How Google+ Is Different From Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn

Once You Get It. You Get It.

+Google+ is quickly gaining adoption and finding itself integrated in all corners of the web from +Sarah Hill‘s work on +KOMU 8 News‘ interactive live format featuring Hangouts, to +HuffPost Live‘s adoption of hangouts and audience participation.

Unlike the three other major social networks, Google+ works a little differently. Of course you can use Google+ to connect with your friends, colleagues and family, but there is so much more you can gain from it. Continue reading How Google+ Is Different From Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn

Get Notified When People Post on Google+

How to Create a Subscription Circle on Google+

Google+ gives you the opportunity to sort your contacts by interests, topics or whatever you would like. You can create as many circles as you’d like and put people in multiple circles. As you continue to use the social network, you might find yourself following thousands of interesting and unique people from around the world. But, how do you keep yourself from missing out on the posts from the 10 or 20 users you really want to follow?

Thanks to Google’s circle “volume” controls, for a long time you were able to control the prevalence of posts from particular circles within your stream. However, now with the added “Notification” setting, you can get a notification every time someone in a particular circle posts something. Continue reading Get Notified When People Post on Google+

How to Create Consistency Across Your Brand

So, here you are. You’ve arrived. You’re on Google+ and probably at least a half dozen or so other social networks. So what’s next?

If you’re here for a particular reason, maybe you’re a content creator, a brand ambassador or a marketer looking to gain exposure to your content, or you’re just here building your personal brand, it’s important to keep things consistent.

Think about the air pressure in your tires, if you have one under-inflated, two over-inflated and one at the right pressure, your car probably isn’t going to get the best gas mileage or keep you going in the right direction without a little help from you. Marketing yourself online is actually very similar. Continue reading How to Create Consistency Across Your Brand

Embracing Failure: Why Learning How to Fail Will Help You Succeed

Old Flying Machine
Old Flying Machine

One of the biggest things I have learned over the past few months is how important it is to fail. You can read about it from so many prominent authors, and hear about it from so many successfully people, but it won’t start to make sense until you start to embrace your failures.

Continue reading Embracing Failure: Why Learning How to Fail Will Help You Succeed

Your Social Media Strategy

I’m not a Social Media Expert. 

But, I have learned a few things that could help you, your business and your brand in creating a successful online engagement experience for your customers.

One of the things I keep on my business card is “Experiencial Design” because I think something that customers of this age look for is not only a good product or service, but a great customer experience.

Take a look at what you’re doing with your current strategy and ask yourself if you are really engaging your customers or just pushing things out there without paying attention to what they’re saying. To find out more, watch my latest episode.

How to Make It Work is also available on Tivo, Roku and Blip.tv

Do You Want to Make an Impact?

Do You Want to Make an Impact?
Do You Want to Make an Impact?

It seems as the global population grows, more and more people feel the need to “make an impact.” This philosophy of making a difference with your life has really got me thinking a lot about how the way we think is changing. As future generations become more and more “mainstream” there seems to be less diversity in our occupations and less time away from work.

America (and other Western countries) are shifting more and more towards service and away from industry. Not too long ago it was common to have coal miners and factory workers as your neighbors. They were good people, working hard for an honest living. Now, in the suburbs of America, it seems that most of us work in cube farms providing services for other individuals and businesses.

There is nothing terribly wrong with a shift from blue collar to white collar work, but it seems as though we are finding our jobs more and more mundane and they are taking up more and more of our time. No longer do we have 40-hour work weeks with worry-free weekends. Instead, we drag ourselves into the office each morning and try to pry ourselves out sometime in the evening. The work doesn’t stop there, though. Usually there is a Blackberry or other device constantly reminding us of our occupational duties.

I think that our increasing passion to make a difference comes from the separation of ourselves from our vocation. No one wants to be known as a “project contributor” and they probably don’t want to define their life by that. I, for one, want to die being “the person that…” and I don’t think I am alone.

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” – Jackie Robinson

It doesn’t matter what your passion is, but I bet you it probably isn’t related to your work. If you love doing what you do, then consider yourself lucky. But, if you are like so many other people, what drives you to be independent, to succeed at something? Is it money? Is it happiness, fame? Why do you want to make an impact?

If one thing is for certain (well two, if you count taxes) we have a limited amount of time to enrich our lives and the lives of others. So putting your nose to the grind and finding something that will benefit not only yourself, but others—and possibly society—is a huge desire.

“I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around smart people who are trying to figure out new things. I like the fact that if people really try they can figure out how to invent things that actually have an impact.” – Bill Gates

I would love to make an impact on the world, but I don’t think that is going to happen, so I’ll settle on making an impact to my audience. I have been working hard to create content, engage my audience and build a tribe. Hopefully when I move on to do other things, create other products and services, I might have a few members of that tribe standing behind me. But, as I am doing all of this I need to keep focused on what pays the bills and keeps the lights on at home.

Perhaps in a few years I will hit a breakthrough and finally find myself loving what I’m doing. Until then, I’m going to keep trying to put a dent in a few people’s trains of thought. The universe comes later.

How to Use Google Plus for Your Brand

Google Plus for your Business
What is Google+?

Last night I was asked to speak at Ross Jones‘ IMD405 Internet Marketing class at The Art Institute of Nashville. Ross and I met at the SpeakerUp meeting for the 2012 Podcamp Nashville as we are both interested in speaking this year about our perspective niches.

Ross is a SEO expert and has been doing it for longer than most people knew what Search Engine Optimization was. Ross owns a business called 2 the Top Design where he helps businesses get their website optimized for search engines and in turn, getting them more leads.

Continue reading How to Use Google Plus for Your Brand

Amazon.com Unveils New Website Design

After midnight, Amazon released a fresh new makeover to their e commerce website. Although there was not information available from their Press section, the new design is much sleeker, trimmer and visually appealing than previous versions. If you haven’t seen the new design, check it out here, using this affiliate link.

13 YouTubers You Should Circle & Subscribe

And some really good reasons why.

Sharing quality content is what drives the Internet. +YouTube is the one-stop-shop for all things relating to, well, everything. So, with 48 hours of content uploaded every minute, it can be difficult to filter through all of the not-so-good stuff. In an effort to help you, here are 13 YouTubers that I reallylike and why. Some of them you might know, but hopefully others will be completely new to you.

Continue reading 13 YouTubers You Should Circle & Subscribe