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Celebrations Connect People Together

July 4, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

celebration

The 4th of July does a really good job at connecting Americans together. Friends get their friends together, watch fireworks go into the night sky, and talk about America. They talk about where the nation is going as well as what it took to get independence. They also talk about other things that occur in their daily lives and have long conversations with the people who are important to them. Some also have a big feast of potatoes, chicken, hot dogs, and hamburgers.

The 4th of July brings Americans together with the people they care about. The reason this happens is that the 4th of a July is something that Americans celebrate in unison. The celebration reminds us of our values and allows us to strengthen our connections with one another.

Why not make a celebration of your own that connects your tribe together? The 4th of July brings Americans together because they celebrate their own independence. What kind of celebration can you come up with to bring the people in your tribe together? Maybe a free giveaway of your book that is awarded to the 10 person who asks you good questions related to your book’s content. Maybe your celebration can be a teleseminar that your tribe knows about (and causes it to spread) where you offer your expertise.

The 4th of July is one celebration that connects people together. Christmas, Memorial Day, New Year’s Day, and Easter are other celebrations that connect people together. Coming up with a celebration of your own that only matters to your tribe. Some people can’t stand the Indy 500 while others are sitting on the couch watching every minute of it. Your celebration won’t please everyone. It will only please your tribe, but pleasing your tribe is what encourages communication and new members.

The Biggest YouTube Blunder That Everyone Makes

July 3, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Or at least almost everyone makes this blunder. I just thought the title would be more catchy.

A while ago, I got a comment on a YouTube video from someone who was inspired by one of my videos who said she would try to find me on Facebook.

Do you see the mistake? This person ended up finding me on Facebook because she really enjoyed my YouTube video, but that is a rare example of someone taking an extra step to hunt down your Facebook Page. We had a good conversation afterwards through Facebook messaging, but I knew something was wrong. She had to look for my Facebook Page. Why couldn’t my Facebook Page have been in the description for my YouTube video in the first place.

While your YouTube video’s description is a key way to tell people what your video is about, it is also important to include links to your social networks and your blog at the start of your YouTube video descriptions. If viewers were brave enough to click the like button for a YouTube video, then they will also be brave enough to click the like button on a Facebook Page, the subscribe button on a blog, and the follow button on Twitter (or any other social networks with a follow button).

That only happens when you include links to those places in your description. Having the tiny icons on your channel is not enough to get more followers. Some people only watch your video and won’t even go to your channel. Including links to your blog and social networks allows you to keep the connections you get when people view your YouTube videos. In addition, implementing this tactic will strengthen Circular Viralocity and boost your chances of going viral.

One final note. When you include the URL’s to your blog and social networks, you must make sure to include the “http” part of the URL. Including the “http” allows people to click on the link. A link in a YouTube video description that does not start with the “http” can’t be clicked on.

What are your thoughts about this blunder? Have you made this blunder in your YouTube videos? Are there any other blunders that people make in their YouTube videos? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

7 Habits Of Highly Productive People

July 3, 2014 by Marc Guberti 16 Comments

Completed Checklist

There are some days when we get our work done, and there are other days when we do not get any work done. While most people go through not getting their work for a majority of the time, others are able to get their work done on most days. These are the highly productive people. Those are the people who others envy when they can’t finish a project on time. Productive people come in many shapes and forms, but they all share these seven habits that allow them to be more productive than the average person.

They plan their day out the night before. Remember when it was bad in high school to start the big project the night before it is due? That problem does not apply to productive people when they plan out their days. Most productive people plan out their days right before they go to bed. If you plan your day in the afternoon, then you are losing time that you can be productive in. Your productivity wanes as the day goes by, and since productivity is at its lowest at nighttime, productive people use this time to write down their goals for the next time.
They give themselves closer deadlines. Highly productive people give themselves 1 week to accomplish the same goals that take a month or two for the typical person to accomplish. A closer deadline gives these people less time to procrastinate and make mistakes. This allows highly productive people to realize how valuable time truly is. You may have read on this blog before that time is our most valuable resource or heard it from someone else. Giving yourself closer deadlines will allow you to fully understand why time is our most valuable resource, and with less time there is less fooling around.
They write down their goals for the week. Highly productive people take one week at a time. They write down the goals they need to accomplish for the week and then use a tally/checkmark system to indicate how close they got to accomplishing everything on the list.
They give themselves bigger goals. As the goals on the list become easier to accomplish, highly productive people challenge themselves by giving themselves bigger goals and less time to get those goals accomplished. The bigger goals further establish how time is their most valuable resource and gives them less time to procrastinate.
They barely watch TV. Television is productivity’s greatest villain. The average American spends 32 hours every week watching TV. There’s so many things that can be done in those 32 hours other than watch TV shows (and some can be very depressing or teaching immoral lessons), and highly productive people know that very well. They take full advantage by limiting the amount of time they spend watching TV every week so they are able to find more time in their days.
They wake up early. In a sense, productive people start their work “before life happens.” There are not nearly as many things to do at 7 pm as there are things to do at 7 am (other than work). In addition, the earlier someone wakes up, the more willpower that person has. Willpower is a big source of productivity that wanes as the day progresses. Waking up earlier allows you to tap into your full willpower and get the best of it.
They don’t think they have enough time. Highly productive people do not think they have enough time to get their goals accomplished. Highly productive people are continuously raising the bar higher and making it harder for them to accomplish all of the weekly goals. As a result, when something unexpected happens to the time schedule, these highly productive people feel uncomfortable losing all of that time. These highly productive people may be doing seven or more hours of productive work every day, but they feel as if they never have enough time to accomplish all of their goals.

Those are the seven habits of highly productive people. By learning to implement and develop these habits overtime, you will become a highly productive person. What are your thoughts on the habits? Do you have any additional habits you have that keep you productive? Please share your thoughts and your own habits below.

How To Win As The Host Of A Giveaway

July 2, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Giveaways come in all shapes and sizes. They come as the form of Mac Book Pros and Amazon Gift Cards. While there are a fair share of great giveaways and giveaways that go wrong, everyone who hosts a giveaway wants to win. They want more engagement and long-term sales for their products. Luckily, there is a way to win as the host of a giveaway.

Allow everyone to win by doing something for you.

That’s all it takes. Mike Michalowicz, the master of hosting giveaways, did this for his book The Pumpkin Plan. For the book’s launch, anyone who submitted a video revealing their inner critic and posted it on YouTube got the book for free. Two runners-up would get a free 1 hour consultation session while 1 grand winner would get to have dinner with Mike and his inner circle of helpers. There were some requirements for this giveaway, but the big one was that at the very end of the video, everyone had to put visible and legible text “The Pumpkin Plan July 5, 2012” and have it displayed for at least three seconds.

It is easy to imagine that this marketing stunt cost a lot of money. It is easy to imagine that 100 people submitted videos for The Pumpkin Plan. If anyone who got his book for free left a review, those reviews probably were 4-5 star reviews each. That makes a book look a lot better on Amazon, and it also lowers the sales rank of a book (which means Amazon does a better job at promoting it and more people get to see the book). Even more, Mike’s method of choosing a winner had a 4 part process in which 75% of the process involved how many times the video got shared and viewed on social networks. This allowed Mike to create a sales army, and even though he had to pay for the sales army (buying and sending over books costs money), those videos are still up on YouTube which means his book The Pumpkin Plan is still being promoted by an array of people.

The next time you host your own giveaway, ask yourself how you can make sure that everyone wins a free prize.

5 Types Of Tweets You Would Want To Pin To The Top Of Your Feed

July 2, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Twitter’s new design came with a very powerful change: the ability to pin a tweet to the top of your profile. That means if you send out an important tweet, and you want everyone to see it, that can happen without people scrolling down to find the tweet. This tweet always appears on the top and instantly grabs attention as a pinned tweet. Pinned tweets get more engagement than the average tweet because while the average tweet has a certain life to it (a few hours), the pinned tweet never loses that life because it is always on the top of your Twitter feed.

However, there is no reason for pinning a tweet just for the sake of pinning a tweet. Some tweets deserve the spot while others don’t deserve it at all. You don’t want a conversation you had with someone to be your pinned tweet, but there are certain types of tweets that you want. Here are five of them.

Your most popular tweet. If one of your tweets gets five times as many retweets as your typical tweet, then it is a very popular tweet. The popularity of that tweet will fade within a few hours as more tweets get posted on your profile and fewer people see the retweeted forms of your tweet. Pinning this kind of tweet will prevent the popularity of that tweet from fading.
A tweet with your giveaway. It’s great to offer an Amazon Card giveaway. It’s bad if only one person retweets the tweet and you have to give the Amazon Card to that one person. Since you are giving something away, you want more engagement on Twitter. In order to boost the amount of engagement you get from a giveaway, pin the tweet about the giveaway so everyone who goes to your profile learns about the giveaway.
A tweet with your product. If you want to boost sales for one of your products, send out a tweet about that product and then pin it to the top of your feed. Everyone who sees your feed will then see your product. When you pin a product tweet, make sure the product is a low-priced product that people would buy. The less expensive your product is, the more likely one of your followers is to buy it.
A tweet of your most popular blog post. Your most popular blog post is bound to get more attention if you pin it to the top of your feed. You may end up turning that blog post so popular that it generates 10% of your blog’s traffic because of the search engines.
A tweet of a news story. When there is a news story that is getting attention, pinning a tweet to the top of your profile will allow you to keep your followers updated without them having to scroll down to find the update. Doing this will encourage your followers to come back and visit your profile in the event that your pinned tweet changes based on how the news story develops.

Pinning tweets is a new advantage that we need to take advantage of so we can choose the tweets that get seen by the most people. What are your thoughts on pinning tweets? Do you have any additional tips on pinning tweets to get the best results? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

7 Things That Social Media Can Do For You

July 1, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

We all enjoy using our social networks. Some people use those social networks to talk with their friends, others use their social networks to keep in touch with famous peoples’ updates, and others use social networks to promote their blogs. Regardless of how you use social media, it is a powerful tool that can be used to build awareness for you and your brand. Here are 7 of the things that social media can do for you:

Boost your credibility. There are a lot of benefits to boosting your credibility. Growing your presence on your social networks is a great way to grow your credibility. The average person would rather go to the consultation session with the person who has 10,000 followers than the consultation session with the person who has 1,000 followers.
Gives you more opportunities. As you interact with more people, you will interact with more people who have opportunities. Some of the people you interact with may be organizing business summits that you can take a part in as a public speaker. As you grow your audience, you will eventually encounter people who will offer you opportunities.
More sales. Having a big audience on social media means more potential customers. Having your blog optimized is not enough to get more sales. People need to be visiting your blog in order for the optimized look to have any effect, and growing your presence on your social networks is a great way to build that audience who will want to buy your products.
Word of mouth marketing increases. The only way for word of mouth marketing to work is by people knowing about you. If you have a big audience on your social networks, more word of mouth takes place. Then, your audience grows because some of the people who heard about you will decide to follow you too.
You get to interact with customers anytime. In brick and mortar stores, the customer buys a product, leaves, and the people in the store can’t interact with that customer until he/she comes back. Social media is different. You can interact with your customers at anytime to ask how they like your product, if they would like to leave a review, and if you can help them utilize your product along the way. Social media allows you to have efficient customer service, and having a big audience of customers who are asking questions will further establish that you are great at customer service (potential customers will love this).
Boost your blog’s traffic. If you are looking for a way to get more traffic, then look no further than building your social media audience. Although it is necessary for long-term success, SEO is overrated. It is your social networks that will generate a bulk of your audience, and as your social media traffic grows, your search engine traffic will also grow.
Bragging rights. Don’t take bragging rights the wrong way. Most people think of the bad version of bragging rights that goes along these lines, “I have 100,000 followers on Pinterest. I’m super cool, and you’re not.” That is a bad way to brag about a big accomplishment. The ideal way to use bragging rights is just to mention them. Just saying that you have 100,000 Pinterest followers will get some gasps from the audience. Bragging rights can be powerful, if used responsibly.

Social media is the most powerful tool on the web to build an audience and your presence on the web. As you grow your presence, you will gain all seven things on this list. What are your thoughts about the list? Does social media do something for you that was not mentioned on this list? Please share your thoughts below.