The World According to Mitch Fanning

SXSW Interactive (tag #sxswi) officially came to an end earlier this week.

For those of you who don’t know, SXSW Interactive is an annual event that takes place in Austin, Texas.  The conference features five days of presentations from various thought-leaders in emerging technology and business as well as plenty of networking opportunities hosted by industry leaders.

Here are some of the highlights and insights from the conference (as I experienced it).

Content Rules
tag: #contentrules

During their session, CC Chapman and Ann Handley (authors of Content Rules – affiliate link) held an informal Q & A with a few hundred people on the topic of content marketing.

Highlights

• Content production: Write content like you’re writing a letter to a friend.  Try to have an opinion.  Don’t be vanilla.  Do something unexpected.  Create your own brand voice (It’s okay to be different).
• Content distribution:  The best way to distribute content is not through “influencers.”  Just find people who are already talking about your topics and engage with them directly.  This point was emphasized a lot during the conference.  It seems people are still under-utilizing the real-time search capabilities of both Twitter and Facebook.
• Content strategy: Start small (blog, video blog, etc.).  Start with one tool and build from there.  Then start to slowly “re-imagine” your content in other forms (converting blog posts into videos, videos into tweets, etc.).
• Trust your employees: employees who say potentially harmful things online is an HR problem, not a marketing problem.  Hire right and you minimize the risk of this happening in the first place.

Stop thinking in terms of ROI, this medium (social media) is so different.  Social media is not a “campaign,” its an ongoing activity that involves giving first, gaining trust, and then working your ass off to keep it (i.e. loyalty).  Lastly, remember this – content marketing is like sex.  Tons of people are doing it, but very few get it right (Handley).

Q&A with Google & Bing on Website Ranking
tag: #qagb

This session featured Duane Forrester, Senior Product Manager with Bing and Matt Cutts of Google.  The two search experts answered questions from the audience about how their respective search engines list and rank websites.  The session was moderated by Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com.

Highlights

• “Show me the content love and I’m much more likely to rank you.” (Forrester)
• If you’re not happy with your ranking ask yourself, “what original content have I produced in the last 30 days?”  If your answer is little or none, don’t be surprised if your ranking is low (Matt Cutts on Link-building strategies)
• Often it only takes a few high authoritative links to increase ranking (i.e. social networking sites) (Duane Forrester)
• Relevant and/or contextual anchor texts is often under-utilized, yet a great strategy for building effective links that can quickly increase your ranking.
• “What matters most is conversion.” (Cutts)
• “Page ranking reports are guesses.  Page ranking does not help make better business decisions.  Unique visits, time on site, etc. are much more important.” (Sullivan),

Social Media Club House
tag: #smch6

The Social Media Club House, hosted by Chris Heuer, Kristie Wells, and Jessica Murray, was the place to be for bloggers, social media enthusiasts, web entrepreneurs, and other really cool people during the SXSWi conference.  It was a place to create media, crash, and meet interesting people like @MolsonFerg.  They also had some amazing programming from March 11-14, which streamed live via UStream.

Lastly, we can’t forget singing karaoke on the #smcbus.

Keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk – The Thank You Economy
tag: #thankyouecon

During his keynote, The Thank You Economy (affiliate link), Gary tackled the ROI of social media and the humanization of business as he sees it.  As always he was entertaining, inspiring, and did not beat around the bush.

Here’s just a quick sample of Gary’s keynote:

Highlights

• be practical – don’t be afraid to make money
• context is king (not content).
• whoever can create real context with the end user will win
• have a grasp of the problem you want to solve
• do you actually care about the end user?
• have a thank you department for your business
• find out what your customers love (if basketball, buy them tickets — not a coupon code)
• to succeed in social media, brands must act “human” at the POS (the humanization of business)
• out care your competition
• there’s no such thing as a social media campaign (it’s not a one night stand)
• editorial calendars is like having a script at a cocktail party
• When using social media, big businesses need to act more like small “mom-and-pop” businesses

The City of Austin (tag line – let’s keep Austin weird)
Website: http://www.austintexas.org

Last, but definitely not least, I must give a big ol’ Texan shout out to the city of Austin.  This city seems to have it all – good economy, great food, amazing vibe, outstanding quality of life, and of course, friendly people.

Highlights

• 6th Street
• SoCo (South Congress)
• Amaya’s Taco Village
• Maria Maria Restaurant
• Little City Coffee Shop
• Surf n’ Turf Po Boy Food Cart
• Allen’s Boots
• Sheplers
• Austin Convention Center

So there you have it, a quick overview of the conference as I saw it.  How about you?  If you were in Austin, what was your experience?  I’d love to hear about it.  If you didn’t get the chance to go, my friends at Social Media Club wrote this post called, 5 Ways to Enjoy SXSW From The Comfort of Your Couch.  Enjoy!

About the Author

Mitch Fanning is VP of Strategy & Business Development for Fruition Interactive (Toronto, Canada). He’s spent 11 years working with businesses of all sizes, from global brands to some of Canada’s fastest growing web start-ups ranked in the PROFIT 100.

A teacher affects eternity:  He can never tell where his influence stops. – Henry Adams

I just finished reading 37signal’s new business book, Rework.

At 288 pages it’s a quick read (about 3 hours).  It’s about getting back to the basics, making things easier not harder, and focusing on what really matters (in a business).

I’ll publish a full review soon, but for now I want to focus on the idea of “out-teaching” (not out-competing) your competitors.

Specifically, the notion that you’re more likely to buy stuff from someone who teach you something rather than being influenced by traditional marketing tactics, which is one of the topics in the book.

Teaching vs Marketing

Personal experience has also shown me that teaching vs traditional marketing does produce better results when attempting to create a loyal audience.

Most businesses do the opposite.

They focus on selling or servicing, but rarely do they teach their audience something.  Teaching shows you give a #*%@.  It helps you stand out.  As Fried puts it, it also helps you “out-maneuver” the competition.

There are lots of ways to put this idea into practice online.  One way (but certainly not the only or best way for you) is to start a blog.

Here’s a few examples to get your creative juices flowing.

MBA Mondays

Fred Wilson, a New York-based venture capitalist, has a very popular (and at times, controversial) blog.  Among other topics, each week he writes a post under the category MBA Monday, where he steps back and connects the dots for those wanting to develop their business acumen.  It’s here that budding VCs, start-ups, and entrepreneurs have the opportunity to learn from a VC veteran.

As a result, Wilson is now recognized as a leading voice of the venture capital finance community.  He also happens to be #60 on Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business” list for 2010.

Oh, one more thing.  His firm’s portfolio has swelled with some of the hottest tech start-ups, including Twitter, Foursquare, and Zynga.

What Wine Goes Better With Fish?

Gary Vaynerchuk, who owns a large wine store called Wine Library, probably spent hours answering this question (and many like it, I’m sure) on Internet forums while teaching people about wine on Wine Library TV, his daily video blog.

As a result, his video blog is watched by tens of thousands of people each day.  Just as important, from 1997 to 2008, his wine business went from $4 million to $50 million.  He’s also the author of Crush It! a book detailing how he used social media to build his audience and business.

Stop and think about it.

If, like me, you consistently work to improve yourself (and your business) you probably consume content online in an effort to learn something.  In some cases, this content might even come from a company or site that sells something.

QUESTION – Have you ever bought something from a company or site after you’ve consumed their content for some time?  Have you ever purchased something in the hopes of learning something?

I have.

Sometimes even after a year later of being introduced to the company and their content.

Instead of trying to outspend or outsell your competition maybe its time you did something different.  Maybe, it’s time you tried out-teaching them.

About the Author:

Mitch Fanning is an online marketing and social media practitioner. He’s spent 10+ years (and put in his 10,000 hours) working with businesses of all sizes, from global brand (NBC.com, Nestle) to Canada’s fastest growing Internet companies ranked in the PROFIT 100, creating, selling, implementing both traditional and digital marketing opt-in strategies.

Click here to contact Mitch directly.  Or skip right through the garden and grab Mitch’s RSS Feed right here.

We live in exciting times.

The social media revolution we’re experiencing on a daily basis gives the entrepreneur, marketer, job seeker, product designer, inventor, creator, author, musician, and yes…even you…the ability to express an idea, connect with others, inspire a community, and perhaps even change the world.

Right now most of you are thinking, “okay Mitch, you’ve had way too much coffee,” and while that may be true (about 3 cups so far) the point I want to drive home is – for the first time in history we’re seeing both individuals and micro-entrepreneurs utilize social media to land their dream job, build a global following, build their personal brand, and create something that is bigger than themselves, their product or service.

Of course, this can’t always happen overnight.  We’ve all probably heard (and experienced) Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 Hour Rule”, claiming the key to success in any field is a matter of practicing a specific activity for a total of around 10,000 hours (or about 20 hours per week for 10 years).

That being said, the following four individuals have demonstrated that once you’ve found your “voice” and who you want to “serve” you can unleash your passion onto the world using an arsenal of free online channels to both achieve your goals and empower others. Some of you may not agree with their motives (or even like them) and that’s okay.  However, perhaps we can agree that if it weren’t for social media their achievements may not have been achieved or at least materialized so quickly.

Laura Gainor: Utilizing social media to land her dream job

“Life is about taking risks” – Laura Gainor

After deciding to move from Charlotte to Milwaukee, Laura Gainor launched a personal social media campaign using Twitter, YouTube, and SquarePik (an iPhone app allowing you to add a photo with each Foursquare post) as a means to reach out and begin communicating with @cometbranding who was, at the time, looking for a PR and Social Media Strategist.  She landed the job.

How she did it

Laura put the Comet Branding logo on a large poster and took a YouTube video (see below) to kick off her #LauraGainorToMilwaukee campaign.  When her and her husband left for Milwaukee the next day to find a place to live she brought the poster and took photos of the logo at each venue she checked in at through SquarePik and Foursquare. Throughout the process she strategically tweeted to @cometbranding to notify them of each check-in, hoping to get their attention.

After returning to Charlotte, she created a non-traditional presentation (see below) that showcased her social media efforts and posted it to Slideshare. The reaction was incredible! Within 36 hours the Slideshare presentation had reached over 1,000 views.  She was gaining more Twitter followers and people were contacting her letting her know how much she inspired them or wanted to share her story with other job seekers.

Following the community responses, Comet Branding contacted her to setup a Skype interview from Charlotte. On March 1^st she arrived in Milwaukee and went to their office to have a second interview and was immediately offered the position!

Tim Ferriss:  Create a global following with less than $10,000

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain

Whether or not you agree with his business practices or life philosophies, Tim Ferriss has proven himself to be a master when it comes to online self-promotion and testing assumptions to get optimal results.  His results speak for themselves – his book, The 4-Hour Workweek has been a  #1 bestseller for over 2 1/2 years, has had over 40 printings, and has been sold in 35 languages.

Back in December 2006, after signing a book deal for the 4HWW, Tim realized he had no real marketing plan.  With very little budget and the knowledge that most books fail and those that reach the bestselling list fall off after 2 weeks, he decided to focus his activities online via cultivating relationships with 5-10 tech bloggers who were recognized as thought-leaders by the majority of “earlyvangelists” (20-35 tech savvy males – his initial target audience).

Below is his keynote with power point slides, which reveals how he started a global phenomenon with less than 10K.  Please keep in mind, Tim did spend money to promote his book, but a lot of what he did can be done online for free.

How he did it

1. The Law of the Few: Rather than target all the “high-traffic” blogs he focused on the few influential “thought-leaders” who are read by the majority (20-35 tech-savvy males).  For more on this concept read 1,000 True Fans or even the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

2. Offer a Movement or Cause: Not an easy task. Tim created the phrase or category of “lifestyle design”, which has inspired a subculture of people who have abandoned the “deferred-life plan” to create their ideal lifestyle in the present.

3. Front-Load Your Promotional Activities: Instead of executing a typical 4-8 week promotional campaign, Tim executed most of his promotional activities within the first week.  He was unavoidable for the first week, which resulted in a few key influencers taking notice (Merlin Mann, @scobelizer, @steverubel), which took the book viral.

4. Nurture Your Community: Tim created the 4HWW forum, but also encouraged people to build their own niche communities around the idea of “lifestyle design” using Ning and Facebook (i.e. Lifestyle design for programmers, moms, etc.)

5. Data is King: From book title, to wording, to post time, to read time – test it all using online tools that are free or cost very little (i.e. Google Adwords, Crazyegg).  For example, Tim found the best time to post to his blog was Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday 10am ET or 9pm ET.

6. SEO: Off-page factors (link-building) played a big role in Tim’s strategy more so than on-page.  Specifically, his ability (by doing all of the above) to have others create links back to either his blog or amazon page.

Listen to the keynote: To advance slides on the presentation, just hover the mouse over the right-hand side of the displayed slide and click when a hand appears.

Ferriss – Le Web 2

Julia Allison: Discover a niche, position yourself at its choke point, get noticed, and build a loyal army.

“Technology gives us direct power over our own brand.” – Julia Allison

Some might remember Julia Allison from the controversial Wired article back in July 2008.  In addition to being a “personal branding machine”, Julia is also a weekly columnist in Time Out New York and co-creator of lifecasting portal NonSociety.com.

Allison is not famous by the traditional definition, but to a devoted group of niche online followers she is a celebrity.  At the time the Wired article came out, she claimed more than 10,000 people read her blog daily, and gossip sites like Gawker, Radar Online, and Valleywag that detail her every exploit. Most importantly, however, is that she’s done this on her own and on the cheap.

How she did it

1. Stand out from the crowd – be the “condom fairy”

Julia got her first big break in 2006 after showing up to a Manhattan Halloween party dressed as a “condom fairy”.  Her online celebrity status, however, didn’t happen overnight.

It started back in the fall of 2002, as a junior at Georgetown University, Allison decided she had a thing for medical students.  So she got a job at the medical school library, where she had the opportunity to meet med students and date several of its members. Before long, she was getting invited to med student parties.

Allison moved to New York in late 2004 with her sights on breaking into the Manhattan media world by using the same strategy she used at Georgetown University – Discover a niche, position herself at its choke point, stay there until people start to notice, and build an army of followers.

In Manhattan, that choke point was Gawker, a media-gossip site that pulls in millions of readers every month, many of them fellow journalists. It was the equivalent of the med school library — the place where Allison would be seen by everyone in her target audience.

2. Engage your fans – fuel the fire

Allison’s greatest accomplishment isn’t just the amount of online content she can create on Twitter, etc.; it’s in her ability to get people to actually care about it. Her trick is to think of herself as the subject of a magazine profile, with every post or update adding dimensions to her as a character. “I treat it like a fire, you have to add logs, or it’ll be like one of those YouTube videos that flame out.”

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2

In July 2007, having conquered the Manhattan media scene, Allison set her sights on a new target: the Silicon Valley startup world. In a flashback to her Gawker breakthrough, she flew to the Bay Area to attend the annual TechCrunch party thrown by influential blogger Michael Arrington.

Allison made an immediate impression among the “techies” in attendance. The next day, Arrington posted a video on his site of Allison cooing for the camera, telling her audience that she had a thing for geeks, and urging them to call her.  Soon Allison had become a Valleywag staple, befriended the likes of CNET’s Caroline McCarthy and Sequoia Capital’s Mark Kvamme.

Gary Vaynerchuk – Changing the Wine World one Tweet at a Time

Gary Vaynerchuk helped grow his family wine business from $4 million to $50 million through the use of social media. He is also author of Crush It! a short book detailing how he uses social media and that anyone can do this.

In February 2006, Gary Vaynerchuk launched Wine Library TV, a daily video blog about wine. With the tag line “changing the wine world,” the show offers an unpretentious approach to an historically stuffy subject. Wine Library TV garners 90,000 daily viewers and has now surpassed 800 episodes, featuring celebrity guests including hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and Digg.com founder Kevin Rose, to name a few.

How he did it

While developing the audience for Wine Library TV, Gary turned to the social web. Gary joined the online conversation by becoming an active member of blogs and forums, and then proceeded to utilize web 2.0 tools such as Facebook and Twitter to connect with consumers online. The business world took note of Gary’s approach, and before long he was being invited to speak at conferences and corporations around the world.

What are you waiting for?

The above examples only scratch the surface.  There are many more – these are just a few. The important thing to remember is their results can be duplicated.  You really have no excuse…you don’t need a lot of money to start, you don’t always need to have skill (in the traditional sense), and you are certainly not required to be on the “most sexiest list” to find your passion, build your personal brand, add value to the online conversation, and empower others.

Ask anyone who has achieved any success and they’ll most likely tell you most of their success is a direct result of being part of a community – be it online or face-to-face (or both!).  It will take some time, but remember, doing the unthinkable is easier than you think.

Start today.

Question – How are you (or someone you know) using social media to empower others?  Let me know at #empowerothers