A Penchant for Podcasts

Podcast or online radio show? Is there a difference?

Yes. Radio is more regimented; podcasting is more lax.

Step into the Social Tech Zone. Frank Angelone is your guide to moving a podcast from nothing into something in one, two, three. His own podcasts are entertaining and informative, where you get to meet entrepreneurial leaders of the day. Frank takes some time to offer up tips for those who are new to podcasting.

Rule number one: find a schedule that works for you.

You’ll have to watch for the rest of the tips. :) This broadcast aired September 26, 2013.

When Web Design Meets Book Publishing

Nazim Beltran likes to look at himself as a renegade American. While web design is his business, he has the solution for a struggling book publishing industry: integrating desktop publishing with an interactive media that is optimized for tablets and other mobile devices.

This broadcast aired September 27, 2013.

Steve Slaunwhite Brings Words To Life

Introduction:

The broadcast from October 4, 2013.

How Pinterest Boards Can Grow Your Business

Pinterest boards can grow your business. Just ask Cynthia Sanchez of Oh So Pinteresting.

When she launched her blog to see what kind of business she could build online, Pinterest gave her the storefront she needed. She learned the ins and outs of using the platform, and then she shared her findings with others.

Pins can be as simple as slapping a message onto a colored background, but a pin can be worth a lot when it links back to your Pinterest site, your website, and your other networks. It can help you brand your image, build your audience, and communicate a message.

In the screenshot above, the red arrows point to the various ways a Pinterest board can be leveraged as a marketing tool.

You can take a picture of anything: a glass of juice, a cream, a clove of garlic. Then perhaps overlay text and show something like the six benefits of garlic. When you pin the image, you can describe it and add a clickable link to your blog or website. If the pin is compelling enough, it will get liked and repinned. Every time someone repins a pin, that pin links back to you.

The people who may benefit the most from watching the following interview are the newbies who haven’t yet set up their Pinterest boards. They get the full benefit of Cynthia Sanchez’s instruction. The rest of us who are already there will realize we have a lot of work to get our Pinterest boards up to speed.

This show streamed on November 1, 2013.

Braxton Cosby: A Transmedia Storyteller

There is more than one way to tell a story and more than one story for many people.

Dr. Braxton Cosby has it covered: radio, podcasts, books, film, and webcasts.

He recently published The School of Ministry: The Windgate, which had picked up two awards at the time of this broadcast: Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal Award for Young Adult – General and Literary Classics Gold Medal for Faith Based Young Adult, along with Literary Classics coveted Seal of Approval. It is a story of a young man who witnesses his parents’ murder at age 6, then jumps around in foster homes. It’s about his struggle to find his place in life. Braxton describes it in more detail and you just don’t want him to stop. No doubt it is award-winning.

His first novel, Protostar: The Star-Crossed Saga won the 2012 Readers Favorite Book of the Year Award for Romance: Fantasy-Sci-Fi category.

Dr. Cosby co-hosts Ask the Fat Doctors with 10-year NFL veteran Jamie Dukes, Dr. Terrence M. Fullum, and Tee Foxx of Foxx Entertainment Group. Ask the Fat Doctors is a weekly radio program that offers entertaining clinical help for those who have a vested interest in wellness. The show is also available for download in audio and video podcasts.

While Dr. Cosby has several books lined up in the cue, he is also working on a movie and works in long-term care orthopedics.

His storytelling about obesity comes down to one main theme, according to Dr. Cosby: too much volume. Eat less and move more is the key to combat it, which is why he blogs about it, too.

Dr. Braxton Cosby is a multi-platform storyteller, a healer, and has been selected as one of Jezebel Magazine’s 2013 Most Beautiful Atlantians.

The show aired November 8, 2013.

A Community Manager Is PR and Marketing Wrapped in One

What Is A Community Manager?

The correct question should be WHO is your community manager?

A community manager is a connector who connects people, ideas, and messages. He/she is the voice of the brand to customers, and voice of the customers to the brand — in as real time as possible.

Not anyone can be a community manager. First, you must know and BE IN social media. You must know the key platforms and have a respective following that you manage regularly. If this isn’t a part of your every day job description, don’t bother applying for a job as a community manager.

This is a position all to itself. Companies don’t know what a community manager does, they only know they need one, but they can’t say why.

Whether or not the company president, the public relations manager, or the sales executive has a social media account — it doesn’t matter. The customer/consumer does. That is where many try to reach the company.

If you factor in that people under 35 have never lived without a personal computer, that Facebook is already six years old, and that YouTube is the second largest search engine, the chances are more than 90 percent that at least 80 percent of your consumer/clients are communicating in social media. If you don’t believe me, how do you communicate with your 17 year old? You either text him or message him on Facebook because he never answers the phone. Right? Why should your customer be any different?

The community manager is a listener, a guide, a fireman, a connector, a first and last face the consumer sees.

It’s a customer service position on steroids.

It is why companies need to vet a potential hire on the social networks. Degrees mean nothing. You can have a Bachelor of Arts in Marketing, a Doctor of Philosophy, and three Communications Degrees. Nobody has learned this in school. If your future community manager doesn’t have a Facebook account, hasn’t sent a tweet since 2010 or has his tweets protected (like any tweet is that important), doesn’t have a picture or profile information on his/her LinkedIn account, and has no idea what Google Plus is, move on until you find someone who actually knows what they are doing.

The show below aired November 14, 2013.

Create, Curate, and Aggregate

Everybody on the planet has the means to be a publisher.

There is so much content being created daily. A lot of it is being re-shared and collected by those who fall into that category of interest. Then others aggregate and curate the re-shares with their own creations and the cycle continues.

Most of us are guilty of recirculating “drive-by” links. We see something our network might like — or we like it regardless of whether anyone else does — so we hit the share button. We want everyone who follows us to know we like the link. When it shows up in the feed, they see that we shared the link, but they don’t really know why. They assume it is because we liked the story, or we might think they like the story — but is that all? What makes this story more special than the next link in the feed?

Aggregation is basically your collection. It’s the drive-by link you throw in the Facebook feed to be read later. Content curation adds meat to those clicks.

Internet Billboards founder Tom George says you can curate to network and start conversations. He offers some tips on how to provide more value to your shares.

Start with re-titling the article or blog. Add some commentary, such as why you were compelled to share this particular story and maybe what you would like the reader to take away from it. Turn it into a real conversation. If it is appropriate, include others to join the commentary by tagging them. But overall, the original author should feel good about you curating that content. You could even tag him or her to lend thanks for their entry.

Tom talks more curation tips in this interview. It streamed live on November 19, 2013.