for W3c validation

I love books that you can’t put down. Gary Vaynerchuk‘s new book, The Thank You Economy (affiliate link), was one of those books because it had so much I could relate to given I have been immersed in social media & the thank you economy for the past 5 years. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that Gary understands storytelling like few others do, and is a master at it. Even though I understand and appreciate how the Thank You Economy operates as a result of doing customer service with David Gibbons, the book made me think. Maybe it’s just disconnecting from my computer (I haven’t been reading for fun much recently) and thinking, but it helped me think marketing and branding strategy at a high level.

When I heard from Linda Aaron that Gary was going to be in Seattle speaking about his book, I was game to join the party that included Linda, Debra Trappen, and Chad Hallberg. And I dragged my friend Brandon with me. There are a few random topics I got from his talk today (well, technically, it was now “yesterday” – but no need to get into technicalities) at the Elliot Bay Book Company in Capitol Hill that I wanted to touch on:

Value of Personal Branding

Gary has an amazingly powerful personal brand. But it didn’t just happen. He’s been engaging with people online, building businesses, and speaking for over a decade. He clearly realizes the power his personal brand gives him, and takes advantage of that name power in all his businesses. As he should.

The world is moving toward a time where personal brands are king. It’s a given that people want to interact with people, not corporate brands. Do I want to talk to “Pepsi”? NO. But do I want to talk to Joe, the scientist who works in the Diet Pepsi lab? Absolutely. Gary’s right when he says that business-customer relationships are going to be completely different than they are today in a decade or two or three. I don’t think it’s so much going to be that businesses are that different, but the power given to employees will be different. Regular employees — and not just directors and the public relations department — will be more empowered than ever to act as spokespeople in the public domain. Every end customer will choose to do business with organizations they are connected with SOMEHOW. And as a result, businesses are going to have to adapt to that environment where it’s a known and acknowledged fact that their employees are their most valuable marketing asset & utilizing them is all but required.

“There is no better time to be a journalist. IF you’re good.”

We all know the traditional media industry is changing – and it’s shifting rapidly at that. I hear a lot of people mention how bad it is to be a journalist right now. And I never really put too much thought into it. Until today. But, after thinking about it, Gary’s right. Good journalists are in a prime position because there is so much low quality content flooding the web these days, and good content rises to the top organically as a result of the social activity that happens around it. The truth comes out quicker than ever when a Tweet can travel around the world in seconds. Like instantaneously. If you’re delivering zero value (and I’d argue some journalists are near that), then that job (and you occupying it) won’t last long.

I think this applies across the board though to a degree; there’s no better time than now — IF you are good at what you do. If you suck at what you do? There is no worse time than now. Transparency and the truth can really suck for you in that situation.

For those entering the field of journalism like Becky Berg, my advice to you is this: focus on building your personal brand from the get-go. Have a strategy. Don’t just wing it only to figure out in 5 or 10 years that “oh shit, I should have branded myself a decade ago”. Oh, and I almost forgot — be good at what you do or else the rest won’t matter.

The Difference in Skillsets of Controlling a Room vs Controlling a Cocktail Party

Gary said that he believed the world was moving towards more of a cocktail party type environment, and that it’ll take a different skill set to succeed than the “presenter” skill set that dominates boardrooms today. This got me thinking. It’s true that there are fewer and fewer presentations, everything – and I mean everything – is going social. Scarcely do you attend a lecture without SOME social component to it. I’ll freely admit I’m more comfortable at a cocktail party than presenting to a room of 400 people. Just as I don’t really want to sit in a lecture hall for 5 hours and listen to one person tell me how smart they think they are about some topic, I don’t want to stand in front of that audience for 5 hours and try to convince them of how smart I am either. I want to interact with them, and learn something.

So, this shift will prove good for me & I’m glad to hear we’re moving in that direction 🙂

Facebook Comments

I agree with Gary that Facebook comments are a good thing, and the whole web is going to move in that direction. There is a lot of good that comes from making people be themselves with all their online interactions. We all know it’s easier to call someone on the phone and yell at them for making a wrong decision than it is to yell at them in person. The same applies online. I’m glad we’re moving in that direction. It’s a good thing for the entire web. Now, I just need to get over that “SEO” thing & ceding the entire thing to Facebook and then I’m 100% in…

Community

Build it in to whatever you do. Or you’ll fail. End of story.

I might come back to one or more of these topics, or add another one on top of it — but that’s enough for one night. Time to get some sleep so I can rest up to watch the Dawgs HOPEFULLY beat UNC tomorrow morning. And, yes, that would be total March Madness at its best if UW won.