This past week I was asked to put together a piece for AgencyPost about what changes are coming for brands as Facebook pushes them over to Timeline on March 31st. There’s some big changes afoot that will affect the way that business can reach their fans, how Facebook prioritizes content, the ways that brands can interact with fans and tell their story.
I love getting the opportunity to guest post for other blogs and an article I was asked to contribute was published today on the Agency Post. Lots of businesses don’t know where to begin with social media tools so here is a checklist of low-lift, low-risk activities that can help you get your feet wet.
At the agency we use these techniques as a starting point for certain clients and then as they become more comfortable with the space we can talk about a more overarching strategy.
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about some of the reasons why some of my projects (and maybe yours) don’t come to fruition – why they don’t ship. At that time, I was working on a new project, which has just launched.
Several months ago I began working with Geoff Storm and Garrett Ingraham at the Tramontane Cafe in Utica to start the Utica Firefly – a live storytelling showcase. Our first event was held in May and was a tremendous success. Members of the audience can put their names in a hat and if chosen at random, take the mic and share their story in front of the audience. No winners, no losers, just a night of sharing great stories.
What started as a one-time event has evolved into a project of a much grander scale, and I’m using some of the principals discussed in the earlier post (A Commitment to Ship) to avoid delays, failure and push through a project I can be proud of.
Blueprints
The Utica Firefly (as Geoff and I see it) will be something where we will ship projects regularly for a period of 12 months and evaluate its success at that point. We’ll continue to hold live storytelling showcases throughout the year at the Tram, and this will remain the cornerstone of the project (our next live event is Dec 28th). Additionally we will be creating a series of ‘firefly features’ where we’ll showcase some of the people, places and stories that make upstate New York unique. We’ll take suggestions from the local (and online community) as we seek out stories to develop as features. Everything will be posted online and will be easily sharable.
Infrastructure
In October I developed Uticafirefly.com – which will be the hub for all live and curated content. We felt we needed a centralized location for the curation of stories in addition to uploading our videos through YouTube, Vimeo and via our iTunes podcast. It’s important for this project to be seen as a professional endeavor. Though our first live event was shot on an iPhone, we’ll be producing features and live event recordings with high quality audio and HD video to give our users (and those who share their stories) the best experience possible. We’re taking the time to do it right.
Goals
I’m hoping that throughout this project, the Utica Firefly live events will become increasingly popular and that a community of storytellers and live performers develops in Central New York. I’m hoping to use this project to show off the uniqueness of where we live, the diversity of people here and counteract some of the negative perceptions that have developed over the past several years.
Finally, I really believe the people who are going to succeed in business and marketing over the next 10 years are the ones who can effectively tell a good story, to lead, and actually build out their ideas, prototyping singlehandedly if necessary. This project is a way for me to learn to shoot and edit video, work to build a community online and offline, and share some damn good stories in the process.
I’ll be updating the progress of this project throughout the year on this blog and would love it if you checked out what has shipped so far. Below, please find our first ‘feature’ – and myself and Geoff’s first attempt at filmmaking. “JoeCart” – is a story about John Ossowski, who is trying to foster social connections and combat urban decay – one cup of coffee at a time. Enjoy!
This is true for so many things. Copying and imitating helps you find your own voice, your own look, your own style….
“Copy out things that you really love. Any book. Put the quotation marks around it, put the date that you’re doing the copying out, and then copy it out. You’ll find that you just soak into that prose, and you’ll find that the comma means something, that it’s there for a reason, and that that adjective is there for a reason, because the copying out, the handwriting, the becoming an apprentice—or in a way, a servant—to that passage in the book makes you see things in it that you wouldn’t see if you just moved your eyes over it, or even if you typed it. If your verbal mind isn’t working, then stop trying to make it work by pushing, and instead, open that spiral notebook, find a book that you like, and copy out a couple paragraphs.”
- Nicholson Baker on copying out passages of your favorite books by hand
Thanks to Austin Kleon for sharing this originally
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably noticed the explosion of data in your Facebook timeline and ticker. Especially when it comes to the data presented by third party apps such as Spotify. On the one hand, it’s been a fantastic tool for music discovery and re-discovery (in the last 30 days I’ve been reminded of tons of new tracks from my past I’d forgotten about because friends’ playlists have appeared in my timeline).
But I’ve also noticed something else interesting that’s been happening. Last week I was listening to an album by Steven Kellogg and the Sixers on Spotify. Because I’ve integrated the app with Facebook, the tracks I’m listening to are shared in my timeline. I then noticed a Facebook ad asking me to download their new album. Beyond that, I’ve been seeing ads for the Sixers’ new album follow me across the web as I read the NY Times, TechCrunch and the like.
This kind of cookie-related advertising isn’t that new. Visit any automaker’s site and inevitably you’ll see ads follow you around for that new Prius as you navigate the web. What’s interesting to me is the brave new world of data collection and recommendation engines that follow you round the web while your’e logged into Facebook. I also think some of these super-targeted ads will crossover not just from Facebook usage to the web but also originate from my behavior in using third party apps. This may be city of gold that many developers are looking for who are building apps that integrate seamlessly with Facebook because they may be able to monetize this behavioral data as well as Mr. Zucks. But I wonder if we need some more transparency regarding what types of behavioral data apps like Spotify collect and what they’re using it for. And at what point can you ‘opt out’ for data collection? Should you be able to? After all – the sites and services we’re using provide us with some amazing opportunities to connect and consume media. For Free. So if you don’t know what their ‘product’ is – then you’re the product (thanks to Joe Romanelli for sharing the cartoon).
So I’m curious – do any of you take issue with the sheer amounts of data that is being collected or are you happy that it ends up in serving your more relevant content and ads as the price you pay for free service? Or are you fine with your data being the ‘price of admission’ to use many free services? Does anyone know what the policies of 3rd party Facebook integrated apps are, and how they use your behavioral data? Fire away in the comments.
I’ve seen most of Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynotes over the years either online or even live. He’s an amazing speaker but I think that this keynote he gave at the Inc. 500 really stands out. Great stories and points regarding drawing lines in the sand with the way your business operates, social media, and customer service.
It’s long – almost an hour, but promise it’s worth your time to watch or listen.
I never use to be a list-maker but somewhere along the lines I started keeping track of things I needed to do during a given day. Not because I was forgetting things regularly but when you spend most of your time in front of a screen – one task flows right into another, and it’s so easy to be interrupted, distracted or get lost in what’s next. Novels that are 3/4 read and blog posts that are 1/2 written remind me of my constant attempts to process more information in a given day than is humanly possible.
Going through directories on my laptop, I’ve noticed several folders of half written code and documents with business and project ideas that never have been fully developed. Some projects are precursors to larger projects, or ideas I’ve wanted to try out as online experiments or small businesses. They’ve never shipped. Why is that? Of course we all deal with massive time constraints in our lives but I’d also argue that at least in my case what has prevented me from shipping can be thrown into three major buckets.
Fear – This is a topic that Seth Godin covers in a lot of his books as a chief obstacle to shipping your idea. What will people think? Will my idea work? Will it sell? Is it a good idea? Will it be worth my time? Those emotions are what he calls ‘The Lizard Brain’ taking over. It’s fight or flight at its core. But failure- especially on projects that are digital in nature- seems to be the most sure path to success. Using the skills and data points from failed projects and consistently shipping new code and new ideas has been at the heart of so many digital entrepreneurs.
Failure to Understand Process – Concepting out an idea or a project is the easy part but identifying manageable steps to get there is a step I too often forget. A lot of folks say the hardest part of a project is beginning but I disagree with that. I think the hardest part is coming up with a series of achievable goals that will lead to the big payoff. It’s making a plan ‘b’ for getting through that first bottleneck that is critical to success. Tim Ferris talked a lot about this process in 4 Hour Workweek when he applied it to planning large life goals (‘dreamlining’) and suggested breaking down those large goals into incredibly small pieces that are achievable. Pieces so small that they could be accomplished on a weekly or daily basis.
The Threat of Infinity – Research has shown that to really modify a behavior and make it stick, 30 days seems to be the threshold. Using that same line of thinking, a path to success is to commit to launch date and a dead-pool date. When you’re committed to shipping – it makes shipping that much easier because you’re married to a date. Ever notice how long ‘coming soon’ pages on websites last? Forever. Commit to a ship date and launch with what you have. Add features instead of ‘coming soon’ placeholders by committing to secondary launch dates. But what about the dead-pool? This goes back to fear. What if it doesn’t work out? Set a timeframe for that too. If the project fails by that date – take it off life support instead of letting the project slowly waste away. This in itself can have a massive amount of value if the exit is done correctly. Open your code or idea to remixers or other developers who might want to modify or take the project in a different direction. Encourage input from your users on how to make the next iteration better, or allow community to take ownership. In short, make it easy for others to build upon your work and ship their own ideas.
That being said, I’m hoping to share some project ideas on the blog soon and more importantly, work through these steps to get them shipped. After all, I really think one of the most important questions we should all have an answer to is – “What are you working on?”
So tell me – how do you prioritize to get projects shipped? I could use the advise. And, more importantly – what are you working on? Fire away in the comments.
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about some of the reasons why some of my projects (and maybe yours) don’t come to fruition – 
