Marc's Blog

We Are All Witnesses And Talkers

September 19, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Word Of Mouth

One of the things I do when I go to Cape May is run up and down the boardwalk. The beauty of this boardwalk is that on one side is the beach, and on the other side are fancy looking hotels and big houses. Basically, there are plenty of things to look at throughout the journey.

While running, I happened to overhear a conversation two teenage girls were having about SnapChat. SnapChat is a growing social network that allows people to create content that self destructs within a certain amount of time. While no content can survive for over 24 hours on SnapChat, there are many snaps that self-destruct in under five seconds. There are many graphs and charts that show SnapChat has grown remarkably, and most of it is because of word of mouth.

To think two teenage girls were talking about SnapChat as if they had been talking about it for a while indicates that those are not the only two teens out there who talk about SnapChat often. SnapChat is the type of social network where you and the other person must both have SnapChat accounts in order to share and see the other person’s snaps. It’s not like Twitter or any other social network where you can see someone’s content whether you are logged in or not.

Just like the FAX machine, your friends must have SnapChat accounts in order for it to be of any value. This set up gave SnapChat the framework it needed to spread through word of mouth.

Since I was on vacation, I was out for practically the entire day. After a nice shower, my family and I walked through the town, and I happened to overhear another conversation. This conversation was more based on a few people telling a friend how certain social networks work. Sure enough, SnapChat consumed most of the conversation.

In both of these scenarios, I was a witness to the word of mouth that resulted in SnapChat becoming contagious and sticky. You may have been a witness to the word of mouth that spread SnapChat, but you were definitely the witness to word of mouth for something else.

In addition, I am sure that you tell your friends about businesses, ideas, brands, blogs, and other things as well. That is also an example of word of mouth marketing in which you are the talker. We are all talkers just as much as we are witnesses. If you want to know some good places to visit in Cape May, I would be quick to give you a whole bunch of places you could visit such as The Washington Inn, which is the best restaurant I have ever been to. When I go to The Washington Inn, I eat very little throughout the day just so I could have two entries. That’s how good they are.

Just like that, I decided to talk about The Washington Inn. That’s word of mouth, and the restaurant deserves it. As I talk about how I have been eating at The Washington Inn for many years, I am being the talker, and you are being the witness.

This is how ideas spread. There are enough talkers who reach out to enough witnesses. Enough talkers can mean 100 Joe Schmo’s or 10 highly influential people. There is no exact number, and you won’t know how close your idea is to being big until it spreads far enough to the point where it becomes one of the big things. The early adopters of SnapChat needed their friends to create accounts in order for SnapChat to be useful. Then, it kept on spreading from there.

The Mighty Four C’s Of Digital Marketing

September 18, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Digital marketing is something that few people understand, but it is also something critical towards success. When people think of digital marketing, they think of all of the different P’s that apply to other aspects of business. However, digital marketing is a different kind of marketing that has 4 C’s instead of P’s. Here are the 4 C’s of digital marketing:

Creating: You need to constantly be creating products. If you create a book, create another one. Then create another product. Keep on creating so you have more products to market.
Curating: In addition to creating new products and content, you need to organize those products and content. Curating your content and products will make it easier for your visitors and customers to find what they are looking for. Some people who visit a social media blog like this one couldn’t care less about growing an audience on Facebook, but they do care about growing an audience on Pinterest. Curating allows people to find the specific information that they are looking for faster.
Connecting: You need to have strong connections in order to move forward. Nardo’s Natural’s success as a brand was made possible by Barbara Corcoran who invested in the brand in an episode on Shark Tank. Successful entrepreneurs like Barbara have numerous connections, and she got the brothers who founded Nardo’s Natural on Good Morning America through one of her connections. Without connecting with Barbara, Nardo’s Natural probably would have not made it to Good Morning America let alone become a successful brand.
Culture: The people who visit your blog, follow you on your social networks, and buy your products need to feel a sense of unity with each other. You need to either directly or indirectly create a culture revolving around your product, blog, or service. This culture will allow people who know you to unify together so they can promote you, talk about your products, and buy your future products.

Those are the 4 C’s of digital marketing. What are your thoughts on the list and which of the 4 C’s resonates with you the most? Please share your thoughts below.

10 Simple Ways To Get More Vine Followers

September 17, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Vine Logo

Vine is a social network on the rise that caters to our seven second attention spans. That means someone who watches your Vine will be able to pay attention to it from start to finish. However, the only way more people will pay attention to your Vines is if you are able to grow your audience. Here are 10 ways to grow your audience by getting more followers on Vine.

Make your avatar look professional. People always judge others on their first impression, and we all judge a book by its cover. You need to have a professional avatar of yourself. It is important to note that on Vine, professional does not always mean a buttoned down shirt and tie. In this case, professional means a non-blurry picture of yourself. Be sure to smile in the picture so people can see based on your avatar that you are a jovial person.
Have a good bio. When people go over to learn about who you are, your bio needs to be something that allows people to know who you are while being enticing at the same time. In this bio, it is important to make it crystal clear about what you create Vines about.
Post one Vine every day. The more active you are on Vine, the more people will be enticed to follow you and the farther your Vines can potentially spread. Being active is very important towards your success on Vine.
Post the types of Vines that people would want to watch. Just because something is only six seconds long does not necessarily mean it is something we want to watch. If your Vine looks unengaging and not interesting, people will skip over the Vine without following you.
Follow other users. There are many people who will follow you back if you follow them. Vine has come out with new features in the activity tab that make it easier for someone to see who recently followed them.
Like and revine other people’s Vines. Some people will follow you just because you liked and/or revined one of their vines. This concept is similar to following other users for the follow back.
Offer a giveaway. You can give away one of your products to someone who revines your Vine. That will allow your video to spread and get more visibility. Some people will follow you just for the giveaway, but as the giveaway progresses, some of these people may continue following you because of the videos you post on Vine.
Interact with your audience. That means respond to comments and tell your audience about your other social networks. It seems as if more famous Viners than ever are telling their audiences what their SnapChats are so interactions can turn into private 1-on-1 based interactions.
Be the type of person others would want to follow. Be a humorous optimist instead of a dull pessimist. Your happiness and love for Vining are big factors to growing a big audience.
Do not give in. I do not know how close these figures are, but regardless of what they actually are, the message is quite clear. 97% of Viners end up watching videos from the 3%–the Viners who stuck with it, remained consistent, and now have large audiences. If you stick with it long enough, you may end up becoming one of the people in the 3%.

No matter how much knowledge you have about getting more Vine followers, implementation and sticking with the journey combined with the knowledge is the only combination of components that will allow you to be successful on Vine. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have an 11th method to get more Vine followers? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Every Forest Started Off With An Acorn

September 16, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Acorn

Forests can be seen as the empires of nature. Some of these forests extend for hundreds of thousands of square miles while others exceed 1 million square miles. Forests also provide a bulk of the Earth’s oxygen, and if all forests were lost, we would lose a big percentage of oxygen on the planet.

These forests that provide Earth with most of its oxygen and are filled with countless trees all started off with an acorn. Some forests have a few hundred trees while others have tens of thousands of trees, but no matter how many trees are in a forest, it all started with an acorn.

Your success and glory, just like a forest, starts off with an acorn. It may take some time for you to find your first acorn, but when you find the acorn, you will have something small that could potentially turn into a giant oak tree.

16 Social Media Facts That Every Marketer Needs To Know

September 15, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Social media has become a well established way to build an audience. After many years of sticking around, growing, and transform one business at a time, social media is no fad. It’s here to stick around and continue to make it easy for us to connect with loved ones, business connections, big brands, celebrities, and anyone else in the world who is on social media. These 16 facts will expose new insights into social media as well as how you can use it to optimize your presence on the web.

53% of people on Twitter recommend products in their tweets.
93% of shoppers’ buying decisions are influenced by social media.
Only 14% of people trust advertisements.
The average person has a seven second attention span which is great for the six second Vine.
The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55-64 year age bracket.
For Facebook and Google Plus, the 45 to 54 year age bracket is the fastest growing bracket of the bunch.
23% of Facebook users check their Facebook accounts at least five times every day.
189 million Facebook users only use a mobile device to access the social network.
80% of all pins are repins.
People are spending 1 of every 7 minutes on Facebook online.
Over 5 million photos on Instagram are uploaded every day.
YouTube has over 1 billion unique visitors every month.
57% on Pinterest discuss about food related topics.
71% of users access social media from a mobile device.
Google Plus has 359 million monthly active users.
Pinterest has over 20 million monthly active users.

All of these statistics provide valuable insights to which social networks are growing rapidly, how big each of them are, what people talk about, and how customers use social media. One of the facts to look at is that people only have seven second attention spans (by the way, a goldfish has an eight second attention span). When creating products and content, it is important to remember that you only have seven seconds to grab someone’s attention before they lose their interest in your product or content. My guess is that as Vine becomes more popular, the average person’s attention span will fall under six seconds. I think that there will be a point where the average attention span for a human is just four seconds, and that is a scary world to think about. That means it is more important than ever to grab someone’s attention in a shorter amount of time.

5 Methods To Easily Get More Followers On Instagram

September 14, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Instagram Logo

There are hundreds of millions of users on Instagram who, combined, like a grand total of over 1 billion pictures every day. Although there are many pictures getting more likes as the days go by, there are many people who have not built large audiences on Instagram. In order to get more likes for your Instagram pictures, it is essential for you to grow your audience, and here are five ways to make that happen:

Post a new picture on Instagram more than once a day. People need to see you on Instagram often so they have a reason to continue following you and liking your pictures.
Post pictures that people would want to like. Only post the types of pictures on Instagram that you would be happy and proud to post under your name. If the picture is blurry then forget about it.
Share your Instagram pictures on your other social networks. Why not utilize the audiences you have already built? Promoting your pictures to your other audiences will allow you to build your presence on Instagram.
Allow people to follow your Instagram account on your blog. Promoting your Instagram account on your blog will allow more people to see it. The ideal button would be a button that allows people to follow you on Instagram without leaving your blog.
Use hashtags. Hashtags allow you to spread on Instagram because people who search for those hashtags on Instagram’s search engine will find your pictures.

Those are the five ways to get more Instagram followers. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have a 6th method to getting more Instagram followers? Please share your thoughts and advice below.