TVPG Radio — Emerging Technology, Dynamic Strategies, Proven Techniques, and Winning Mindsets

Just in case you forgot to mark your calendars, it’s that time of the week again. Time for the Get More Business Show! This week’s show is going to be all about social media. Yes, the social media topic gets beat into the ground a lot, but with this show we want to take the road less traveled and give our audience some specific guidelines that we use to shape our own social media activities.

A common mistake that we make is to approach social media as a broadcast platform and overlook the two way communication vehicle that exists to help us build relationships with our peers. We’ll be sharing our ideas on how to build reciprocity with social media, and how we use it to engage our client base and grow that client base through our social media connections.

Many people get overwhelmed and give up before they’ve had a chance to reap the benefits of the work that they have put into social media. Once your accounts are set up, and it dawns on you that the content that you create and share is the fuel that drives social media, it can feel overwhelming. Some have a hard time imagining how they can think of new and engaging things to say and share on a regular basis. The truth is that anyone can do it. We’ll share tips on how you can create content that captivates people’s attention and do it around your busy schedule.

We’re going to discuss Diversification VS. Specialization. I promise. Are you looking to a nitch market to help you get through these tough economic times, or are you looking to increase your footprint by offering new products or services? We’ll share our thoughts on these two approaches.

I have to admit that I was shocked by Josh Chandler’s blog post this week. He and I haven’t talked yet to discuss our differences of opinion about the Measured Impact initiative that I introduced during last week’s show. We’ve agreed to air it out this week live on the radio. I’m going to expect Josh to clarify a few things, and who knows…maybe he wants me to do the same. Will we come to a consensus? Will we end the show as friends? Tune in to find out!

The show airs live Wednesday March 10 at 11:30 am Eastern.

You can go to the show page by clicking the large microphone in the header or using the links embedded above. If you want to register with BlogTalkRadio, you can subscribe to the show and receive automated reminders so you don’t miss it’s live presentation. If you’re too busy to catch the live show, you can always listen to the recorded podcast on the show page, or even here on this blog post by clicking on the player at the top of the sidebar.

Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist

Help Spread The Word!

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On last Wednesday’s live broadcast of “Get More Business” Jason Sanders discussed his charitable initiative “Measured Impact”.

The idea in principle would be to help promote charities to those on Twitter with high follower numbers (in the Twitter Top 100) and in turn get a direct conversion to help the selected charity.

Now, this idea did spark a reaction from me (and it wasn’t a good one!)

Firstly, the concept of targeting the Twitter Top 100 isn’t going to work. Each of these “Twitter celebrities” hasn’t got a shared interest in gaining social equity, their only concern (the majority of the time) is to get more famous.

Another thing to consider about these famous Twitter users is that the majority of their following consists of spam-bots. I’d say about 75% of any given user on Twitter is followed by spammers, so where is the true benefit in targeting a user with 1m+ followers when a large number won’t even see the update!

It’s not to discount those like Brandon Mendelson who are using their fame on Twitter for the right reasons. But, honestly how many of the Twitter 100 do you believe cares about making a difference on the platform?

Do they even know it can do such a thing? Perhaps, through Jason’s efforts it could promote a greater level of change in how celebrities perceive Twitter’s ability to deliver amazing results?

I’d like to be in support of Measured Impact, but in it’s current form I don’t really see it taking off.

Here’s some ways I think Jason can promote the charities on Measured Impact more effectively

1) Talk to Top 100 charity bloggers

The key difference between using Twitter Top 100 and charity bloggers is that it’s more niche and selective.

I think that blogs provide a far more dynamic way to build a long term relationship between the charity and the potential donator. Here’s why:

Built in comments - This enables a charity to launch an initiative and get instantaneous reaction and feedback from others about their work
Sharing tools to other social networks (besides Twitter) - By using blogs they are not limiting their message to a place their audience may not be. Twitter doesn’t always equal success if your audience doesn’t care or use the social network!
Multimedia functionality - A charity can boost their online persona on a blog more effectively as they can include powerful imagery and attached videos to push their message forward. You can’t do that via Twitter (on the same page!)
Active links back to the charities homepage - If the charity has promoted it’s initiative with the above tools, and then includes an active link it speaks far louder then a 140 character message can (even if it’s sent by Ryan Seacrest!)

2) Go local, but think big

Isn’t there surely a great opportunity for Jason to utilise his existing network on “The Value Pages Group” to promote his work at Measured Impact.

I’d like to see how he could work towards creating an offline network of like-minded peers who could help work and promote Measured Impact and a selected charity to people they know. Never doubt the power of real, honest offline communication between peers!

3) Provide online interactive tools for charities

If Jason could expand his offerings at “The Value Pages Group” to create a fee-based video and audio solution for charities (to promote via Measured Impact), aren’t more people going to be more in tune with the message because there’s a physical and personable representative from the charity talking about their initiative?

I’d like to see more charities consider why they aren’t using a blog, considering how minimal the setup is and how easy websites such as the “The Value Pages Group” can make things for them.

I think, I’ve rambled on enough here. I’d love to hear all your thoughts on the matter.

Thanks!