicely together between all of our brands. For example, Jenn speaks on organic tactics; as soon as someone asks her a paid ads question, she's like, “You’ve gotta talk to this girl over here.” As soon as someone asks, “How do I up my game on live streaming?” we point the finger right over at Stephanie. As soon as someone wants to know, “How do I start producing more content that's going to move the needle?” we point the finger right at Mike. We have a solution for everything among the four of us, and it really does make us feel like a complete superpower squad. And it just makes a lot of sense together. So it's been good. The strength of our individual personal brands makes the group of us that much more able to help everyone. We each amplify with our own audiences. And then when that comes together, it's like this cataclysmic magic, awesome digital marketing sauce! And it's all encapsulated in that one book. 

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360 Marketing Squad has been a private membership group where members can go and get tips, trainings, and support in all areas of digital marketing.

How did you decide to spin it out into a book? 

Are there plans for more things beyond the group and beyond this book? 

STEPHANIE:

When it comes to the book, as far as delegating who's going to take care of the content, I think that was really easy to do because we're all content creators in our own right. So if someone wants to talk about strategy, Jenn does fantastic presentations from soup to nuts, all about strategy; paid media, of course, you would tap Amanda; and so on and so forth, especially with Mike being the glue that holds us all together. Once we had the table of contents, it's like, “Oh, here's your homework. Boom!” “Here you go - Boom!” And it was really easy for us because if you had asked me to write about Chatbots, I don't want to do that! So we delegated the topics by who’s most passionate about those specific topics. 

As far as what's next in the future, I think in our own little private mastermind we've all just been saying, “What are our plans for 2021? What is it that we want to do?” Because the book in and of itself has opened so many opportunities. Mike is now VIP-contributing over to Entrepreneur.com. And I think all of us have done webinars at this point. So that's really a jumping off point for the next thing for us. We even have an internal joke that we need to write the ultimate guide to launching a book! 

Jenn and I made that joke of, “Do you remember what it was like giving birth to a child? And then you totally forget about it? That is happening right now.” 

JENN:

Writing a book is the equivalent of going through childbirth. We did joke about whether or not we would write a book about launching a book. Because we had, thanks to - I'm gonna throw Mike and Stephanie the bone on this one - thanks to their amazing planning and coordination, the launch strategy that we put together to launch the book was unlike anything I had ever seen, and unlike anything I’ve done on any other books that I had written or seen from anybody else in our industry. So we jokingly said that, but you never know. Crazier things have happened! 

MIKE:

I wasn't joking. Just putting that out there.

STEPHANIE:

I'm actually rooting for a Jenn and Amanda live reality show…

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What makes for a good on brand collaboration partner? What do you look for? 

AMANDA:

I've tried to collaborate with other brands. And what I have found is that certain brands have that “only in it for me” viewpoint where there's tension, there's push and pull, but it's trying to take from you and not give back to you. And when there's a really natural fit, it's a win win for both parties, completely, 100% equal across the board. It's a full win and it's collaborative. There's a lot of brainstorming and energy and excitement, and there's just a sizzle that happens when it's a good fit. So it shouldn't be hard; it doesn't have to be hard to have a brand collaboration. That's my opinion. 

JENN:

For me, it's making sure that they are well aligned with you and your brand: your brand style, your brand voice, your brand audience. You don't want somebody that is a direct competitor to what you do because that could get a little bit competitive; you want someone that's aligned. The four of us, even though we're all in the same space, don't look at ourselves as competitors: we complement each other in all of our strengths. But even when working with large brands, or with other people that I've collaborated with, it's important that their target audience is something that is relevant to my goals - and vice versa, that my audience is relative to their goals - but that we have an alignment in terms of how we speak, how we teach, how we produce content. Because if those aren't in alignment, it starts, again, being a really hard problem with creating that content - who's going to market when it's going to get marketed? When the four of us came together, we all have a very similar mentality in terms of sales, in terms of marketing, in terms of ultimate goals, so we don't have one person over here getting resentful because we're not achieving or we're not working hard enough. We all have the same mentality, and that's really important when you pick that team.

STEPHANIE:

It's helpful to make sure that it's a win-win situation. Like when I partnered with Ecamm and we did the Leap Into Live Streaming [event], we had the shared vision that we wanted to help people take the leap into live streaming, so that was really cool. And then in working with Katie, who's absolutely amazing, I was like, “My superpower is in creating content. As far as things like project management and setting up Hey Summit, would you like to do that?” And she's like, “Oh, I'm so all about that.” I was like, “Okay, cool, that's like that that's you. You do that.” 

But then I think the other thing is also noticing how they want to market the collaboration - for example, if someone's like, “I need you to constantly email your audience,” I’m like, “Nooo, that’s not me.” 

MIKE:

To add to what Stephanie just said - in addition to making sure that it's a win-win, I like to try to make sure that the brands or individual influencers that I'm partnering with really want whatever it is that we're hoping to accomplish. I work with influencers all the time, and sometimes it's a win for them, but they don't really want it. And when you're asking somebody to put time and energy and passion into something, and they don't really, really want it, it's just not going to be there. 

Take our personal mastermind group. That was just the four of us, our support group. There's a time investment in there, and there's an emotional investment in there, right? And getting to know each other and support each other and, you know, hop on Zoom calls and that sort of thing. And if we had somebody in the group that didn't really feel like they needed us - maybe they were at a different point in their career, and they didn't feel like they needed that kind of support - maybe they'd show up, maybe they wouldn't. Right? They wouldn't necessarily give to the group the way that everybody else is giving. So I like to view collaborations that same way: to make sure that, whenever possible, everybody not only wins, they win big.

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A7: What are some ways to get on the radar of brands you want to collaborate and work with? -Chelsea #ChatAboutBrand

— ReviewTrackers (@reviewtrackers) October 13, 2020

Chelsea at Review Trackers would love to know how to get on the radar of brands you want to collaborate with and work with?

MIKE:

This is what I wrote about in the book. This is what I do every day: influencer marketing, relationship building. And I think that the easiest, most natural, organic way to make those inroads into brands that you might want to work with - perhaps as an influencer, as a brand ambassador even - is to engage with those brands, talk about those brands, and not seek payment or compensation or anything like that. You're building a relationship naturally, and that's where social media becomes such an easy tool and an easy route to do that. You can just go to their Twitter account or their Facebook page and you can make yourself known. Just as you, Christine, have done with Agorapulse, right? You show up in our lives, you show up in our group; you show up. Which is so key to any kind of relationship, and that gets noticed. We've got our Friday show with Agorapulse, and people show up to that live every single week - and Jennifer, our host, she sees them, she calls them out. And some of those people have now become guests on the show. Some of those have even become influencers for Agorapulse. And it's all due to the relationships that they kicked off by being present.

JENN:

To dovetail off what Mike was saying, it's really important to build the relationships with those brands. You can't just send an email to a brand and be like, “Hey! I want to work with you!” I recently had somebody else send me something about her book - and it's somebody I know, but there was no context. And I'm like, “I don't know what you want me to do with this.” There was no preface; there was no, “I'm writing this book, and this is what it's about, and I want you to be a part of it” pitching. I'm like, “What?” You need to form those relationships and you need to have those conversations. And that could be done via email, direct message, Zoom, or even a phone call at some point. But you do have to start - to Mike's point - by showing up: liking their content, leaving comments, sending them a DM and thanking them for doing something, sharing information, sharing something valuable - whatever it is, get on their radar as an actual person, and then, from there, start fostering those relationships. Start looking into who the people are that book their podcast - are they a team of one, or do they have 20 people on that team? Do they have people that are doing live shows, that are doing podcasts, that are doing webinars? Find out who those people are and start looking to foster those relationships as well. Because even though you may be active on their social, their social media manager may have nothing to do with the person who books their podcast that you want to get on. And you could be the best social media presence and still get nowhere for getting on that podcast interview. So do that research, if that's who you want to work with. And that's where - when you pick those two or three brands that you really want to work with, and you build those relationships - you get great return in terms of those relationships. We're not sending out mass pitches to 50 different types of brands hoping that somebody wants to work with us, because those are never going to be those relationships that Mike was talking about: those passionate ones, the people who really want to be involved. You're better off picking those small handful of brands that you really want to work with and build those relationships over time to the point where they become very valuable.

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A7. What worked for you when building your brand that you least expected?#ChatAboutBrand

— Linda Rey #SmallBiz Cheerleader 📣 (@HeyLindaRey) October 13, 2020

The next one is from Linda Rey. What worked for you when building your brand that you least expected? 

AMANDA:

I rebranded. I worked for four years in my business with the wrong brand name, and it didn't fit, and I just didn't have my stride. And then when I finally rebranded to the name that fit me, which is The Digital Gal, I rebranded and I embraced the pink. I just took it all in. I'm like, “All right, this is me.” As soon as I found something that really just resonated with me - honestly, I just have pink everything everywhere around my desk. I started sprinkling my pink across the Internet like Skittles everywhere, getting branded stickers and just putting my brand on everything - like, legit, I have my brand on my computer dongles for my Mac, I have it everywhere. Embracing the brand “all in” is something I couldn't do when the brand name wasn't the right fit. I'm not saying that I would tattoo The Digital Gal on me - I won't - but it's close enough. Whereas with the old brand name, heck no! Even just putting my name out there with the old brand felt awkward, like an awkward baby deer that couldn't walk properly; it just didn't fit. I just did not have my stride. And then once I found the brand that clicked with me, it just felt like somebody let me run at full tilt the way I wanted to. It felt so good, and it started taking off so quickly: people just had brand recognition happening left right and center. It feels like they thought I was that brand for all of the years that I have been in business.

STEPHANIE:

So, live streaming, honestly, it was a big surprise to me. I had always been an ad agency veteran: I was in the trenches doing social media, paid media, and all of that stuff. And when I started live streaming, then the first event organizer, Amanda Nelson, had reached out - and I think, Jenn, you were on the same conference, right? Social Vidcon - and she said, “Can you come and talk about live streaming? And OBS?” And I was like, “ME? I am now an expert in OBS?” That was the part where I didn't really realize the power of live streaming. And ever since then, it's just been this fast pass into getting into a key decision maker’s, “Hey, I want you on this project,” or, “I need you to produce this event.” So live streaming in and of that sense was, “Wow - that's cool!” 

---

The last and biggest and possibly best question is from Marianne; she has a question for each of you.

A7: Wow so many great guests.

❓ @mike_allton what is his favourite thing about AP?

❓@jenns_trends is she still wearing heels whilst wfh?

❓@heystephanie what her #1 live tip?

❓ @thedigitalgal what's the best ROAS she's achieved?#ChatAboutBrand

— Marianne Avery | Social Media Manager (@sociallymaz) October 13, 2020

Mike, what is your favorite thing about Agorapulse? 

MIKE:

My favorite thing? There's a couple things - I can't pick just one, because there's two different aspects. 

Agorapulse the company, it's all about the people and the culture inside. I've worked with a lot of different companies. I came from an online website builder company. I was the CMO of a whole different company. And coming to Agorapulse was just a night-and-day difference in terms of how the company is led, the vision of the company, the culture that's created inside, the teamwork, and everything. It's amazing. 

From the tool itself, I have to say the category queues: being able to create a category of a type of post and then create different time slots and then just fill that queue like a bucket and have that content go out on a set schedule. Hands off. You can pause. You can shuffle the queue. You can delete it. You could move stuff around. It's one of my favorite features, and it's almost a mind blowing feature. Often when I show people, “Hey, this is how you could do that - this is how you can replicate almost every other publishing feature on any other tool - just use the category queues,” that is beautiful. 

Jenn, your high heels are a fabulous part of your brand, and I can vouch that the high heels and long nails are always a thing.

So are you still wearing heels and doing all that stuff while working from home? 

JENN:

The heels? No, they're unfortunately getting very dusty and neglected, I have literally a whole shoe wall, so I see them every day, and I kind of pine after them, and wait for the day when I'll be able to wear them. On occasion, yes, I'll slip on a pair of heels if I'm going out. But let's face it: most of my excursions into the grocery store. So that's still flip-flops. And I really don't have a good reason to wear the heels. 

The nails. I started doing my nails in COVID, so I bought the entire kit: I got the drill, the acrylics, the gels, that UV lamp and everything. And I've managed to be doing my own nails for the last seven months or whatever, because I refuse to give those up. So at least I kept that. 

Stephanie, what is your number one live tip? 

STEPHANIE:

My number one live tip: Have fun. 

Live streaming, to me, is like improv. You're just going to have to say, “Yes, and - that just happened, and we're just going to keep going.” So have fun while you're doing it. Because if you're stressed out, you're stressing out your viewers. You might not see us all in the green room. But when one of us is speaking, we're just like, “Yeah, you go, girl! Yeah! Go, Jenn!” Have fun, because then your viewers are going to have fun watching you, too. There's so many distractions out there. Things that are like emotional vampires. Have fun. Be that entertainment that your viewers want to see, especially on a Friday. So cheers! 

Amanda, what is the best ROAS return on ad spend that you have achieved? 

AMANDA:

That's actually one that I won't even touch on, because the majority of businesses that I help are small and medium sized businesses who have a difficult time - they don't have products that you could add to cart and then have a return on ad spend. You can't tie it 1-to-1. So you have to get creative with different types of strategies that can still prove that it is working and prove that it is bringing revenue into the business. But you can't actually tie it into a ROAS. People who can't achieve a ROAS, I'm the person they come to. 

What I recommend to most people is when you're starting out, start your strategy, and then layer it on. Set your goals smaller and achieve those goals, then layer on bigger goals. So when you first start advertising, start going through reach, engagement, and video views. Once you can consistently increase those numbers and achieve your goals and how you can move that forward, then start layering on, “Okay, now I want to get traffic to my website.” Once you start achieving that, then start laying layering on, “Okay, now I want some conversions.” But most people are going from zero to trying to get conversions. Then their ads don't work for them. Then they get frustrated and they fall off. So it's a matter of kind of layering on those expectations.

---

Thank you very much today to Mike Allton, Jenn Herman, Amanda Robinson, and Stephanie Liu: the 360 Marketing Squad. Anyone who wants this book - and trust me, you want this book - can get it at SocialMediaBook.shop. 

Ramon Ray on Branding with Expertise

By Kim Hanna

Welcome back to Let's Talk About Brand! 

Today we’re talking with Ramon Ray of Smart Hustle. Ramon has done a great job of branding with expertise. He started in the tech sector, focusing in small business tech. Now he is a renowned expert not only in tech but also in small businesses and their needs, business in general, and marketing.

He has worked at the United Nations, spoken at the White House, interviewed President Obama, and testified before Congress. He runs the amazing Smart Hustle Growth Conference every year. He has a whole community of smart hustlers, small businesses, and is an in-demand speaker all over the world. He’s the author of four books, including The Celebrity CEO. We're so lucky to have him talking with us today!

Branding With Expertise

Expert has become kind of a diluted buzzword. What does ‘expertise’ actually mean?

Ramon says that there are about three key components that make someone an ‘expert.’ First, you need some experience in the given subject. Second, you must be a student of it. In Ramon’s words, this means, “you wake up and that's all you think about.” Third, you must be able to talk all about the topic with confidence. That's Ramon's recipe for expertise! 

Becoming known as an Expert

Ramon answered another great question from our Twitter chat: “what did you do to kind of shift the needle the most when it came to being known and respected by people as an expert?”

Ramon says the answer is social media. “I'd like to think that it works because it’s varied. It's different. It's fun. It's engaging. I get to shine a light on others. I get to shine a light on myself. It's always interesting,”

Social media allows Ramon to share his message, build his fan base, and build his community. You can also communicate directly. He says, “You can communicate whatever you want. You're in control of the message.”

How Ramon Started in Small Business Marketing 

Ramon started his career in the technology sector. He has extensive knowledge in this industry, and he loves helping small businesses. He also blogged several times a day. Over time, he became known as one of the leading voices of tech for small businesses.

Part of how Ramon stood out in this space is because people weren't really doing it yet. However, it was his experience that enabled him to have the expertise to work with small tech businesses. 

He built his expertise in some pretty amazing ways - including hosting an event with Michael Dell launching Dell Vostro computers. Perhaps his greatest mark of expertise was testifying before the United States Congress to explain why small businesses are important. He advocated for SCORE, which is a government service that helps small businesses grow. 

What led Ramon to some of these amazing opportunities was focusing on his area of expertise. When people went to look him up after seeing these public events, they found more information on his expertise.

Personal Branding

We asked Ramon his best advice on personal branding. He says there are a few components that are important: repetition, frequency, consistency, and visual images.

“It doesn't have to be, but as me and Christine know, that visual identity is why people are scrolling. I think those are a few elements of why personal branding is important.”

Value From Making Mistakes

We took some questions from our Tuesday Twitter chat, Let’s Chat About Brand. You guys ask a lot of great questions! One question was, “Which mistake have you made in the past that you learned the most from or value the most?”

Ramon’s answer: “I'm very compulsive. That's my biggest, biggest problem. I say yes fast without thought.”

“I do events in the New York City area. I get hundreds of people at my events locally. I get the opportunity to do an event in California. Same playbook, because I'm Ramon...everybody's just gonna come, right? I took about a $50,000 investment, give or take. Totally zippo failure.”

But, there is value in mistakes. Understanding this mistake has helped Ramon learn to slow down. He also says, “You could use red balloons, but purple balloons may not work.” In other words, just because his event worked in New York, doesn’t mean it would work in California. 

Definition of Personal Success

We asked Ramon if his definition of personal success and motivation has changed over time.  

“I think success is, how can I be happy and serve others? it's not a dollar number. I just want to live life happy.”

Find Ramon

We love the excellent advice Ramon gave us today! Thanks so much to Ramon Ray for chatting with us today!

You can find Ramon at ramonray.com. Everyone should also pick up The Celebrity CEO, which is Ramon's awesome book. (He has four books, actually. But this one is red, so it's obviously the best one.) 

Join us next Friday at noon eastern on Facebook live to Talk About Brand!

Ashley Graham on Branding With Media

By Kim Hanna

Welcome back to Let's Talk About Brand! Today we are talking with Ashley Graham, aka Your Brandista. Ashley is a publicist and empowerment coach who works with conscious brands to elevate their influence through aligned media strategies.

Ashley empowers brands to be able to get their message out there in the places and ways that they want. But not all exposure is equal. Today, Ashley is going to talk about aligned media strategies that make sense for yourself and your brand. 

What does PR mean to you?

From a traditional standpoint, we’ll define PR as shaping the public's perception of a business, brand, or entity. However, there’s more to public relations than just that definition. Ashley emphasizes the differences between personal branding and business branding. 

“A brand is more of building an emotional connection with your clientele or your audiences. And so when it comes to public relations or media relations, such as taking video, for instance, it's getting a person or two people who are very intertwined in the personal branding side and getting the audience to make an emotional connection with them. A personal brand is really making an emotional connection with the people who you are engaging with.” 

When you consistently engage with your audiences and connections, you can start to build more of an emotional connection with them through personal branding.

What is the advantage of building an emotional connection? 

There is an advantage to being a thought leader and being an expert. But the emotional connection element is really where the good stuff is! Why is it so important to generate that emotional element as a personal brand? 

Ashley responds, “Emotion comes down to trust. When you have an emotional connection with somebody, there's already that trust factor where you know you trust and confide in them to be able to share your story or share messages that are wearing on your heart.”

 In conjunction with trust, it comes down to familiarity. When you're emotionally connected to somebody you feel that you've known them forever. There's just more of that personal dynamic there. 

How can that personal brand obtain that emotional element through media? Ashley says the possibilities are endless. “You can reach targets or audiences that you probably wouldn't normally meet. For example, going live on video allows you to influence and distribute your message to the masses.”

With traditional networking, or just going out and socializing, you're limited in the capacity to make that emotional connection. Media is global, so the reach is way more significant. 

Is building relationships more important than trying to push your brand to people?

You also want to think about building better relationships with people, whether that's your clients, your influences, or your audiences. 

Ashley says, “We have to treat our media influences—our bloggers, our influencers, our editors, our writers—with the same integrity that we would treat our clients because they're the ones that are using their brainpower and their creativity to take a story angle and pick it up and then leverage their influence with the outlets that they are found within.” 

How can having a strong personal brand presence on social media help with getting media exposure (and the other way around)?

Ashley says that it's like the infinity symbol: one feels the other and then back again. “Social media is PR. And there's so much value that you can get out of just leveraging your personal brand on social media.”

Because anyone can share and retweets wherever content is being circulated, it can even be picked up on larger media platforms. “Recently a good friend of mine, Mariah, did a Tik Tok that ended up going viral, and it was picked up by BET.”

If you are consistent on social media and you keep showing up and producing good content, that has that impact factor of not just posting to post, and that's where the opportunity to go viral or the opportunity to get those pieces picked up on other platforms happens. 

What's your advice to those trying to break into the PR industry?

Ashley says, “if you could just familiarize yourself with one element of media relations or PR, it's where social media comes into play as a huge factor to that.”

Familiarize yourself with the types of content that people are putting out there, the conversations that they're having, and find mentors that are either in the publicity space or just content creators.

Content creators and influencers are also publicists. They know how to pitch themselves to brand and how to work out various agreements. If you are on social media, you’re already doing your own PR, you may just not be thinking about it that way. 

Find Ashley

Ashley can be found on all platforms as Your Brandista. She’s very active on Instagram, and she’s also growing her Facebook Group, The Conscious PR Community. This group focuses on what it means to live consciously when it comes down to the media's perception. This group is for anyone interested in PR, social media, marketing, and entrepreneurship!

Thank you so much to Ashley Graham of Your Brandista for talking to us today about personal branding and publicity! Make sure to tune in to our live show every single Friday at noon eastern as well as our Tuesdays Twitter chat at noon eastern!

Mario and Katie Marchese on Branding For Yourself (Not the Space)

By Kim Hanna

Welcome back to Let's Talk About Brand! Today we talked about personal branding with Katie and Mario Marchese. Mario is better known as Mario the Maker Magician. He has been a magician for over 15 years, and he really breaks the mold!

Mario has been called “the greatest children's magician in the world” by magician David Blaine, who he's also toured the world with. He has taught his own special brand of Maker Magic to Murray the Muppet on Sesame Street. He has also done a whole ton of live programming with Make Magazine. Normally, he’s touring all over the place with his family and his co-adventurer, Katie Marchese. 

Katie, in addition to being Mario's wife and keeping their personal life going, is also his manager, his co-adventurer, road trip buddy, and they've got their kids in on the action too!

Mario and Katie had been touring all over the country until March, when the pandemic abruptly canceled all performances. However, they’ve been able to continue their show in a different way. They’ve been broadcasting from their home, where they’ve designed a set in their very own attic!

The traditional image of a children's magician would probably include a tux, top hat, and a black cape with red lining. However, Mario has created his own aesthetic, which has a punk rock, steampunk, Vaudevillian feel. In a cover piece for MUM Magazine, writer Chloe Olewitz summed Mario up perfectly as, “magic’s punk rock Peter Pan philosopher.” 

Becoming Mario The Magician

Christine: “I want to go way back to over 15 years ago when you started out being a working magician. Was there a time when you hid the tattoos and put on the tux? Or were you always kind of like, “Here I am, I'm Mario?’” 

Mario: “Honestly, I hid my tattoos and wore the stereotypical outfit in the beginning. When something's new, you're gonna look at what everyone else is doing and you play it the safest possible to be accepted.”

As Mario worked as a magician, he hit a plateau where he realized he wanted to set himself apart. “My show naturally became better as I took apart this uniform and discovered where I'm most comfortable where I'm most happy,” says Mario. “I think that's with any business. The more you're brutally honest with who you are, with your strengths and weaknesses are, the more people can relate to you.”

Christine: “In terms of how it changed your act, how you stopped being in that little box of 'here's what people expect from a magician,' how did it start to change your act?” 

Mario says he had two obsessions: being a magician and building things. He mixed these two things together to make what his show looks like today.

“They say the audience creates the performer. I would hear some criticism like, ‘Oh, that was Mario, he's just doing this and he's just doing that like everyone else.’ That kind of stuff organically pushed me. And once the robot started mixing in, it was cool.” 

Mario goes on to introduce Marcel the Monkey. “He's definitely part of my theater show. He's completely 3D-printed autonomous. He's been in for six years now. He's still the same monkey, just reprogrammed for the new generation of kids.”

Listening To Your Audience

Mario said earlier that “the audience makes the performer.” He tried out new things. Some worked, and some didn’t. But once he found what worked, that was the direction he moved in and tried to see how far he could push it. He realized that he could really push it as far as he wanted - there was no limit!

For example, Mario's audience responded really well to the segment of his live stream where he interviews kids. “All of a sudden, we're getting big feedback. For some reason, me interviewing kids is working. So we shifted everything where a big chunk of that live stream with eCamm was our interviews with children. And so it's constantly changing.”

“What makes them laugh? What makes them interact? The goal of the show really is the goal of my life. It's just to stay curious, to be inspired that kids can know it's accessible, that they can see my props. It looks homemade for a reason, and the more I stay true to that, the more we keep the flow on my end.”

Personal Branding

Katie and Mario have come up with the branding and the feel of Mario’s act together. 

Christine: “Mario is a real person, obviously, and Katie too. There’s the Maker Magician who's the person on stage, and then there's the real person. How do you choose which elements to amplify as part of the brand and which elements to maybe not?”

Katie: “Everybody knows we're a family business. We definitely give glimpses into that, especially when we're traveling. But we're not going to show the downside. We're not going to show the kids tantruming. We're not going to disrespect their personal space. You have to be conscious of the fact that they are their own people, too.”

Mario and Katie love to show what they’re working on - whether it’s their recent Airstream purchase, their Little Blue Bus, or Mario’s building processes during the pandemic. These things definitely fit into the whole narrative of being a maker in every aspect. So, they pick things that make sense, and that fills in that persona for their viewers. 

Katie: “Mario is the same person on stage and off. But we elevate certain aspects that are going to be more interesting for people to see.”

For Mario and Katie’s personal branding strategy, they really try to highlight the aspects of their life that match up with their brand and show what they’re making.

In our live stream, we got to see Mario and Katie’s awesome homemade set. “We want to demonstrate that all this cardboard, paper masking tape, duct tape, is accessibly created. And it doesn't have to be perfect. Just have fun with it! This is based on just what my strengths are as a person and as a maker. I am not a polished person! But I make things. They are naturally a little off, you know? So we're trying to heighten the strength of what makes us good and what makes us stand out.”

Find Mario and Katie

Mariothemagician.com is their main hub where you can find all of their social links. They put on a fantastic show and when they are out touring again, everyone everywhere should get out and see them. You will not regret it!

Thank you so much to Mario and Katie Marchese for hanging out with us today as well as everyone who has joined us for our live show, Let’s Talk About Brand!

Rebekah Radice on Branding with Content

By Kim Hanna

This week on Let’s Talk About Brand, we talked to Rebekah Radice on branding with content. 

Rebekah is a former morning radio talk show host, but for the past twenty years, she's been training others on how to engage their audiences through digital marketing. She's the founder of Rebekah Radice Media and the co-founder of BRIL.LA, a digital marketing and consumer experience design firm that, as of this year, is working exclusively with cause-based organizations. She’s also the creator of the Authority Matrix and the performance method and author of the book Social Media Mastery: A Comprehensive Guide to Strategic Growth. 

Check out our live video here:

Branding with Content 

When branding with content, it’s really important to make sure you’re conveying something meaningful about your brand. Since content is everywhere, it’s making an impact in a variety of ways. That being said, it gives you the opportunity to get your brand in front of the exact people at the exact time and in the exact place. 

Here are some of Rebekah’s top recommendations on branding with content:

• Make your brand an extension of yourself. “We're tired of keeping up a facade that isn't congruent with that person behind the brand,” says Rebekah. “I would say the most important thing is that it speaks to who you are so that when people meet you in the offline world, that you're exactly who you represent online.” 

• Myth: You have to have everything perfect. Your brand doesn’t pop up overnight. “Get yourself out there. Just start talking to people. Start having conversations. That's the important aspect. And let all of those other things come.”

• Don't be afraid to make continuous improvements. Rebekah explains that just as people evolve, brands evolve as well. “It is a constant evolution of just really paying attention. Typically you’ll find that there are 2-3 types of content that stand out for you and resonate most with your audience.”

• Relationship marketing. Rebekah says that relationship marketing has been so important in the past six months, and brands that aren’t utilizing this are going to feel the sting. “It's more important that you focus on your audience and their needs...building that Know/Like/Trust factor to where they truly trust you as a confidant, as a friend.”

Advice to people starting out in social media

Rebekah says to just go for it! “The worst thing you could do right now is take a back seat.” We're in such interesting times, and people are looking for connections now more than ever. People are looking for a calm in this crazy storm that we're in. So now more than ever, people are connecting with each other through social media.

Don’t let the fear of not having everything perfectly ready keep you from getting started. People 

will want to hear from you as you’re getting started. So get out there and start connecting with people and starting those conversations. 

As you get started, pick a few channels and be consistent on how you’re showing up to them. Then, find people. “Pick people like Christine to start connecting with because she is a master networker!” says Rebekah. “Those are the people you need to be connected with. They will help raise you up and amplify your voice. They will get you out there in front of the exact right people too. Connection is everything. And the only way you can do it is just to get started!” 

Using different types of content to convey your brand

There are so many different content types out there on all the different platforms. As you’re starting on social media, you might want to learn about some of the ways to use content to convey a personal brand.

Here are some questions to consider to better understand your audience: Where is this content going? Who is your audience and what are their expectations? What type of content are they looking to consume? Are they interacting with visuals? Are they interacting with video content? Is it short form or long form content? Is it questions? Or is it more just conversational type of content? 

Figure out where your audience is spending most of their time and work off of that. “What you don't want to do is spread yourself out too thin at first. You just want to dip your toe in where your audience is spending their time and get a feel for what that content is.” 

Doing a little bit of research to understand will go a long way. Test out different strategies to see what works best for your brand.

Understanding your audience

Since understanding your audience is so important, we asked Rebekah for some more advice on that. Here are some things you can try:

• Use analytical tools - Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all have great analytical tools for you to obtain insights on your followers. 

• Look at your competition - Pick out four to five competitors that are talking about similar things to your brand. Get a feel for the type of content they are sharing and look at how the audience is interacting. You’re not looking to steal somebody else's brand, you're just simply doing a little bit of homework to get a feel for the content that is already working with a similar audience. 

• Research - What might have been working a few months ago may not be the case today. It's important to take a step back fairly often to look into what your audience wants.

Find Rebekah

Thank you so much to Rebekah Radice for her incredible knowledge about branding and being yourself. The best place to find her is at rebekahradice.com and anywhere on social @RebekahRadice.

Next week on Let’s Talk About Brand, we have, 'brand for yourself, not the space.'  We’ll be talking to an awesome friend, Mario the Maker Magician and his rock star wife, Katie Marchese. We hope you can join us live next Friday at noon!

Roberto Blake on Creating a Brand, Not Just a Channel

BY KIM HANNA

This week we’re talking about building a brand, not just a channel, with YouTube creator and educator Roberto Blake. 

In addition to his work on YouTube, Roberto is also a creative entrepreneur, public speaker, and business coach. He's all about educating and motivating creative people with new videos every week on his YouTube channel which has 475,000 subscribers.

His Awesome Creator Academy helps creative entrepreneurs leverage YouTube to grow their audience, increase revenue and develop their businesses and brands. 

Check out some of Roberto’s top recommendations on building a personal brand here:

Is it a good or bad idea to go hard on one particular channel as opposed to having a broader footprint? 

Roberto has achieved great success on YouTube, but he agrees that it’s important to have a broader footprint. 

It's all about having a purpose as to where you should be. For example, Roberto is mainly known as a YouTuber, but he has a very active and engaged Twitter presence as well.

Roberto’s philosophy is “why not?” He says, “If you're already spending three or four hours on your main thing, taking away or adding 15 minutes to your plate to do something else doesn't really impact that...there's not a downside.”

Many people believe that having multiple platforms dilutes your focus. Roberto suggests that there is no downside to posting a few Instagram stories, replying to people on Twitter or things like that. If anything, It can help increase your exposure as people find your brand on other platforms. 

Becoming known as a YouTube creator

Roberto did not start building his brand solely through YouTube. In fact, he started as a  blogger; in his YouTube videos, he would include his website in his video intros. Roberto made his channel partly to drive traffic to his site. 

He’s also active on Twitter and Facebook. This brings us back to Roberto’s earlier point that using multiple platforms does no harm. He says, “I actually probably for years was just as hard on live, streaming every single day on multiple live streaming platforms in the early days of mobile live streaming more than I was even when I was doing daily YouTube content.”

Roberto’s live streams and blogs were largely about his career as a graphic designer and digital artist. His early focus was helping other freelancers and creative professionals. He interviewed other up-and-coming digital artists who would later be featured in various magazines and publications.

As Roberto consistently posted on his blog and did livestreams, he realized that his own brand was growing at quite a rapid rate. From February of 2015 through December of 2015 Roberto grew from 20,000 to about 75,000 subscribers on YouTube!

Differences between a creator, an influencer and a personal brand

You might have seen this question in our #ChatAboutBrand Twitter chat on Tuesday. We thought we’d ask Roberto how he feels about these three distinctions. 

Roberto’s definition of a content creator is basically anyone that creates content. They could be an influencer, personal brand, or none of the above. 

“A content creator doesn't have to be a content creator in the sense of being a public facing or forward figure,” Roberto explained. “If you produce beats but your voice isn't on the track, you're a content creator. And if you're making money as a musician doing that, you're a content creator. If you're not the face, and you are the editor of something - you're remixing content, but you're not personally in the content - you're still a content creator.” 

You can also be an influencer without being a content creator. 

“You could be an influencer by virtue of being a politician. You could be an influencer by virtue of being a public figure and a public speaker and having a story. That doesn't make you a content creator.”

A personal brand is a forward-facing figure with a public reputation. Personal brands can also be content creators and/or influencers. 

Roberto says these three words are not interchangeable. “Some people can encapsulate multiple buckets. Some of them it's just one bucket, and you can't assume that you've got the others.”

What do you think? Are you a content creator, personal brand, or influencer?

Creating the Brand

When asked why he branded the way that he did, he said, “I built a brand with the understanding that I wanted to build a brand that I could live with. But some people are a caricature of themselves online.”

Roberto’s brand is very authentic. Being authentic is a great way for your followers to feel like they know you a little more. Plus, a part of being authentic is showing that you’re not perfect all the time. To be successful on social media, you do not have to be ‘perfect.’ 

“I think what people get wrong is they think that they have to be 100% all the time, but that's exhausting, and you're not your best all the time. And so giving people your best sometimes means, ‘OK, it's not going to be exactly how I feel in that moment. “

How to get inspiration

Roberto sheds some great insight into our next question: “What do you do when you're not in the mood to create content, but you have to? How do you find inspiration when you need to create content, and what tools you use that help you out with that?” 

Roberto’s saying is, “‘When motivation fails, your discipline won't.” You might not always have an idea for everything, but Roberto always plans everything out. When inspiration comes, he’ll move on that. But he moves more on planning and designing, meaning he’s already mapped out what's going to happen rather than waiting for that inspiration.

Roberto also creates the opportunity to be motivated and inspired. He does that by building the perfect office that will help generate inspiration. He has inspirational quotes everywhere, and posters about patience, ambition, failure, happiness, persistence, and success. Building his office this way makes it a very motivating place to do work!

Find Roberto

Check out Roberto’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/robertoblake. He’s also @RobertoBlake on most social media (he’s most active on Twitter and posts to Instagram stories pretty much daily). And, of course, you can work with Roberto via AwesomeCreatorAcademy.com.

Thank you so much to Roberto Blake for his incredible insight on building a brand, not just a channel! To watch our Let’s Talk About Brand show, join us live on Facebook every Friday at 12 pm. 

Julie Cottineau on Building Your Unique Brand

BY KIM HANNA

This week we’re talking about building your own unique brand with Julie Cottineau of BrandTwist, a brand consultancy that helps entrepreneurs and corporations build stronger and more profitable brands.

Julie is also the creator of Brand School by BrandTwist, an online master class that helps small business owners and entrepreneurs develop more focused and distinctive brands. 

Julie was previously the VP of brands at Virgin, and before that, she held executive positions at Interbrand and Grey Worldwide. She's also the author of the incredible book, Twist: How Fresh Perspectives Build Breakthrough Brands.

What is “brand” at its most basic level?

Before diving into the topic of branding, we asked Julie how she defines brand. She says, “a brand is a story...and that story should have who you want to talk to. You want to tell the story too. What conflict are you overcoming? And then, importantly, what's your twist? Great books, movies, every kind of story, podcast that we listen to, they always have something different, something unique, and a Twist.” 

...and that is why her book is titled Twist. A twist is your unique point of difference. How do you stand out? When thinking about your own brand, think about what makes it unique. 

Others may define brand as how people would describe you, or maybe your reputation. What does brand mean to you?

Personal brands vs corporate brands

Julie has worked extensively with both personal and corporate brands. And they actually have a lot in common! The biggest similarity is that at the end of the day, both personal and corporate brands have a story that they want to tell. 

The main difference, however, is how people approach them. While corporate brands always seem to have a plan with clear goals and accomplishments, personal brands are looked at based on personality. Julie explains that a personal brand is not just your personality, but a more curated version of your personality.  

“You probably don't put up the pictures where you look your absolute worst or where you're doing absolutely nothing for the weekend, right? You tend to put pictures on social media and comments that help people understand what you're about and present yourself in the light that you want to be presented in.” 

Julie emphasizes that whether it is a personal brand or a corporate brand, keep company values at the core of everything.

Social media & personal brands

Since personal brands are based on your personality, social media platforms have been life-changing for personal brands around the world. For those starting out, you can simply create an Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn account for free.

 “It's made us all professional branders with free tools at our fingertips,” says Julie.

This might sound easy at first, but the challenging part is to remain consistent because most people engage in more than one channel. Think about your own brand for a second. Does it have the same look and feel on LinkedIn as it does on Instagram? Do viewers get the same message? 

Brand consistency

What are some things that people should keep in mind when they're defining their personal brand in terms of making sure that they're able to show up consistently?

To maintain a consistent overall look and feel of your brand, Julie’s biggest tip is to “own a color!” The color that Julie uses is purple. But she makes it meaningful. “Purple is a twist of red and blue. My business and my approach to branding is about looking at different things from different places and twisting them together.” Julie stays consistent with her brand by incorporating purple into her book, website, and even clothing. 

What color do you think of when you look at Christine Gritmon, Inc? Hopefully, you think red!

Another way to stay consistent is with a consistent tone of voice. “We defined our tone of voice and we made sure that whether we were writing a piece of copy or we were hiring somebody to do it, they had tone of voice guidelines,” said Julie. Figure out your tone of voice and then set guidelines in place for yourself and other people that might be helping you such as a ghostwriter or social media person.

Finding your “Twist”

With Julie being the author of Twist, we had to ask her, “how do you find your twist? Here’s her answer:

• Start looking outside of your category to brands that you admire and you learn from them. 

• Pay attention to the storytelling of people that you admire and then twist those lessons into your own brand. 

• Try new things. Julie spends one day a week where she does something she’s never done before. She calls it Twisting Tuesdays. That might be taking her dog to a new park or watching a documentary and Netflix on a subject she knows little about. Making time in her calendar to experience something new helps her stay inspired. 

Work with Julie

Julie is the creator of Brand School, an online master class that is great for solopreneurs, nonprofits, or just anybody who feels like their brand is getting a little bit stale and wants to learn! It’s an eight-week program starting on October 8th, 2020, on Thursdays from 12:30 to 2:00 Eastern time.

Brand School will help you figure out who to target, your brand promise, and how to raise your prices when you get clear on your story. This semester, Brand School will focus on COVID and the specific challenges of how to market and how to be sensitive during these times. You’ll go through an interview process where you'll get a 30 minute Brand Booster session where you get immediate feedback on your brand. To get started, email julie@brandtwist or go to brandtwist.com and click on Brand Booster session. 

Thank you so much to Julie Cottineau of Brand Twist for her incredible insight on building your unique brand! To watch our Let’s Talk About Brand show, join us live on Facebook every Friday at 12 pm. 

Announcements Aren’t One-And-Done

If you’re announcing your reopening - or even just letting people know about your current limited offerings - you can’t do what I’m seeing so many people do:

Just one text-on-image post stating the facts.

Nope.

First of all, most people won’t see this announcement post. They have to go searching for it. That itself limits the reach of your message - but if you’ve continued posting other things in the interim (which, hopefully, you have), you may leave many people confused without the whole story, since very few will scroll back to see the initial post announcing what the heck you’re doing.

Here’s how to do it better:

• Focus on still making your posts interesting (as in non-COVID time), but perhaps with a twist. A drink held by a gloved hand. A shopping bag held by someone with a mask. A picture of your take-out setup. That special you’re serving, shot in natural light in a way that makes it look absolutely delicious - in a takeout container. A stack of packages for online item orders, ready for the post office.

• Reiterate at the end of every post what your ordering or buying situation is. Don’t make people search for your previous explanation. Do make sure it’s at the end, though - the beginning of your post should still speak to people, just like it always should. It should draw their attention to what’s appealing about what you’re showcasing, or call them out in a way they feel identified with, or ask a question to engage them - look at old posts that got a lot of traction, and do the same in Coronatime. But always end the message with very, very clear, concise information on how people can support you (and safely obtain this thing you’ve gotten them so excited for).

• Post a lot! Seriously. People are ROOTING for small businesses right now. Many large companies are slashing budgets, which often means fewer ads, and even fewer organic posts. So, get in those feeds! Rather than making your followers sick of you (and again - they aren’t seeing every post, I promise you!), it’ll warm their hearts to see you surviving and thriving.

• Don’t forget to let people know who you are and where to find you! I can’t even count how many random “specials” menus I’ve seen posted on Facebook that don’t in any way indicate what restaurant they’re for, posted by the owner’s personal account instead of by the business. Don’t make people dig for information. Make it really clear who you are, where you are, and how they can support you right now - as well as how you’re there to support them!

Content Can Be FUN!

Instead of a compilation of strategic tips or 2020 social media predictions, I decided to do an end-of-2019 roundup post on FUN.

A lot of people wouldn’t put “content creation” and “fun” in the same sentence. Content can feel like a chore, one more business task that takes you away from the things you really want to be doing.

But sometimes? It IS fun. And I’ve gathered nearly two dozen of my smart social media friends to talk about what they most enjoyed creating in 2019 and why. Hopefully, there’s a piece of inspiration in here for each of us!

Full roundup video below; individual responses (with links to the actual FUN content in question!) after the jump.

---

Deonnah Carolus

Summit Web Marketing

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

My 'How to get Approved for Instagram Shopping after you have been Denied' Checklist!! I created a mini course series that goes in depth with it too!
https://www.summitwebmarketing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Copy-of-Add-a-subheading.pdf

What made it so much fun to create?

That I can help virtually EVERYONE this happens to with this method I uncovered!!

https://www.facebook.com/deonahcarolus/
https://www.instagram.com/deonnahcarolus/
https://twitter.com/DeonnahCarolus
https://www.facebook.com/summitwebmarketing/
https://www.instagram.com/summit_webmarketing/
https://twitter.com/summitwebmktg

---

Angus Nelson

angusnelson.com

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

Manhood Matrix graphic:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HPcYDYsVhMNBpRtMR1sjLiCBiwpo_WM-/view?usp=sharing

What made it so much fun to create?

It challenged me to truly think through my philosophy.

https://www.facebook.com/angusnelson.fanpage/
https://www.instagram.com/angusnelson/
https://twitter.com/angusnelson

---

Gael Gilliland

The Legacy Recorder

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

What to do when death happens:
https://www.thelegacyrecorder.com/death-dying/grief/what-to-do-when-death-happens

What made it so much fun to create?

It was a tough and unexpectedly joyous conversation that many people have found value in.

https://linktr.ee/thelegacyrecorder

---

Emily Crume

Social Media Examiner

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

A Doodly animated video entitled "5 Reasons to Sponsor an Event."
https://youtu.be/unq8VlQhV9Y

What made it so much fun to create?

I came up with the idea, scripted the story and then recorded the audio and set the animations, music and timing. It required taking the time to learn an explainer video program - but I was able to produce the content all myself!

I have used it on my Compass toolkit page - a page where we host resources that help guide my clients to event success. It was also posted to LinkedIn and had 10x more views in my feed than regular content I repost and share.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilycrume/
https://twitter.com/EmilyQuestions
https://www.socialmediamarketing.world

---

Yvonne Heimann

Ask Yvi

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

The Summit Hero:
https://academy.askyvi.com/courses/summithero

What made it so much fun to create?

Collaborating with Mary Fain Brandt is so fun. She is just as enthusiastic and energetic as I am <3

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQvOnl6ReknBr44YLDKxsFQ
https://www.instagram.com/askyvi/
https://www.facebook.com/AskYvi/
https://twitter.com/AskYvi

---

Jennifer Watson

Agora pulse

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

Our weekly live show, Social Pulse Weekly, where we have an expert guest, talk about the latest social media news and have fun trivia. I linked to our finale show below that had 10+ guests and was a great way to wrap up the biggest trends of 2019 and what predictions will be for 2020.
http://facebook.com/Agorapulse/videos/517136252207741

What made it so much fun to create?

This was so much fun to create because we had brilliant guests sharing their knowledge with everyone. Along with that relationships were formed and strengthened from the great conversations between viewers and our guests. We had people join in from around the world, that made the experience priceless. This experience has made me appreciate the power of live video even more than I already did!

Our finale video had 118 live views and has reached, but the best part was the conversations and relationship building that was happening with our viewers and the show guests. So much love and support for everyone, it was truly amazing to see.

https://twitter.com/JWatson_Wx
https://www.instagram.com/jenniferweather/

---

Phil Mershon

Social Media Examiner

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

My LinkedIn article about showing up powerfully:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/showing-up-powerfully-10-tips-event-organizers-speakers-phil-mershon/

What made it so much fun to create?

Involving so many friends and then seeing how the community is responding to the idea of showing up powerfully.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philmershon/

---

Risa Hoag

GMG Public Relations

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

The interview with the 3 businesses for the Nanuet Chamber of Commerce, Coupe Theatre Studio, Gregory Chiropractic and Luxury Kitchen and Bath. The Nanuet Chamber News Show.
https://www.facebook.com/NanuetChamberOfCommerce/videos/445635276166710/

What made it so much fun to create?

Great fun to interview local business people and share their stories with the Rockland community. Also fun to visit their businesses and see them in action.

https://twitter.com/gmgpr
https://www.facebook.com/GMGPublicRelations/
https://www.instagram.com/gmgpr/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/risahoag/

---

Kendra Ramirez

Reset Co

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

We did a video series on mindset. My favorite piece in the series is on money mindset.
https://thereset.co/karlee-schultz/

What made it so much fun to create?

It was filmed in a studio that we designed. We did the whole series with no teleprompter or show notes. We are addressing topics around limiting beliefs.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendraramirez/

---

Katie Hornor

SuccessfulOnlineCourses.com

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

Digital Courses: 25 Predictions for 2020
https://bloggingsuccessfully.com/digital-courses-25-predictions-for-2020/

What made it so much fun to create?

Collaborating with other experts to serve our people collectively is a wonderful experience.

https://instagram.com/katiehornor

---

Mike Gingerich

Digital Hill and Mike Gingerich Global

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

Group collaboration with Now Marketing Group on the Harsh Truths of Online Marketing
https://blog.nowmarketinggroup.com/harsh-truths-of-online-marketing-marketers-tell-all

What made it so much fun to create?

Jessika had a group chat going and it was great to connect with the group and see all their inputs and thoughts!

https://www.twitter.com/Mike_Gingerich
https://www.instagram.com/mikegingerich
https://www.facebook.com/mikegdigital

---

Chris Strub

The Giving Day Guy

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

A Facebook Live broadcast that I created on #GiveSTLDay with the St. Louis Community Foundation at Healthworks! Kids Museum:
https://www.facebook.com/stlouisgives/videos/321670001842589/

What made it so much fun to create?

I had no idea what to expect, and neither did the audience. Plus Sean Frederick is a super charismatic and fun kid to work with.

www.twitter.com/chrisstrub

---

Eddie Garrison

Digital Media Creator Academy

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

I did a Social Media Day Virtual Summit that had over 1,000 viewers. It featured nine fantastic speakers and went for nearly five hours.

What made it so much fun to create?

Doing a Social Media Day event ON Social Media. Hearing everyone speak on what their passion is was the best for me.

We ended up with nearly 10,000 overall views of the Virtual Summit.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/thedmca/

---

Ross Brand

Livestream Universe

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

Facebook Live interview with Eddie Garrison from Podcast Movement:
https://www.facebook.com/ross.brand.509/videos/1328004804040836/

What made it so much fun to create?

iPhone fell in the middle of the interview. It give us a lot to laugh about during and after the broadcast.

https://www.twitter.com/iRossBrand
https://www.instagram.com/RossBrand1
https://www.linkedIn.com/in/RossBrand
https://www.facebook.com/LivestreamUniverse
https://www.YouTube.com/LivestreamUniverse

---

Dan Willis

Millennial Motivator

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

I really had a blast creating the first couple episodes of the Successful Failures podcast:
https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9hYzU5Njk0L3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz&episode=OGMyMzc2NzctMDk4My0wODU1LWEyODgtOWI3OTQ1ZmM0NmYy&hl=en-CA&ved=2ahUKEwiXmb2u5q_mAhXRKM0KHYcqAlYQjrkEegQIOBAE&ep=6&at=1576143043022

What made it so much fun to create?

Getting to know the deeper stories behind entrepreneurs is a passion near and dear to my heart! Forgetting the glimmer and celebrity and getting back to real people facing real challenges.

If it helped even one listener to face entrepreneurship with an awareness of the hardships you must overcome in order to succeed it performed beyond expectations!

https://www.twitter.com/MLLNNLMotivator

---

Jeff Sieh

Manly Pinterest Tips

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

Guy Kawasaki's Remarkable People Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guy-kawasakis-remarkable-people/id1483081827

What made it so much fun to create?

I get to listen in on really cool people like Jane Goodall, Steven Wolfram and Martha Stewart.

https://www.instagram.com/jeffsieh
https://www.twitter.com/jeffsieh
https://www.pinterest.com/jeffsieh/
https://www.facebook.com/ManlyPinterestTips/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffsieh/

---

Denise Alison

Denise Alison Social Media Strategist

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

My #10tips10days series on LinkedIn.
https://denisealison.com/blog/10-tips-10-days-part-1

What made it so much fun to create?

I loved the energy it gave me to challenge myself to create short and 10 valuable pieces of content, 10 days in a row!

The series got over 30k views.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisealison/
https://www.instagram.com/socialdenise
https://www.facebook.com/socialdenise

---

Phil Gerbyshak

Vector Solutions

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

Happy Birthday to Me: Here are 46 things I learned from 46 trips around the sun:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/happy-birthday-me-here-46-things-i-learned-from-trips-phil-gerbyshak/

What made it so much fun to create?

I created it in one sitting in an airplane, and everything I created brought a smile to my face as I thought about when I learned the lesson, how it's impacted me, and even how I continue to use the insight.

https://linkedin.com/in/philgerb
https://twitter.com/philgerb
https://www.linkedin.com/company/vectorsolutions/

---

Marisa Cali

All The Social

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

The espnW women + sports summit recap. There was tons of social content on Twitter and IG but this summarizes it:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/espnwsummit-reminder-your-why-marisa-cali-1c/

What made it so much fun to create?

The ability to connect with so many of the ideas being said at the summit.

It opened the door for additional opportunities within the sports/womeninsports world; built relationships with key players and furthered the impact I can have in the industry.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/calimarisa/
http://instagram.com/allthesocial
http://twitter.com/allthesocial
http://linkedin.com/company/allthesocial
http://facebook.com/allthesocial
http://instagram.com/hashtagmarisa
http://twitter.com/hashtagmarisa

---

Caitlin Jenkins & Amy Tischler

Simply Social Media

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

Our most fun piece of content we created in 2019 was not one piece, but rather a place.

Our work is creating community and nothing bonds a group like throwing sharp objects at a target! We mean hatchet throwing, of course, and it inspired many variations of triumphant images, videos, and boomerangs created by our influencers.
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/seasonalsunrise/

What made it so much fun to create?

We discovered the secret ingredient for creating fun content is endorphins! Have fun if you want to create fun content!

https://www.facebook.com/simplysocialnm/
https://www.instagram.com/simplysocialnm/
https://twitter.com/simplysocialnm

---

George Damanis

Up Tempo Social

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

My Perfect Burger blog:
https://www.georgedamanis.com/georgeeatseverywhere/articles/my-perfect-burger

What made it so much fun to create?

Making the burger, eating the burger, and seeing everyone's reaction to it. The biggest compliment I received was a friend telling me the blog made them want to eat a burger for dinner. One friend even went shopping to cook it the night it was published to my website.

https://www.facebook.com/gdamanis/
https://www.instagram.com/gdamanis/
https://twitter.com/GDamanis

---

Laura Pearman

Laura Pearman Photography

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

My episode on fish and pricing:
https://youtu.be/u9UqGYZ1eJU

What made it so much fun to create?

It marked me Really getting into a fun groove with my channel.

It’s been one of my best this year. All the equivalent ones on this topic are DULL so I’m hoping it will do well over time too.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBlsIjXu9xxONCQVZSkQb6A
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEQbA44tDR37E3zmJQ-Dkzg
https://www.facebook.com/lpearmanphotos/
https://www.instagram.com/lpearmanphotos/
https://twitter.com/LPearmanPhotos

---

Madalyn Sklar

#TwitterSmarter

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

Custom GIFs!
https://twitter.com/MadalynSklar/status/1205185759168348161

What made it so much fun to create?

Custom GIFs allow you to show a lot of personality. They're great on Twitter and Facebook.

It generated high engagement with lots of conversations. It's a great way to let your community see the real you.

https://twitter.com/MadalynSklar
https://www.facebook.com/madalynsklar
https://www.linkedin.com/in/madalynsklar
https://www.instagram.com/madalynsklar
https://giphy.com/channel/madalynsklar

---

Amanda Webb

Spiderworking

Most fun piece of 2019 content:

I created a video trailer for an article I had written for Social Media Examiner. It included having a bath in gravy and pretending to do a striptease in my front garden.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B19D_6KCGcS/?igshid=15bvqanpbn59z

What made it so much fun to create?

It was full on creative. I had fun with the ideas, not so much the gravy bath.

My goal was to drive traffic to the article which I did. I also good good engagement across social media platforms. However, previous trailer videos got more link clicks. I think that's because they teased the content more. This video was a complete content piece that didn't require a link click to complete it.

https://www.facebook.com/spiderworking/
https://www.instagram.com/spiderworking/
https://twitter.com/Spiderworking

---

Since you’ve made it this far, I might as well let you know that you can meet almost ALL of these incredible human beings LIVE and IN-PERSON in San Diego this coming March at Social Media Marketing World 2020!
(Yes, that’s an affiliate link - if you buy through it, I’ll buy you a drink in San Diego - swearsies!)

Curious if #SMMW20 is for you? Let’s hop on a phone call or Zoom hangout (yes, really!) and I’ll tell you why it’s BEYOND worth it.

#MidweekMinute 12/4/19: now with extra jazz hands!

Where were you for The Great Thanksgiving Facebook & Instagram Blackout of 2019?…

Facebook is going to start allowing users to transfer their photos more easily to third party partners, starting with Google Photos. The feature is being rolled out to Ireland first, with the rest of the world expected to follow in early 2020.

Facebook’s cracking down even further on preventing discrimination via ad targeting, expanding the rules to include every possible place one could purchase ads on the platform (not just within Ads Manager) and expanding the public ad library to make housing ad targeting more visible.

Instagram’s testing making your phone vibrate when you like a post. This was uncovered by reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong, who also discovered that Twitter is working on nested replies (like Reddit).

Wondering what to Tweet? The new 2020 @TwitterBusiness Calendar highlights upcoming events and how to Tweet about them.

Twitter has released Twitter Brand Surveys as a way to measure ad recall.

Twitter has also introduced the Twitter Privacy Center, a hub for all privacy-related information, features, and releases.

Don’t freak out if your YouTube subscriber count is down: YouTube is removing closed accounts.

#MidweekMinute 11/27/19: Keep your friends CLOSE

When Borat’s got more common sense and decency than your CEO, it may be time to look deeper…

Last week, the new social network on the block was the journalism-based WT.Social; this week, it’s Cocoon, a family-based networking app from former Facebook employees. (No networks OR ads, just you and your chosen family.)

On a related note, Facebook’s working on a Close Friends feature for Stories and Messenger, similar to the one Instagram has, continuing the overall trend towards “microsharing,” now that our networks have all gotten so swollen with acquaintances and strangers.

The new Facebook Viewpoints app will pay you for participating in surveys or performing tasks. They’re starting with a “well being” survey.

Facebook has quietly released a new meme-making app called Whale, which is exclusive to Canada at the moment. There was no fanfare or announcement, an uncharacteristic move for the social media giant.

In case you’ve ever been curious how Instagram’s “Explore” feed gets populated, they’ve given us a peek behind the curtain with a new blog post explaining the AI behind it.

Feature-uncoverer Jane Manchun Wong has discovered that Instagram is testing out a new IGTV feed with vertical scroll - ironic, as TikTok, which is laid out that way, was previously testing a grid feed, a la Instagram’s Explore tab.

Twitter’s Hide Replies feature is out of beta and available to all.

Twitter is also FINALLY bringing native scheduling to the platform! It’s in beta, and only some people have it. It’s web-only for now, though, which is frustrating, since we already have TweetDeck… but it’s a step in the right direction.

#MidweekMinute 11/20/19: WT.Fork?

I don’t pause in my speech when someone scrapes a mug across a desk, just sayin’…

WT.Social is the newest social network from Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. This isn’t a replacement for Facebook, though; the site is based around sharing and discussing legitimate news. I can’t use it yet, though, since there’s a long waiting list unless I pay them… which I suppose ties into their “ad free” vow.

No, it’s not just you; everyone’s having issues with Facebook Ads Manager. No official word on why, but general consensus seems to be that it’s the result of updates going on behind the scenes.

Facebook’s also testing a new, Instagram-esque “Popular Photos” feature which will suggest other photos to you after you’ve clicked one in the feed.

Facebook’s adding a Donation sticker for Stories, much like the one Instagram added earlier this year. They’re also enabling fundraising within gaming streams.

Just in time for Giving Tuesday (December 3, if you didn’t already know), Instagram is now allowing non-profits to add a “Donate” button to their profiles.

…aaand just in time for the holidays, Instagram has also launched their own shopping collections, curated around the hashtags #partylewk, #makeupqueens, #altenergy, #newparents, #curated, and #wanderlust.

The full details of Twitter’s much-lauded “political ads ban” are here. “Issue ads” apparently aren’t going to be as limited as I had feared they would be; “social causes” will indeed be allowed. News organizations will also be allowed to promote political coverage.

If you’re on YouTube, you may have noticed their new protections regarding content for kids, which affects all accounts, not just those designated creators for the YouTube Kids app. This is less about content and more about data protection.

Yup, I’m covering TikTok news again - they’ve just allowed select users to add links in their bios, including to commerce sites in some cases, opening up the door for TikTok selling.

#MidweekMinute 11/13/19: Show me the FB Money

BRB, exploring a whole new world…

Facebook Pay has started rolling out to U.S. Facebook and Messenger accounts, and will eventually be able to facilitate payments across the full Facebook family of platforms (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp). It’s currently only available for fundraisers, person-to-person payments, event tickets, in-game purchases, and select Facebook Marketplace purchases. Payments will be processed in cooperation with Stripe, PayPal, and other payment processing services, and will accept most credit and debit cards. (Facebook notes that Facebook Pay is totally separate from its planned Calibra digital wallet, which is tied to its Libra cryptocurrency project.)

Facebook’s mobile app now allows greater control over your Shortcuts. You can now control both which features offer visible Shortcuts at the bottom of your app, and which ones will show you notifications (those annoying little red dots). Shortcuts that can be shown or hidden include Marketplace, Watch, Groups, Events, Profile, Friend Requests, News, Today In, Gaming and Dating, among others.

Instagram is officially expanding their test of hiding Like counts on posts to the United States. As usual, we haven’t been paying attention to Canada, so people are really surprised by this news, even though it’s been in testing in Canada and elsewhere since April.

Instagram has also introduced the new Instagram Reels feature in Brazil, which takes direct aim at TikTok by letting users create 15-second videos set to music. Reels will be shareable within Stories and separately discoverable on the Explore tab, with a “Top Reels” sub-tab to encourage virality.

Twitter’s preparing to launch the new Topics feature, which will let you follow conversations around particular topics the same way you’d follow an account (or, more relevantly, the way you can now follow hashtags on Instagram). They claim suggested posts will be “relevant” and “valuable"; if the Trending posts are any indication, I am skeptical, but am still looking forward to the feature.

Twitter is also addressing the continued presence of “deepfake” accounts - or, rather, “synthetic and manipulated media” - on the platform, and are seeking public feedback on how to moderate such content. They seem to be seeking less of a removal policy, and more of a reporting and labeling structure.

YouTube’s revised terms of service have some users worried their accounts will be deleted if they are dubbed “not commercially viable.”

#MidweekMinute 11/6/19: New font, who dis?

Sorry, emoji fans: 🍆🍑& 💦 can no longer be used together. (No word on 🍌& 🍩)

Moving on…

For the first time, Facebook has released visual branding for the corporate entity (encompassing Facebook, Oculus, Instagram, and WhatsApp) that is distinct from that of the Facebook platform. (Reactions have been, err… mixed.)

Did you know Facebook Messenger has a feature called “Secret Conversation”? Well, it does, and it looks like they’re testing bringing fully encrypted voice and video chat options to the feature.

By now you’ve surely heard about Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s multi-tweet pronouncement that Twitter is banning political ads - including issue ads. They’ll be sharing more firmed-up details on November 15, and the policy goes into effect on November 22. (Zuckerberg, for his part, has maintained his stance that Facebook remains committed to “free expression.”)

Instagram has published a great creative guide for Stories, which I highly recommend you check out.

This is the first time I’ve ever covered TikTok… but the new “Share to TikTok” feature - a partnership with a handful of prominent third-party apps, including Adobe Premiere Rush, and the very first feature in their new TikTok for Developers platform - is worth a look, as the new creative to follow will surely lead short-form video trends on all social media platforms.

LinkedIn wants you to trust them - so they’ve laid out their four guiding principles in a blog post
(the TL;DR: giving users clarity, consistency, and control over data; keeping LinkedIn a safe, trusted, and professional platform; no unfair biases; respect for laws).

Connecting globally? LinkedIn has also broadened its translation options.

Not to be outshone by Jennifer Aniston, looks like somebody else is ‘Grammin’ (G-R-A-M-M-I-N)…

#MidweekMinute 10/30/19: Healthier Social?

Happy Almost-Halloween!

After a number of tests and false starts over the years, Facebook has formally introduced its News Tab, which was developed in cooperation with journalists and publications and is curated - not algorithmic - to ensure “real news” integrity.

Facebook employees have spoken out en masse against Mark Zuckerberg’s hands-off approach to political advertising on the platform, arguing that “free speech and paid speech are not the same thing” and urging that the same fact-checking measures used elsewhere on Facebook be applied to political ads.

Speaking of Facebook Advertising, they’re opening up Search placement for advertisements, and have added a new responsive feature called Multiple Text Optimization, which allows the system to serve up the ideal combination of a variety of headlines, ad copy and descriptions for each instance based on anticipated results.

Medical marketers: good news! You can now use Facebook to prompt people to take preventative health measures, such as making appointments for checkups and tests.

Facebook introduces Work Groups, which will only show work-related info and allow group members to receive messages from each other without being friends.

SparkAR, which creates filters for Facebook and Instagram, has announced it is pulling filters that may attempt to replicate the look of plastic surgery procedures.

Instagram has taken more drastic steps to eliminate content that glorifies suicide and self-harm, part of the platform’s ongoing initiatives to improve mental health outcomes among users - especially young users.

First, Instagram got rid of the “Following” tab - now, you can’t even sneak a peek at public accounts after a certain number of views without logging in.

IGTV is strengthening its commitment to longer-form serial programming by letting creators notify opted-in users when a new episode of a series is up.

Facebook’s not the only platform prioritizing news delivery: LinkedIn has also revamped its news features, with a focus on its Daily Rundown.

LinkedIn has also published a report warning against digital marketers who measure and judge ROI (Return On Investment) too hastily.

#MidweekMinute 10/23/19: Disruption. Acceleration. Buzzwordbuzzword.

Unlike CERTAIN people, I don’t have a fake Twitter account. (My Finsta, though, is lit!)

Facebook has created a resource hub called “Build To Break” for “disruptors who operate on the cutting edge,” filled with industry studies, a playbook, case studies, and… honestly, it was difficult to break through all the jargon on the landing page to even figure out what this hub is supposed to be, but it will accelerate your growth, apparently.

Facebook is getting rid of the grey “verification” check for business pages this week, after declaring it meaningless in the face of other improved page transparency measures. (Whatever, as long as I don’t lose the fancy blue checkmark on my personal profile…)

Facebook has rolled out new templates for Story ads, making it easier for advertisers to create content for that placement - and they’re also testing out a brand new placement, ads in the Groups tab.

Facebook is testing a dark mode for desktop - it appears to still be in beta, so not everyone has it, but it appears to be fairly worldwide. (Do you have it? Let me know!)

Instagram is now giving you greater control over the information you share with third-party apps. It’s a gradual rollout, though, and could take up to six months to reach all users.

Instagram might be testing a way to help you group accounts you follow, which, if rolled out, would give me personally approximately 300 hours of my life back per year.

Just when I had decided to stop caring about Snapchat, Reddit (which I also don’t normally cover) has announced an integration that would allow for more seamless sharing of Reddit posts on Snapchat.

LinkedIn’s Events feature has now rolled out to everyone - though, as someone who’s been in the beta, I will warn you that they aren’t nearly as “findable” as would be preferred. (Come to #LinkedInLocal Westchester, btw!)

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