Tag: Social media

Posted on June 15th, 2021

Achieve Massive Business Growth by Setting Goals

  • Business Growth
  • Entrepreneur
  • Goals
  • Strategy

Let’s talk about goal setting. I mean both setting the goals and making sure you are actually achieving them.

Many articles and books are written about achieving your goals. But what was tested by actual people? What works?

I recently joined the board of an entrepreneurial organization run by volunteers. The leader, an experienced business person, helped us adopt a goal-setting framework. I think it is absolutely amazing because it kept us on track and we achieved what we set out to accomplish. 

I’d like to share the framework with you so your group, and you personally, can become better at achieving your goals. The example below is designed for interactive groups, but the concepts can also be used for creating individual goals. 

 

Use The Goal Framework

The Goal Framework consists of several elements. 

The two main elements are yearly goals and quarterly goals.

In addition to your business goals, you can have personal goals.

In our group, we established our yearly and quarterly goals, and each person chose their own goals. We went around the room, and each member talked about their goals. 

Typically, you would have three to seven goals. These could be yearly goals and quarterly goals you want to accomplish as a group. 

The key to creating a plan for achieving your group goals is to establish what they are as a group, but then funnel them down to an individual level. 

 

Set manageable goals   

 

Set up three to seven concrete yearly goals

Why three to seven? It’s a good number. Manageable. Achievable. 

You don’t want to set up 20 goals. That’s too many. And you don’t want too few goals either. So three to seven is a good bracket. 

The group has to agree on the goals. Choose the big goals you would want to complete within a year. 

You will also have your personal goals. Those are the objectives you want to accomplish over the next quarter as an individual member of the group. 

Choose a reasonable number of goals you want to achieve in a specified period of time. I can easily put down 200 goals on one list, but it’s not very realistic for me to accomplish those.

Next, define all your goals in specific and concrete terms so you know how to determine whether you’ve achieved them.

 

Set up the scorecards

Every goal, whether group or personal, yearly or quarterly, has to be measurable. Determine how you will measure each goal.

Here are some examples of measurable goals you might have:

  • Hit $1 million in revenue this year.
  • Retain 100% of our clients.
  • Bring on 100 more clients. 

Whatever the goals are, they become concrete once you write them down. Use the scorecards to clearly define your goals and then keep track of them with regular frequency, e.g., over the month, quarter, and year. 

 

Prioritize your goals

Chances are you’ve seen a few viral videos on Facebook about the rocks, pebbles, and sand in a jar. 

The moral of the story is if you fill the jar with sand first (least important things in your life), you won’t have space for the bigger stones. But if you fill the jar with big rocks first (most important things in life) and then add pebbles (next set of important things), you will still have plenty of space for the sand – your least important, but perhaps fun, things.

Apply that metaphor to your goals. Look at what you want to accomplish from an annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, or even sometimes hourly perspective. 

 

Your big goals are your rocks. What will they be? 

 

Keep yourself accountable 

When you’re running a business, it’s hard to keep up with all the tasks. 

A year may go by, and you might find yourself thinking, “Oh my, I didn’t even get to one of these goals, let alone seven!” 

Having this framework will help you keep you on track. 

If you set your goals and store the list on your computer or in a file cabinet, nothing will get done. That’s why you need scorecards. 

 

Scores cards will keep you accountable.

To make sure you are keeping on track with your goals, you have to check in once a week, month, quarter and once a year with your team and/or with yourself. 

It’s good to get in the habit of checking things off monthly. I like to check my quarterly goals monthly. For monthly goals, I like to do it weekly. 

It’ll help you keep a pulse on your business. It doesn’t mean you have to do something in particular, but it helps you see where you are with your goals. Put an actual date and time on your calendar to check in, and review those goals to see your progress. 

For example, if your goal was to have 10 new clients in a month, you can check your scorecard after the month lapses to see whether you’ve achieved your goal. Did you get 10 new clients? If not, what happened? What can you do better? What are the next steps?

Checking in with yourself will allow you to stay on top of your goals. If you see you are not achieving them, you’ll have a chance to choose a different course of action or adjust your goals accordingly. Either way, you will keep moving forward. 

 

Conclusion

Goal setting is necessary to accomplish what you want in life. But if it’s done as loosely as new year’s resolutions, you won’t achieve much. 

If you are a solopreneur and don’t have a peer group to help you with your goal setting and accountability, this goal-setting framework is your solution. 

Having a framework for setting manageable, achievable goals and then keeping yourself accountable for achieving them is key to both your business and personal success. Set, prioritize, monitor, and enjoy your accomplishments.

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Posted on March 22nd, 2021

Retire or Not Retire: That Is the Question

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Goals
  • Business Growth
  • Entrepreneur
  • Goals
  • Leadership
  • Mindset
  • Strategy

For a long time, retirement has been regarded as the ultimate goal of a person’s work life. You work so you can retire in comfort. Typically, that would involve a pension and maybe a golden watch from the company you worked for. That is not my situation or the situation of many modern workers. When I think of retirement, I begin to puzzle. At what age? For what reason?

How? Where?

What are the reasons you would want to retire? I came up with these three:

  1. You don’t want to work anymore
  2. You are of age when working is hard
  3. You want to do what you have always wanted to do but postponed till retirement

I’ve tried on these reasons for size and realized that none of them fit me. What about you?

Read on, and let me know how you think of yourself at the typical retirement age and what you would want for yourself.

Reason #1: You don’t want to work anymore

Being an entrepreneur, I cannot wrap my head around the traditional views on retirement. I can’t imagine myself not doing what I love because I turn 65. How would that work? At 64, I am happy to be running a business, helping other entrepreneurs, and at 65, I would stop enjoying it? It doesn’t make sense to me that the age – a number – would dictate when I would stop working.

If you are not enjoying what you are doing, why are you doing it in the first place? It’s not for nothing people keep repeating this quote, attributed to Mark Twain: “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

If you don’t want to stop doing what you love just because you hit a certain age, what else may make you want to retire?

Reason #2: You are of age when working is hard

The age of 65 has long been regarded as the retirement age. I am sure governments had very good reasons for establishing it. The fact that we do age and our capacity to perform diminishes with age has to be accounted for. But here is where I turn to people such as Dr. David Sinclair for a different perspective. His book Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To is a hot commodity these days. It challenges the notion that by 65 most of us walk around with broken bodies and dull minds. Peter Diamandis’ conference Abundance 360 highlights the same message – we are living longer and healthier lives. If that’s the case, why would we not work longer, enjoying doing what we are doing?

By 65, you will have amassed incredible experience; you are still full of energy and vigor; and now you are wise too. I think it would be amazing to see what we can be when we are at the top of our game and still have a long way to go before we feel the need to slow down, whatever our mission.

Once you address the question of needing to retire at 65 because of old age or poor health, since neither may be true for you, what’s left?

Reason #3: You get to do what you always wanted but couldn’t

The final argument is you want to retire so you can finally do the things you want to do! Let me ask you this, then: why are you putting off doing all the things you want to do??? I want to travel now. And I do (minus the COVID situation, of course). If you want to take up a hobby, why wait? What’s stopping you from pursuing the things you want to do? True, maybe you don’t have the time to do everything you want to do right this moment, but if you plan it out over the course of some years, surely you can manage to have the experiences you crave to have before you hit 65.

The question is not whether or not you have the time. The question is how to make it work today.

Conclusion

Once I ran through these three reasons for retirement, I saw that I am not planning on retiring at all. It’s true that life happens, and perhaps I will not be as healthy at 65 as I think I ought to be. But that only ups the stakes for the need to experience life now. By the time I get to that age, it might be too late. Today is all we have, and I don’t want to miss out on all it has to offer because I decided to wait till retirement

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Posted on March 11th, 2021

How Long Should My Social Video Be?

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Growth
  • Content Marketing
  • Facebook
  • Social Media
  • Strategy
  • Uncategorized

“How long should my social videos be?” From all the presentations I’ve given and all the prospective and actual clients I’ve talked to, it’s the number one question I get asked. 

The answer is it depends. It depends on who you are, what you’re doing, the nature of your business, and, most importantly, whom you want to reach – your target audience and where they are within their buyer’s journey. That’s why before telling you how long your social videos should be, I need to explain what you need to know first.

Where should I post my video?

Post your videos where your audiences are hanging out. 

If your audiences are under the age of 30, TikTok would be a great place to start posting video content. 

For B2B businesses and those working with corporations, LinkedIn is the place to go. 

If your business is about entrepreneurship and you want to reach regular people thinking of setting up their businesses, Facebook and Instagram are good places to post videos. 

If you want to talk to seasoned fellow entrepreneurs, LinkedIn might be a better channel for you.

Relating video length to the funnel

Now back to the question about the length of your videos. 

Every platform has a recommended video length. If you’re on TikTok, you can’t create videos longer than a minute, for example. 

But let’s go beyond that. Before creating your videos, figure out what portion of your target audience you are trying to reach and where they are in your funnel. Their place in your funnel will determine the length of the videos you create for them. 

Top of the funnel – shorter videos

Those at the top of the funnel are people who’ve never heard of you, your brand or your offer.

For such people, who don’t know you but want to learn more about you, 1-2 minute videos work well. They would be willing to invest only a couple of minutes in your content to see what you’re about.

Middle of the funnel – 5-10-minute videos

People in the middle of the funnel are those who know a little bit about you and your offer, seen some of your content or watched some of your videos. 

These people are most likely engaging with, commenting on, and watching your videos. They may be willing to watch more of your content and of longer duration. 

I do 10-minute Facebook Live videos for my business to target people in the middle of my funnel. These audiences already know who I am and then see the specific content I create for them.

Bottom of the funnel – longer videos

And, of course, the bottom of the funnel is where conversions happen. 

You are safe to create longer videos for this portion of your target audience. These can be your courses, training, and webinars. Design those videos to prompt your viewers to take a specific action – whether it’s filling out a lead, getting on a call, or subscribing to a newsletter.

Conclusion

The length of your social videos should match (1) the requirements of the channel you are posting on and (2) where your target audience is within your funnel. Create 1-2 minutes videos for people at the top of the funnel. Create 5-10 minutes for people in the middle of the funnel. And create longer videos for people at the bottom of the funnel to increase conversions.

 

If you’re not sure if you and your brand – whether it’s your personal or company brand – are getting enough exposure through video content check out THIS blog on the Best Tips on How to Get Past Your Shyness with Video

 

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Posted on January 22nd, 2021

Create Digital Marketing Content for the Entire Month in Just a Few Hours

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Growth
  • Content Marketing
  • Social Media
  • Strategy
  • Uncategorized

We all use content and social media. The challenge I hear from entrepreneurs is they lack the time to create content on social media.

The answer? Repurpose content. It is a key turning point for your business. There is no going back once you realize how easy it is to fill your content calendar with material that you already have. 

Repurposing content is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart; I’ve shared more than a dozen speeches about this. It’s something that’s spoken about on all my social media and in my videos because of how important content is to any business. 

Today you will learn how to create a month’s worth of social media content, in just a few hours, from one video source.

Start with a Video then Chop It Into into smaller segments

You can create a video about your niche for about 10 minutes. Remember to add value to your audiences! It’s not about you, it’s about them!

From that video, you can create enough content for the entire month. You can do that by first chopping up your video into smaller segments, like the following: 

  • 15-second segments for Instagram stories

  • 60-second segments for TikTok

  • Short 1-3 min segments you can repurpose for various platforms

You can also post full-length videos on IGTV, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. They allow for longer videos on those platforms, so if your (or your client’s) audience can be found there, definitely post them. 

Repurpose your video into a podcast

Another thing you can do is repurpose your video into a podcast episode or audio clip. 

I do this all the time. I just strip out the audio from my video and convert it into a podcast episode.

I have a separate podcast where I create audio content – Listen by Jean Ginzburg. Most of the time, I would just repurpose a video that I’ve already recorded.

You can again take that audio and chop it up into smaller segments like you did with the video and then make little sound bites from the audio. 

Create at least one blog post from the video

You can also create at least one blog post out of your source video. 

I go on a platform like Rev.com and get my video transcribed automatically. It’s super fast and cheap. 

It gives you a very good basis for creating a blog post. Typically, I can create two or three blog posts out of one video. If your blog post is around 500 words, you can break it up into one main topic and two to three sub-topics.

So, if you have at least one blog post, you can probably create two or three out of it. 

Because I have the transcription, it makes it even easier to create a blog post from the video. The words are already there; all I need to do is clean it up, organize it and edit it.

Create quotes out of the blog

Out of one blog, I can pull out 10 to 20 quotes, which can be really cool.

You can post these quotes as snippets on social media. Just copy and paste the quotes, put them on your LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram, and add an image to make it look better. 

However, what I’ve been seeing on LinkedIn lately is just plain quotes or text, no image. It seems to get better engagement.

How to make quote images?

From your quotes, you can also create quote images or quote graphics in three easy steps:

  1. Choose a nifty background
  2. Find a relevant and thoughtful quote
  3. Add in your branding

For this task, you can use Canva. It’s free (although note that some template images are not) and it’s quite easy to use. 

You just log in, pick your image template, customize it with your text, and voilà, you have a quote graphic you can download for free. Canva has preset templates for specific platforms. For example, if you want to do an image for Instagram stories, it automatically gives you the size so you don’t have to worry about your graphic being cropped because it was too big or the wrong size. 

Just pick the right template, change the background image, put in your quote, add your logo, and that’s it. Super easy. It takes only about five minutes to create an awesome, shareable image graphic. 

With all of this repurposed content, you can quickly fill your content calendar for the month! 

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Posted on January 18th, 2021

Repurposing Content Through Social: Video

  • #transform
  • Business Growth
  • Content Marketing
  • Facebook
  • Social Media
  • Strategy

In the last several years, social media has really blown up. Especially the last several months, it has gotten even so much bigger because people are staying home and not going out as much — thank you Corona. They’re more on their computers and smartphones, and that means they are much more actively engaging on social media platforms.

This focused attention is the perfect time to take advantage of beginning a conversation with your audience.

The question now is, what is the best way to effectively engage your audience?  The answer – create content.

It could be anything from video and podcasts to social media posts, articles, and blogs. Start a discussion about your area of expertise, what are you good at, what you do, how you do it, how you can help, and generally how you add value to your niche and the lives of your target clients. 

Competition is now getting tight in social media

Now there’s a lot of individuals creating content, and there’s a lot of competition. So you have to stay ahead of the competition and create content regularly.

Maybe a few years ago, it was acceptable to create some content and post it a couple of times a week on social media. Now, because many individuals and brands are on social media, you have to be aware that there’s a lot of competition going on, and your content will get lost and not seen if you don’t post consistently and more often.

The importance of video content

Today’s social media platforms are focusing more and more on video as content.

Facebook, Youtube, Tiktok, and Instagram favor video a lot more than they used to in the past. Social media platforms are moving in the direction of the video.

Also, video is something that would be very beneficial because it’s much easier to connect and convey your message through compared to written words and images. Your audiences can see your personality and how you put yourself together. They get an in-depth feel for you by just watching a 1-minute or 10-minute video! 

Repurposing video content

For content purposes, it’s easier to create a video and then repurpose it. 

With a single video, you can create audios, transcribe it, get quotes, and even split it into several blog posts. 

It’s a very versatile type of medium that you can repurpose in many different ways down the line. 

Best practices for making your video content

Live videos on social media are the best — Facebook lives, YouTube lives, and Instagram lives. They are favored very much so by the social media networks. These platforms put you front and center in your Live videos. 

If you aren’t comfortable creating lives, I would also recommend doing just regular videos. It is as easy as using your phone and starting to create videos. 

When it comes to creating video, audio is crucial because if your audio sucks, then it is probable that your audiences are not going to finish watching the rest of the video. So use a microphone!

Lighting is essential for your video too, so people will see you and your products easier. It allows you to set the mood for the video.

Lastly, depending on the platform, match your orientation, whether it’s horizontal or vertical.  Horizontal tends to be the most commonly used: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter videos are either horizontal or square. But if you’re doing lives on Instagram, use vertical.

Now go out there and start creating content for your brand!

 

— Published on 1/18/2021

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Posted on January 12th, 2021

3 Handy Tips on How to Get Past Your Shyness with Video

  • #sales
  • Business
  • Business Growth
  • Content Marketing
  • Entrepreneur
  • Social Media
  • Strategy

Video is now an established part of social media. It blew up some years ago with the advent of YouTube, and it’s here to stay. But YouTube, that has been around since 2005, is no longer the only place for video. 

Facebook and Instagram started off as social networks and image platforms, but now Facebook has a dedicated video tab, and both platforms are now very big on video content, including Facebook’s Live video and Instagram’s IGTV. 

And now we also have TikTok, a whole platform for videos under a minute long. 

Billions of people use these platforms. 

The question is, are you using social video to reach those people? 

Are you and your brand – whether it’s your personal or company brand – getting exposure  through video content?

Dive into video

It’s no longer a question of “Are you doing videos?” Because you should! 

What does video look like for your brand now? Have you produced any? 

If you still haven’t, start today. Just dive right into it. Try using the Live video feature on Facebook. 

If you’ve posted your marketing and company materials on your Facebook page, you probably have at least a hundred followers. Going live means you go out to those followers via a live video stream. They get alerted that you’ve started a Live video. 

It’s easy to do. When you feel good, have something to say about your niche and have it clear in your head, just press the button and go live. 

Don’t overthink it. You might be surprised at how well you do when you just do it without worrying too much. 

It doesn’t have to be long. Just say hi, and then talk about your tip or share something useful to your audience. It has to be something valuable for your viewers. Hook them with a question they want to know the answer to, and then give them that answer. 

That’s it! 

And if you make a mistake, so what? You can laugh about it. People aren’t perfect, and people love people being people! Live-streamed video is where entrepreneurs get tripped up the most, but it’s really the easiest way of getting into video. 

And guess what? It disappears after 24 hours. So if you didn’t like your live stream much, that’s fine. It goes away! If you like it, you can save it. You can use your phone’s screen recorder to capture your live video so you can repost it if you want.

Not comfortable going live? Pre-record your video and then post it on social media. 

Record a very simple video. Just use your phone. Most smartphones now are equipped with very robust high resolution cameras. It’s quite amazing, really. You don’t even need any special equipment or any high end cameras to do a video these days. 

Just. Start. Recording. 

Get your topic and hook in your head. You might not need notes because you’ll keep your video short.

If it’s short, you might be able to do it in one take. If you do multiple takes, you can cut out the parts you don’t like and stitch the video so it runs smoothly. 

Either way, I highly recommend editing your videos. You can hire a professional, someone at Upwork or Fiverr, to edit your videos. But it’s easy to learn how to edit videos yourself with modern apps, such as Wondershare Filmora, Animoto and InVideo. 

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok all have simple editing tools, so you can easily trim your videos to the right length and even add filters to them for more flattering lighting or styles. 

Just two important elements

Although editing is important, you don’t have to fuss about it too much. Your video doesn’t have to be perfect. What’s important is your content — it’s the value you bring to your target audience. 

But for your video to be effective, it needs to have two important elements: good lighting and good audio.

Audio

If your audience can’t hear you because of crappy audio, they won’t watch or listen to your video at all. 

Invest in a lavalier mic you can clip on your top, a good mic you can plug into your phone or a podcasting mic. 

Your computer and phone mics are probably fine as well! If you’re somewhere quiet, your audio should be clear enough. 

But because audio is super important, I do recommend a microphone (although I don’t always use it myself). Your good audio will also come in handy when you want to transcribe your video so you can repurpose it as a webinar or a blog post. 

Lighting

When it comes to video content, a less than perfect image is more forgiving than less than perfect audio. If your lighting isn’t good, it’s not the end of the world, but you do risk losing your viewers’ attention. To avoid that fate, try to have good lighting and a non-distracting background, such as a wall or curtains. 

I usually use a ring light to illuminate my face in videos. A ring light with a tripod is around $35 on Amazon.

Push past your perfectionism

Often, entrepreneurs tell me they stopped producing video content because their videos weren’t great. Push through that. Keep doing videos until you’ve pushed past your perfectionism.

Believe me, when I started making video content, I sucked at it big time. You can go to my YouTube channel and find the first video I’ve ever done. It’s pretty crappy. 

There is no shame in having imperfect videos. We’re all crappy when we start. Unless you have experience with public speaking and being on camera, your first videos will be crappy. 

To get good at making good videos, you have to get through the first 50, maybe even 100, bad, mediocre, middling videos! Unless you have experience with producing video content, it’ll take some time to start making great videos. 

It took me a while to do live videos because I didn’t feel confident enough in the beginning. 

You might feel the same way, but don’t get discouraged. Keep making videos so you can get past your perfectionism and get comfortable with the camera. 

Pro tip: Try a teleprompter app. You’ll feel more confident because you pre-feed what you want to say into the app and then just read it out. I use the app when I do more refined videos for marketing or branding. 

You’ll soon get used to doing it off the cuff, like I have, but if you need some structure without having to memorize your content, try a teleprompter app. 

And you just might surprise yourself by going off-script and learning to talk comfortably on-camera! 

If you are not on the video marketing bandwagon yet, get on it today! With modern technologies, such as high-quality phone cameras and editing apps, it’s easy to do. Just make sure you have something to say, use good lighting, and have great audio.

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Posted on November 13th, 2020

How to Get More Sales with Webinar Funnels

  • #sales
  • Business
  • Business Growth
  • Entrepreneur
  • Strategy

You’ve probably seen promotional posts about webinars, and attended webinars, or perhaps even hosted webinars. 

What are webinar funnels? Simply put, it’s using webinars to funnel clients to your high-ticket items. 

How webinar funnels work 

Like any other content, webinars present information, but the difference between blogs and webinars is that webinars can be made more personal. You do a video or a Live webinar and your audience joins and interacts with you, making it a perfect opportunity to truly connect while also demonstrating your expertise and mentioning your product, service or digital course.  

For example, you might attend a webinar about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and at the end, the presenter will sell a product or course on topics associated with SEO.

That’s a webinar funnel.

After they’re done with the webinars, set up a funnel so that you can continuously get in touch with your attendees and then ask them to jump on a call with you.

Webinar funnels keep the opportunities for conversation open. It’s not like if they don’t jump on a call with you right away and schedule a follow-up, then the potential for a conversation is lost. 

On the contrary, a funnel opens the conversation again and says, “Hey, would you like to schedule a call with me? It seems like you were interested in what we spoke about in the webinar or it appears as though you watched it all the way to the end. I would love to schedule some time with you.”

You send these messages as they become applicable. That’s the funnel part of the webinar.

Webinar funnels like this are very successful. You just need to know who your ideal target market is, what their pain points may be, and use those insights to create a webinar that truly speaks to them and about which they would want to engage with you further.

Get started with webinars

Webinars are easy and simple enough to plan and create. It’s your area of expertise, you have plenty to say about this, so it’s no problem! The challenge is to break things down into digestible topics. 

Platforms make it really easy to create webinars.

Promote your webinar to Facebook, your LinkedIn, and all your social media platforms. Send it to your email list 

You can also make your webinar automated. You don’t have to be there as the presenter each time. Just record it once and then you can have an automated webinar sequence or funnel.

Upload the webinars to the platform, and set up the time that the webinar will start. 

The drawback here is your audience can’t ask questions, and you, in turn, can’t answer those questions– they can only watch. With a live webinar, your audience can type in questions in real-time. 

So a pre-recorded webinar is more of an informational video. And audiences can still engage with the content in the video.

Sell your high-ticket items through a webinar funnel

There are two ways you can promote and sell your product or services through a webinar. 

  • Sell after the webinar and actually have them buy right there. 
  • Provide a link to a calendar application (like Calendly) where they can schedule a time to meet with you. And then you can sell the high ticket item during that meeting/call. 

A webinar funnel is a great way to sell high-ticket items, especially mastermind classes, one-on-one coaching, or anything above $10,000. 

They work really well because your target client feels like a VIP and is more easily convinced to purchase your high-ticket item. 

Create your webinar funnel today and let me know how it works for you!

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