Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

Insights

My Gift to You – Hurry, Offer Ends Soon!

So there’s been a recent spate of Social Media Certification courses spring up lately. Who knows, maybe they’re great? However, I feel that it’d be remiss of me not to jump on the bandwagon offer my expertise course if you’re interested. Please leave your name in the comments field and why you need this training and agreeing that my results may vary but you’ll still pay me the course fee money.

Official Social Media Person-Type Leader/Follower/Coach/Tutor/Guru/Expert Guy/Girl Certificate of Certification

Sponsored by the Best Upper Level Leveraging Strategy House in Town (B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.)

Have you heard of that crazy thing called social media? Where you can be in the media (or not) and be social (or not)? No?

It?s ALL THE RAGE!

But don?t worry if you?re missing out ? thanks to the Official Social Media Person-Type Leader/Follower/Coach/Tutor/Guru/Expert Guy/Girl Certificate of Certification, you too can become part of the socially media trend that?s hitting the nation.

For as little (or as much) as I choose to charge you, you will learn:

  • Who are all these Twits this guy is talking about?

  • How to do more on Facebook than just poke your best friend?s mom

  • How to socially media market to people who aren?t even using social media

  • Get a lifetime?s worth of knowledge in 20 minutes and a CD/DVD

  • Me following you on your social media accounts so you have followers which makes people think you know what you?re talking about because that?s where the legitimacy and authority of my course really kicks in (punctuation not needed!)

That?s six five great offers!

One for every social media application being used today!! How about THAT for results??

And for the first 100 people that sign up, I?ll even give you a free link to a site of my determination that might (or might not) be worth your time.

But hurry ? offer ends midnight (on some day or other!!)

Sponsored by the Best Upper Level Leveraging Strategy House in Town (B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.)

Food (And Drink) For Thought

I read a recent blog post about a coffee shop increasing its clientele thanks to Twitter (and my own thanks to Rachel Reuben for pointing me in the right direction). It’s a great example of businesses engaging their local community through social media, and a great poster child for ROI in social media.

Yet as encouraging as this example is, there’s another way this business and others like it could increase its customer base and profits while reaching out to local social media users – teenagers.

While on Twitter this morning, I noticed a comment by Chris Clayton. He made a valid point that most Tweetups (public get-togethers of Twitter users) are in bars. Since Chris is only 17, he has to wait another year to take part – and there are many other countries where the legal drinking age is more than 18.

This is a huge audience that’s being missed, both by social media and business alike.

While there’s certainly no age barrier to social media, the majority of users are still within the 18-45 age group. A lot of businesses currently using Twitter effectively cater to this audience – technology and new media, for example, are hugely popular in this age group. But what about everyone else?

We talk about opening social media up to a wider audience, to make its tools and applications more approachable. One way of doing this to make it appealing to the non-core audience. This is where local businesses can really come in and claim a huge slice of the pie.

Take Chris’s example. He’s not old enough to drink at bars but he wants to get together with other local Twitter users of his age. I asked the Twitter community earlier about solutions, and the majority that came back were coffee shops, bagel shops and similar. And as the example of CoffeeGroundz shows at the start of this post, it works.

So here’s the pitch, local cafe and coffee/bagel shop owners.

  1. Get yourself on Twitter.
  2. Use the community to find out who the younger users neighbourhood are.
  3. Offer your place of business for the occasional Tweetup. If it’s a really good number, how about making it a private couple of hours?
  4. Start a Twitter group for your business and get the local teenagers to join it so you can post details of the latest Tweetup for everyone to see.

With one simple action, you’ve not only established a presence with your online and offline community, but you’ve also reached an audience that’s sorely underused. And you don’t even have to stop there – for adults that don’t particularly like bars, reach out to them too.

For the teenagers looking to find a place to meet other Twitter users in your city? Get some numbers together and take it to your local coffee shop. Show why it’d be worth it for them to let you arrange a Tweetup. Make sure you all buy at least a coffee or one item from the menu – after all, the business is helping you. Return the favour.

There’s a big chunk of business out there just waiting for someone. Ready to grab it?

Social Media for Soccer Lovers

Let's Make a Soccer Team!
Image via Wikipedia

We’re all part of a team. Our communities are our fellow players and our thought-leaders are our coaches and managers. Our blog readers and our followers on Twitter are our supporters (and we’re theirs). The mediums we use are our playing fields.

There are eleven players in a soccer team with (usually) four different tasks. Who would they be in a social media soccer team?

  1. Goalkeeper. The guy that can decide whether your team wins, draws or loses. The wall to keeping your opponents from scoring, who’ll have your team’s back at all times. Solid and reliable. Suggested goalkeepers: Darin Berntson, Roger Byrne, Lizz Harmon and Iggy Pintado.
  2. Defender. Normally most soccer teams play with four defenders, although three and five can be used too. They’re the guys that will protect the goalkeeper at all costs, while setting up plays from the back to move the game forward. They’re the stalwarts of any great team. Suggested defenders: Justin Levy, Beth Harte, Susan Murphy, Kathryn Jennex, Cheryl Gain, Jacob Morgan and Keren Dagan.
  3. Midfielder. The engine of any soccer team, the midfielders have a lot of ground to cover. They’re responsible for defending the team as well as leading by example and encouraging the attack. Suggested midfielders: Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Mack Collier, David Alston, Jason Tryfon and Ari Herzog.
  4. Strikers. The glamour players of any soccer team. These are the guys that can lead your team to glory and they can do so by scoring either a spectacular goal or a simple tap-in. They can be quiet during a game but they always have the explosive moment in them that changes the game. Suggested strikers: Amber Naslund, Shannon Paul, David Mullen, Scott Stratten and Dave Fleet.

These are my first-team players. Who would be in your soccer team?

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The Best Things in Life Really ARE Free

Jump on the social media bandwagon
Image by Matt Hamm via Flickr

I saw something interesting today. There’s a website that offers “social media certification”. Its blurb mentions that for only $1495, you will receive the following benefits:

  • Intensive CSMMC (Certified Social Media Marketing Coach/Consultant) 12-week certification program
  • 12 one-hour high-impact interactive classes and 1 bonus session
  • An intensive content-rich training manual
  • Links and resources “worth thousands”
  • A web-based interactive forum

Sounds great – a certification that will allow you to become a social media consultant/expert for less than $1500 and within 12 weeks of knowing nothing about social media. What are you waiting for?

Forgive me if I sound blase, but this just doesn’t seem right.

Twelve hours to learn all you need to know that will have you consulting businesses counting on your social media knowledge? Twelve hours to get deep into what it is that makes social media work and what doesn’t? Twelve hours to learn what the highly-respected social media guys have taken years to learn, and continue to learn?

I don’t know. Maybe the guy that runs this course can teach you how to be a social media consultant and the $1500 is worth every one of your pennies. After all, his profile certainly reads well.

But you know what – you can pretty much already get this information and best of all it’s free.

Listen to guys like Chris Brogan, Christopher S. Penn, David Alston, Peter Kim, Amber Naslund and Justin Levy. These guys are telling you all these things and more every day. On Twitter. On their blogs. On video blogs.

If you really want a certificate to say you’ve completed a tele-seminar, by all means go with the CSMMC course. After all, free advice can’t be as good as paid advice, right?

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The Thing About Blog Comments Is…

"Point of View" binoculars in West Seattle
Image by jcolman via Flickr

They’re a privilege, not a right. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean that in an elitist or dictator-type way. After all, comments are the passengers to the bus driver that is the blog author. They’re what makes the trip so enjoyable.

Yet it’s still at the discretion of the bus driver whether it’s a private journey or an open one.

Which is why you’ll see some blogs requiring you to register before commenting; some with no comment options at all; and others that are open-ended and encourage comments wholeheartedly. I’ve always been of the last mindset, as are the majority of bloggers.

Yet this is what also makes them a privilege. When you comment, it’s at the invitation of the blogger. Blogs don’t have to offer comments, although they’re missing out if they don’t (just my opinion). The blogger is essentially inviting the readers into his or her house. You wouldn’t trash a house you’re a guest in, would you?

So why the equivalent in comments?

Here’s an example. On one of Chris Brogan’s recent posts, a comment was left that disagreed with the post in question by a visitor called Agitationist. Fair enough. Yet the person then went on to say, “I hope you?ll take this constructively, but your writing is very sloppy. Ending a sentence with ‘and things like that’ is just lazy.”

We all like (or need) constructive criticism – it’s how we grow and evolve into being better at whatever we do. But calling someone lazy and sloppy isn’t constructive, in my book. If anything, it seems a little vindictive. Jealousy, perhaps? But constructive – no.

Blogs used to have a reputation of being childish – a waste of time for loners in their bedrooms.This view is still entertained in certain circles, but by and large blogs are now more respected than much of mainstream media. Much of this is due to people like Chris Brogan, Rob Scoble, Peter Kim and others.

Blogs are growing up. This is thanks to both the bloggers and the commentators that combine to offer a truly interactive learning space. It’s not too much to ask that we show the host and the home a little respect, is it?

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