This is an overtime conversation with Felix Cha from Unbounce.com. Felix started off wanted to be a dentist but his hobby of making videos quickly became his full time job. This episode is the overtime conversation between myself and Felix. The first part of this interview is a Q&A based interview that has been published on the FIR Podcast Network.
Video tells a story but so do pictures and words. Video has that super sexy reputation and it gets misused. Felix Cha talks about putting video out that can explain complex features, problems or concepts. His thesis is that every video should be custom produced to perform its own specialized mission.
To give this interview Felix took time off from his work preparing videos in support of the Call-To-Action (CTA) Conference which runs September 13-15 in Vancouver. This conference is produced by Felix’s employer Unbounce.com.
Unbounce.com helps businesses (large and small) create dynamic, A/B tested landing pages. Felix’s role as a visual storyteller is complex because the complexity of landing page and all of the prior messaging (PPC, Posts, Emails) that was needed to bring the user to the landing page must not only align with each other (e.g., Email < -- > Landing Page CTA) but the video must align with those and bridge them (e.g, Email < -- > Video < -- > Landing Page CTA).
The optimization of landing pages can yield huge results for a business. The difference between 1% and a 5% conversation rate is super significant. Felix excels in creating these types of stories.
Harry Hawk talks with early YouTube phenom Adam Schleichkorn. Adam has had several YouTube channels over the years (with a combined more than 54 Million views). His current channel, isthishowyougoviral, was started in May 2012 and has 5,470 subscribers and more than 4.8 Million views at the time this blog is being written. HiddenTrackTV2 has 18k subscribers and 34.7 Million views, HiddenTrack12 has 5.4k subscribers and 12.5 Million views. AwesomeAnimals has 1.6k subscribers and 1.7 Million views. Adam started YouTubing while in graduate school and credits Patrick J. Aievoli, who is the Director of the Interactive Multimedia Arts Program at LIU for convincing him to capitalize on his early YouTube 'fame."
Listen to this episode:
(The early days of YouTube with Adam Schleichkorn)
Join Harry and Tommy for a farm fresh 1 hour and 40 minute conversation that will leave you wanting to quit your marketing job so you start a farm (just so you can create the marketing for it).
While being interviewed by Harry Hawk Mr. Alderman expressed interest in Podcasting and has subsequently created a podcast. It is clear that he has a spirit of exploration and is eager to try and experiment with new modes of communication.
Harry and Tommy talk about Chickens, American Guinea Hogs, and the power of social media. Tommy lives with his family on land that has been in his family for generations. At the time his post has been made Adlerman Farms has more than 1.3 million views on YouTube, about 7k subscribers and nearly 12k views of their channel's welcome message.
You can consider that this is more views, subscribers and in general "engagement" than much larger or more famous companies/brands. For example Walgreen's has only 3,988 subscribers (but 5 Million views), and competitor Rite Aid 1,018 subscribers • 746,370 views. Radio Shack has 9,495 subscribers • 571,289 views (there are many of their commercials shared by other channels; it's hard to find their channel directly). In the world of burgers it's no better: The Shake Shack (newly public global burger brand: 371 subscribers • 34,520 views. Of course 5 Guys Burgers (there are tons of fan videos & fan reviews) but for their own channel: 39 subscribers • 9,732 views. Burger King has of 37,911 subscribers but only 666,737 views about 1/2 of Alderman Farms 1.3 Million.
The first 20 minutes of this episode appears on the FIR Podcast Network as BUILDING FENCES WITH YOUTUBE YC EPISODE 0001 -- this episode of Talking About Everything is the entire conversation nearly raw and uncut.
A few weeks ago I spoke with Michael (Mike) McEuen about how to buy and optimize online advertising. Mike really knows this topic because he has worked on all sides of paid advertising triangle. He has been on the sell side with Gannett Papers, on the AdTech side with the company AdStages, and today he is on the buying side at DoubleDutch.
Listen to episode #21: Talking About Online Ads (PPC) with Mike McEuen
Listen the overtime episode:
In the world of Inbound marketing were quality content rules the roost, you might think that paid advertising and those who earn their living buying or selling ads might feel competitive pressure but Mike makes it really clear that the best place to focus the starting point of a digital promotion is amazing organic content. Mike makes it clear you should be working with your sales staff and agreed with me when I talked about the value of the PR team in terms of storytelling and audience building.
Mike sees organic content as part of the validation or optimization process that every digital effort needs. That is, organic content validates both the message and the audience and proves that there is an alignment between that customer base (or persona) and the message you are delivering.Mike suggests that you would be wasting money if you start promoting before you have validated your approach. I would add this could go even further in that you should also be testing out the landing page(s), and any follow on efforts you may be making once you have brought people to your site. I’m sure Mike would agree.
Mike
was very clear, "once it is working you can double down." Which is a
very polite way of saying once it is working you can really start
throwing money at the effort. In my overtime conversation with Michael we get even deeper into how today's PPC efforts work. We talk about lookalike audiences, cost per action (CPA), and other even about how to fine tune a digital ad campaign. We talk about return on advertising spend; how to really understand how much you can afford to spend and understand what your business gains from that. We converse about how to blend different priced ads into a single buy, and also about buying during urgent time frame (near a holiday). We talk budgets and every else.
A special BONUS show. Harry Hawk talks with Dr. Freberg about students and social media. How she teaches social media, and how students react to "having" to use social media as part of a classroom activity or as homework, and how that differs from using it with their friends. Karen also talks about how she teaches communications and PR and includes some of the social media lesson plans and exercises in her courses. Dr. Freberg uses Twitter, SnapChat and Facebook in her classroom. Harry and Karen also mention University of Cincinnati President Dr. Ono and his stellar use of Twitter. Dr. Karen Freberg teaches communications, PR and Social Media at the University of Louisville. She is @kfreberg on Twitter. #HighEd
How do collge age students "take" to social media studies? They might think it is easy but according to Dr. Freberg, "it's the hardest course they will have to take." It's one thing to snapchat with your friends, it's a totally different matter to be the public interface for a brand.
Harry talks with Dr. Karen Freberg who is an Asst. Prof. At University of Louisville in strategic communications and an adjunct Prof. Online in the graduate Marketing Communications program at West Virginia University.
Harry said, "I'm excited to talk with Karen about the use of targeted social and socially curated published content as it applies to crisis communications, PR, and reputation management. I'm also interested in talking about how students can make use of social media tools for their personal branding, and her insights on the value of students engaging in the process of crisis management planning for their personal brands."
Prof. Freberg has active research in public relations, reputation management, social media and crisis communications.
The fine folks (Neville & Shel) over at the FIR Podcast Network have been entertaining my own musing on the paid, targeted, and re-targeted uses of Facebook for years. They were kind enough introduce me to Dennis Yu who is the CTO (and Co-Founder) at BlitzMetrics.
Talking With Dennis About Reach
You will hear a lot of people "projecting" their opinions on Facebook's motives for offering paid reach and the reports that organic reach is down. To most it is a conspiracy theory; Dennis (and I) believe that the truth is far different; that Facebook is putting users first and quality organic content still has amazing reach.
Don't forget to Target, Re-Target and Boost
Dennis spend a lot of time talking to me about the ins & outs of targeting, re-targeting, and the use of micro efforts that can reach as few as a few hundred people. We also talked about some of the free and paid services from BlitzMetrics (Dennis company). This interview was first released on the FIR podcast network, and has now been released as episode #20 of Talking About Everything with Harry Hawk..
FIR Notes & Links:
The following is excepted from the FIR website: "While digital marketing dollars still flow into Facebook, marketers continue to express frustration at the social network, its reduced organic reach, and its ever-shifting algorithms. BlitzMetrics Chief Technology Officer Dennis Yu has a different perspective. A longtime Facebook marketing expert, Dennis believes good content can thrive organically on Facebook but that PR needs to adopt paid amplification of messages. He also makes the case that paid reach via Facebook should be seen as a gateway to using Google and other similar services (e.g., promoted tweets) to amplify messages, and that these buys should be aggregated for a more comprehensive analysis. They’re not traditional ads, however, and should not be viewed that way. They can, however, contribute to ROI and other success metrics." You can visit the FIR website at this link.
Talking About the Power of Facebook with Dennis Yu
Josh Ozersky was a friend of mine.. and he was not always present in my life but he was always a presence. He introduced me to 100's of people, from the famous to the infamous. He invited me to a competition where I won the best burger award, and so many other things. In this interview you will hear from Union Square Hospitality head Danny H Meyer (@dhmeyer), Jean-Paul the Executive Chef at Blue Smoke (@chefjean_paul ), and Patrick Martin (@MartinsBBQ) a champion winning BBQ guy from Nashville Tn. (and one of Josh's best loved BBQ joints).
Robbie Richter (@RobbieRichter) and I spent the morning of Saturday June 13th walking
through the Big APple BBQ talking to folks who were willing to share their memories of Josh. We interviewed Dozens of folks thanks to Robbie's ability to open doors.
This is the first in a series of short releases and a full length episode will come out in due course. You can think of this as a miniseries about memories of Josh! As Josh often said when asked about eating vegetables, "The FAT, that's the meat, the Meat, that's the Vegetables..."
This week I talk with TWIP's Lauren Koenig about travel, how people differ in their behavior while traveling, and who makes the best traveling companions.
I have noticed that as I have traveled with people whom I know well and respect… at times that feeling of respect has been replaced with anger, frustration or just annoyance. We may be friends, family, colleagues or even lovers but well, we are not well suited to travel together.
Episode:
Overtime episode:
Lauren Koenig has has noticed this problem as well.. and many other minor details I hadn’t thought about, from when someone wants to eat breakfast, to what someone wants to do in the evening. Of course Lauren hasn’t just noticed this problem, Lauren has decided to do something about. Her solution is TWIP.co.
TWIP.co is a “pre-launch” mode as I write this and is hopefully coming to the market soon. It is a place for people to find other folks to travel with and/or where they can book tours offered by TWIP with a “curated” group of strangers who like a dating site, have been matched but not for chemistry, but rather for for travel compatibility.
Lauren’s Bio:
Company founder and Twip CEO, Lauren A. Koenig grew up in the Midwest. Educated at Ball State University while holding a 4-year Presidential Scholarship, she left her hometown of Chicago at the invitation of the French Ministry of Education to teach English.
Lauren welcomed the challenge of working abroad; travel became a hallmark of her early and future stage development. Returning to Chicago, she worked for Anita Dee Yacht Charters before joining The International Kitchen, the leading provider of cooking school vacations covering Italy, France and Spain.
The travel market is becoming increasingly cluttered thereby enabling TWIP's unique competitive advantage to stand out from the pack.
Twip offers travelers the opportunity to travel to the most interesting countries in the world, discovering global events and exciting, exclusive adventures. While importantly, being compatible with each travelers previously identified needs.
As of Spring 2015, Lauren is an Alumni of the Women's StartUp Lab Accelerator in San Francisco, California.
Lauren can be reached at Lauren@twip.co.
Soooo...I spent a lot of Inbound.org's $$$ last month, I took a lot of chances, tried a lot of things... and the results may surprise you. Welcome to my PPC ad experiment. There are many factors that can contribute to the success of an ad (e.g., copy & targeting), but the visual image(s) can have a huge impact too. They can support the ad, or even mislead the viewer...
...so which of these images do you think performed best in May?
I'm figuring out if PPC is effective in bringing new members into this community so the following questions will be answered in the next several posts. Stay tuned:
Can PPC help find new job postings and help bring in those looking for work?
Nathan Thursfield has transformed his face with a nose job, which by itself isn't that remarkable. Yet, because he choose to have his nose remade to look like the nose of Katie Price, a UK Reality TV star and model the media has grabbed a hold of Nathan's story.
I wanted to speak with Nathan about his own journey and learn more about the story behind the story, and learn about what makes Nathan live, love and prosper. What is it like to be caught up in the media swirl?
I am incredibly proud that Mr. Thursfield had the courage of his convictions to make the changes to himself that has helped boost is confidence and grow his happiness. Still I'm amused that the media has made so much of what amounts to a simple nose job, Nathan however has an interesting and compelling journey. Expensive surgery may not sound "courageous" nor the mythical hero's journey. We learn how love at 15 and later surgery transformed Nathan with confidence.
During the interview we talked about the Diane Sawyer interview with Caitlyn Jenner who still was identifying as Bruce. It is hard to juxtapose the life long struggle of Caitlyn with a teenage Nathan who was able to come out and come into his own without waiting decades... but I think is a sign of our times. Happiness awaits us all. We should embrace the transformations that let us thrive.
Talking with Timothy French about Stefani Victoria Spears - Episode #49
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Harry’s and Austin’s next conversation as part of The Draggedy Project is with Timothy French, a dancer, choreographer, and fashion designer out of New York City whose drag persona is Stefani Victoria Spears.
