I think it was Krishna De that posted on Facebook about The Influencer Project and that’s where I heard about it. “60 Speakers in 60 Minutes” talking about how to increase your influence online in the “shortest marketing conference ever” which broadcast last night at 6pmET (so 11pm here, not too bad for me). And it was FREE, so to me this was perfect. I’ve been listening in on a variety of webinars on about a weekly basis, but I’ve found that I’ve hit about all of those relevant to me and I’ve gotten to the point where I just get frustrated because I’ve got points I want to add and while some webinars do provide you with a way to ask questions, mostly they don’t feature two way conversations. Now the Influencer Project was not going to be a way to provide input, at least not directly on the webinar, but it is an interesting new concept with 60 of mostly top social media professionals, so definitely worth a listen.
I did find I did have a way to make my points by posting on twitter using #influencer, though the points were not in depth as it was hard enough concentrating on the 60 minute spots (especially as I was also doing some other work at the time) and I did make some possible good connections with others following #influencer and got a few more followers on Twitter.
Luckily there will be an mp3 and PDF transcript to go back and review, but for now I thought I’d relate my points made during the original webcast (as with the Twitter feed, it’s in reverse chronological order:
What do you already have that other people don’t — get someone else’s POV to look at it for you #influencer
- Again, not just about products – entertain, inform, inspire #influencer
- @timeontaskva Will need to go back to that minute! Find gifted upandcommers, become an advocate & create an advocate for life #influencer
- Oh, a nice deep moment – listen for the silence #influencer
– need to go back and see who that was, because it was a refreshing moment!
- business model before pursuing fame for fame’s sake #influencer< - downfall of many people
- Share ideas liberally #influencer < - also a big theme tonight
- Listen! #influencer
- I like the way Hank is thinking #influencer
- – that was @hankwasiak – will definitely start following him!
- Get active in other people’s communities – spread where your voice can be heard #influencer
- repeat your tweets @guykawasaki #influencer < - still not sure on the frequency of doing this
- – Then @guykawasaki replied to that and we had a short conversation on the concept that ended with him saying “no guts no traffic”! So looks like guts is one of the things I need to work on!
- become the master, the owner of one specific niche online then do webinars to teach others how to do this #influencer
- A lot of people talking about going offline #influencer we probably do get too comfortable behind the keyboard
- Make the people around you more successful than yourself #influencer
- make something worth talking about (unique, inspiring, awesome) #influencer < - that's the hard part!
- Share good content *check* #influencer
- Learn to talk more about other people #influencer
- Try to be early in the news cycle #influencer < - excellent point
- Defy convention where it’s appropriate #influencer
- Get good at filtering and aggregating content #influencer < - Amen!
- Don’t be afraid to have a point of you & share freely throughout the web (w/social bling) #influencer
- Get co-billed with people with the same audience, difference services/products #influencer
- If people can identify with your story they feel a part of what you are doing #influencer < - I get that!
- Look for multiple circles, multiple spheres of influence #influencer
- Test Drive 3 digital trends per month (or week?) #influencer
– it was per month
So I made points on about 20 of the 60 items. There was some repetition between the points, as you’d expect. There were some points that I didn’t think worth commenting on as it was the same old jargon that you hear over and over, as you’d also expect, but there was very little of that. Mostly it was plain talking about the basic concepts that most of us overlook on a day to day basis because we are too busy getting on with things – or for some, too caught up in just trying to make themselves look good as opposed to relating, sharing, interacting with others.
The one point that I think struck home with me the most — and I now notice that I didn’t comment on at all — was about consistency, as it builds trust amongst your community. A couple of the speakers talked about having a consistent voice, but for me the challenge is in consistency of my activity in my own social media activities to ensure that I have a strong body of content that is interesting and timely. Because, unlike the majority of these speakers and other online marketing consultants that I consider to be top of the field, I also do web development and implementation of search engine optimization and social media techniques for clients, which is very time consuming, my own marketing takes a back seat (like finally moving this blog into my site with WordPress)! Guess it’s time I listen to my own advice and get down to some good old fashioned time management techniques!
So sign up for the mp3 and PDF transcript at http://influencerproject.com and check this out for yourself and let me know your ideas on the 60 points.
If you want to connect with me, click here to see where I am across social media channels or basically follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/ann_donnelly
Go ahead and kick my butt if you see me falling outside any of these good concepts (especially on consistency and time management)!
