bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

Twitter has in my mind reached a tipping point.

Reason being? at a family function last night someone asked me about twitter, something happened this week and suddenly everyone knows about it.

I will check in a few months and see if indeed this week has been it.  It definitely is in conversations it wasn’t last week.

Radio mentions, Skittles, Tv, all these things have combined.

People all over the world are asking the ‘internet guy’ in their frame of reference, what is this twitter?

If you are  a brand who has exposed yourself to this internet guy you are ahead.  For me I highlighted Twitter with Vodafone & Telecom, brands they know.  If you haven’t made the leap you are already behind.

Now twitter has reached this, what is the next step? Monetisation.

Tip of everyones tongues.

And from my readings, observations and looking forward several steps, contextual advertising is the way to go.

Twitter bridges the gap between, locality, motivation, mood that Google doesn’t.

Live, response driven ads, are going to not only help the twitter experience, they will drive a lot of value to users.

Imagine an event being cancelled, a competitor can immediately place an ad saying hey we are still on, for all those that search for the event.  This is timely, relevant and reaches a motivated audience.

That is just one application, same can be for brand monitoring ie search for coca cola, coca cola has a special deal or competition running.

I would certainly pay for an advertisement to pop up everytime someone searched bwagy or ben young.

That’s friday thoughts, have a think, how would you leverage advertising on real time search?

(Note: by definition Google is post-search, it searches events that have already happened, certainly within the frame of reference of someone who wants information from within 15 mins ago).

Workshops & seminars are always great fun, you learn a lot, meet interesting people, get re-enthused with your business.

The real difficulty is taking that away and apply it to your business.

Tom started out by saying that he wasn’t there to introduce something new he was there to remind us of what we already knew when we started out in entrepreneurship but had lost sight of in the heat of the moment.

He was right.

They key points of the day were:
– Write thank you notes. Religiously.
– Small is nothing to be ashamed of.
– Good enough is not a term we should take lightly. We need to be using works like shock and awe.
– #1 word for this market is focus.
– Learn to listen. Not half listen. Really listen. (Hint: take a listening course).
– Adapt small changes which result in behavioural changes.
– The next five years are going to be the defining years of our careers. We need to act on it, not hide from the challenge.

The underlying theme of all this was, the small things matter, they matter now than ever before and this should be our focus.

You can download slides of Tom’s presentation from his blog:
http://www.tompeters.com/entries.php?note=010862.php

Also you can check out my exclusive interview with Tom on Youtube, Ben Young chats with Tom Peters.

The lighting wasn’t great, but audio is, so please listen as the content is mint.

It amazes me how many people ARE NOT doing this, so….

Do you:

1) Have an online business (or storefront)

2) Automated systems to sell your products?

Then you need to be investing in automating your business growth.

How you say?

Invest in:

1) Google Adwords / Yahoo Search Marketing: capture people already motivated in your product and sell to them.

2) Search Engine Optimisation, after above run a Search Engine Optimisation campaign to garner daily free traffic to drive sales.

After three months you will have a fair idea on growth off that and do exactly that.  Grow.

When you watch a movie it is a combination of thousands of different shots, all put together to create a story.

Stand alone they have not nearly as much value as they do together.

A classic example in an action film, is a 2 second shot showing a police car driving through people with one ring of the siren.

The very next shot shows the stars, either in an ambulance, or talking to police, or off to the side talking to one another.  Everything is safe now, it’s ok, what’s next?

That 2 second shot communicates, things have quietened down, everyone is safe (the police have arrived) we can slow down for a while.

Your interactions with your customers are exactly the same, you need to build them into an overall experience.

Tourist operators are fantastic at this, they decide what experience they want to have and ensure that all interactions help build it.

Another example is board rooms, often outside the board room are picture connotating success (mountains, graphs of success, newspaper clippings), the books you can read are on super yahcts, luxury cards, golf.  All things associated with success.  This is a priming tactic so that you walk into the board room thinking of being successful.

What is the story you want your customers to have? Define that, and work backwards.

Ps. Apologies if you never watch a movie the same again!

You know the 6 degrees of separation rule.

It is even smaller online.  In New Zealand apparently it’s 2 degrees of separation to everyone.  If two people are on Twitter or LinkedIn I would guess most people would be 2 maybe 3 degrees of separation (especially for larger networks).

I would like a quick app, I could load up my Twitter + LinkedIn (Facebook for others) and it analyses my networks and theirs (first level only).  

Then all i do is enter a name, it searches those, and lets me know who I know someone through.

It would be fantastic! At a conference I could put someones name in see if I know someone they do, instant conversation starter.  Someone pitching to me, same deal.

The world is all about relationships, someone please build this.  Give me this app now!

It would make social interactions such a breeze.

When did you last say thanks?

And really meant it?

Thanks shows appreciation.

Thanks shows you care.

Thanks shows you notice.

Thanks shows your human.

Thanks shows I’m important.  And that should be important to you.

When you are stuck in the trenches battling you inevitably hit some hurdles and need inspiration.

Inherently we are somewhat intrinsically motivated but even that can falter.

When I set up up bwagy I needed something to remind me, that yes you are doing the right thing and you should never give up.

What I did was search for ‘internet marketing’ on Seek a local job site, grab the rss feed and add it to Google Reader.

Therefore whenever a job came up it would load into my feed.  Now the key was this was always unexpected, unanticipated and it has arrived at a few crucial times. 

1) When my two biggest clients delayed payment for almost two months which in the life of a 6 month old company is tough.

2) When I started 2009 to find all contracts were on hold.

I was flicking through my reader and they would pop up.  This would remind me of a few things:

1) Of what I didn’t want to be doing which was working in a job I didn’t like.

2) Not to give up.

3) A bit of an external nudge to keep going.

I reflected on this today as I came across another item and how much value that has been. 

So what can you set up to provide you unexpected inspiration in times of need?

When it is unexpected you gain the most.

(Also if you know someone who may be struggling send them a quick note to say how well they are doing, I’ve had this along the journey from lots of random readers of the blog, they may be perfectly timed for them)

And the magic answer is:

Turning up.

And then….

Blowing everyone away.

Pretend your Schwarzenegger.  Leave everyone in awe.  Believe me they’ll talk.

(Note: I fib there is never a magic answer but this is one)

The term Internet Marketing is dying.  

Not quite but that is where it’s going, Internet Marketing will be the cornerstone of the Marketing mix, in fact it is going to be the defining characteristic of companies built from this point in time.

Don’t believe me? Talk to me in five years, remind me I’m wrong.

We won’t be referring to Internet Marketing it will just be Marketing and of that they internet will be a key component.

That is the argument I want to be hearing.

How is your small team outpeforming the big clunky guys?

ReadWriteWeb queried over twitter what’s next after web 2.0? I responded:

“Startups powered by 1-4 people, ultra small niche to dominate in, started for under $20k” 

This has been requoted a few times as people have discussed the topic over and over again.

Web 2.0 was the term to describe the wave of internet businesses that have grown in the past few years (technical details aside).  Web 3.0 is the new wave.

Extending my initial thoughts Web 3.0 will be where the web connects with the real world and the distinctions between the two become blurred.  Are we really an online company? or offline? It will be hazy, it will be gray.

The power in this new wave will be in the ability of small teams; mainly collections of evangelists, working in unison to solve minute problems, on a global scale.

Growing these companies will not be about getting big, it will be about agility and efficient delivery.

Thus the argument 3 years from now will not be, mine is bigger than yours, it will be mine is smaller than yours!